Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Experiences of Divine Revelation: Then & Now

And it is not for a man that Allah should speak to him except
by revelation or from behind a veil or by sending a Messenger
to reveal by His command what He pleases. Surely, He is High, Wise.”
                                                                             -  [Holy Qur’an, 42:52]

Allah the Almighty raises His Elects in every era. The sublime purpose is to guide and lead the people in the Straight Path of Divine Favour.  To teach them wisdom and judgement, Allah (swt), thus, reveals His Messages to His chosen servants and the miraculous power of the Lord Almighty is experienced by the people in countless ways.  The great blessing of Divine revelations and guidance with which the Messengers are invariably blessed with, point to their Divine nearness, help and succour. The shadow of Divine Mercy and Grace protects the Messengers from harm in the complex contingencies of their everyday lives. Truth seekers know that the Promised Massih Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (as) of Qadian had left a graphic portrait of aspects of Divine revelations as he experienced it. Indeed it would be spiritually uplifting and intellectually enlightening for common folks like us to look for similarities in the experiences of Divine revelation by claimants to this august office. Today, we have thus an extraordinary opportunity: to see and bear witness to the magnificent, living reality of Divine revelations! For, we are living in the times of a Messenger of Allah in the person of Hadhrat Munir Ahmad Azim Sahib (atba) of Mauritius who is a recipient of this uncommon and precious privilege of Divine Mercy. Alhamdulillah Rabbul Aalameen

It is astonishing to note that there are remarkable similarities between the Promised Massih Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (as) of Qadian and his spiritual progeny, the Khalifatullah Hadhrat Munir Ahmad Azim Sahib (atba) of Mauritius, although their times are separated by a century or so. In this article, we discuss one such similarity.

Mukarram Zafrullah Domun Sahib, who at one point of time in his life led the Jamaat-e- Ahmadiyya Mauritius as its National Amir for almost a decade, had written a personal, comprehensive and scholarly testimonial to the truthfulness and veracity of Hadhrat Munir Ahmad Azim Sahib (atba) and his claims. This document is an authentic, living testimonial/record of an intimate witness to the phenomena of Divine revelations descending upon a man who claims for over a decade now on the basis of the Divine Mandate that he is indeed the Imam of the Age. This testimonial touches upon, and captures the essence of, the experience of Divine revelations descending upon Hadhrat Khalifatullah Sahib (atba) in the early days of the Divine Manifestation. We reproduce below extracts from this document and also, place before you, similar extracts from the writings of the Promised Massih (as) pertaining to the experience of Divine revelations. It is, of course, for the discerning readers to read and reflect upon and derive appropriate conclusions from here. 

Zafrullah Domun Sahib records in his official DeclarationDuring the course of those conversations I understood that he was receiving several revelations and that through the dreams, visions and revelations we were being told about matters of which we knew not. Our attention was being drawn to several verses of the Holy Quran, to known and unknown ahadiths , to several prayers of the Holy Prophet Muhammad  (s.a.w), to prayers, the source of which we were unaware of, and also to extracts from the Promised Messiah's books or from his malfoozaaat. At the same time we received long texts on particular topics pertinent to spiritual understanding and elevation: what is Islam, what is the meaning of God being close to man, zikr , tawhid , the condition of humanity, international current affairs, religious reform, the necessity of revelation, and many others. I have to confess here that later on we became aware that many of the texts received already existed in one form or other in some books or articles but we were not aware of them when they were being received. As far as we are concerned many of these materials were new to us and they were spiritual delights.
These revelations were sometimes received in English or in French or in Urdu or even in Arabic or Persian or sometimes even in our local dialect Créole but most of them were in French or English. Whatever was received in Urdu or Arabic or Persian was followed by a translation so that we might understand the message….” 
Now, it would be interesting to observe the experience of the Promised Massih Hadhrat Ahmad (as) on the matter of Divine revelations descending upon him: 


“During the process of writing Arabic, hundreds of complete sentences descend upon my heart, either in the form of verbal revelation or in the form of a writing on a paper which is shown to me by an angel. Some of these sentences are verses of the Holy Qur’an, or similar to them with minor modification. Sometimes I only find out later that a certain Arabic sentence that had been revealed to me by God was in fact present in a certain book. God, being the Lord of everything, has the authority to reveal to my heart a fine sentence from some book, or an exquisite verse from some book of poetry. So much for Arabic, but even more surprising is the fact that I receive revelations in languages like English, Sanskrit or Hebrew, with which I have no familiarity whatsoever. Some specimens of these were included in Baraheen-e- Ahmadiyya. God, in Whose hand is my life, is my witness that this is how He has been dealing with me. This is one of the signs pertaining to matters of the unseen that continue to be revealed to me in various forms. My God cares not if any phrase that is revealed to me happens to figure in some Arabic, Sanskrit or English book, because for me it is a matter of the unseen…”  -[ Nuzul-ul Masih, Ruhani Khasa’in, vol. 18, pp. 434-436; Essence of Islam, vol. V, p.157]

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Prophecy on Disasters in Mauritius


ISLAM theorises that the clear knowledge of the unseen is only given to His chosen Messengers. The Holy Qur’an confirms: “He is the Knower of the unseen, and He does not grant anyone ascendency over His domain of the unseen, Except him whom He chooses as His Messenger. And in front of him and at the back of him march angels as sentinels.”  [Surah Al-Jinn, 72: 27-28]. Thus, Allah the Almighty raises His Chosen Messenger in every era to warn the people about their excesses, shake their conscience about their irresponsible behaviours and greed and to take precaution against terrible events waiting to unfold as a consequence of what their hands have earned. The Holy Qur’an testifies: “We never punish until We have sent a Messenger” [Surah Bani Isra’il, 17:16].

When the All Powerful, Almighty, Allah raises His Divine Messenger, heaven and the earth will bear witness to the truth of the Messenger. His veracity and truthfulness will be established through powerful signs. Consequentially, heavenly signs may appear, illuminating the whole sky in a flash, or the earth may tremble so powerfully as to turn everything over it upside down! In this age of climate change, people have neglected the ecological insights of the Holy Qur’an. The theology of ecology that Islam teaches has been completely ignored by the ‘Muslims’ themselves. The abuse and mistreatment of the environment is beginning to catch up with us, everywhere in the world. The effects of human greed, environmental degradation and irresponsible exploitation of natural resources overwhelm communities with death and devastation on a colossal scale.

On 30 December 2012, the Khalifatullah Hazrat Munir Ahmad Azim Sahib made some predictions for the year 2013 during the reading of the second part of his Appraisal of Events 2012. It is to be recorded that the following has been fulfilled:

Monday, April 1, 2013

The Prophecy on ‘Qamaran Munira'

Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (as), the Promised Massih and Mahdi of Islam was vouchsafed many glad tidings and Divine Prophecies regarding the brilliant and successful future of his physical and spiritual progeny. The spiritual progeny of the Promised Massih (as), who shall speak with the Holy Spirit, will spread the message of Islam to the ends of the earth and the victory of the Divine Path over all other material ideologies will take shape under their hands. Among the Ahmadi Muslims, there is no doubt or difference on this basic postulate, though the believers differ among themselves on the interpretation and application of this general principle. Among the prophecies vouchsafed to the Promised Massih Hadhrat Ahmad (as) in this regard include the following:  

“He gave me the glad tidings: you shall have a son,
Who shall one day become My darling.
I shall dispel all darkness through this Moon,
And demonstrate the transformation of a world;
It’s not just a glad tiding, but it is the very sustenance of my soul,
Holy is He who disgraced the enemies!”                                             
                                   - [ DURR-E-THAMIN, p. 50; Essence of Islam, Vol. V, p.51 ]

“THE MOON OF PROPHETS SHALL COME, and your task shall be accomplished. A son will be born to you and Divine grace shall be brought closer to you. In other words, he will be the source of Divine Grace…” -[TIRYAQ-UL-QULUB, Ruhani Khaza’in, vol.15, p.220; Essence of Islam, Vol. V, p.51]

Sunday, March 31, 2013

The Festival of Easter : Religion, Myth and History


Across the world, the Christian communities today are celebrating the Festival of Easter. The religious practice of Easter seeks to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ (as). The rituals and traditions that make up this festival have interesting origins in the ancient world. In other words, the lineage of the present festival and associated rituals can be traced back to the pagan worship norms of ancient communities. As it happened, the pagan practices were adapted and modified and transformed to a ‘Christian’ milieu. It is apparent that to accommodate the deviations from the original message of Jesus (as), much theological engineering was done to reshape and reconstruct the belief systems within Christianity as well.  In his Friday Sermon of 29 March 2013, the Khalifatullah Hadhrat Munir Ahmad Azim Sahib (atba) of Mauritius throws searching light on the pagan origins of these Christian religious practices by drawing upon the studies and writings of Christian scholars.  

Read the Extracts from the Friday Sermon:

Easter is a day that is honoured by nearly all of contemporary Christianity and is used to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ (Hazrat Isa (as)). Christian believes that Jesus (as) rose again from the dead three days and three nights after he was crucified. The holiday often involves a church service at sunrise, a feast which includes an “Easter Ham”, decorated eggs and stories about rabbits. Free thinking Christian scholars in bewilderment have often questioned all these incongruous activities. Why rabbits? Why not a puppy or any other animals? Rabbits do not lay eggs, why not orange or onions etc., because they also roll. Why are these traditions so ingrained in Easter Sunday? And what do they have to do with the resurrection of Jesus?