Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Eclipses in Ramadan: A Great Sign


‘When eyes are dazzled;

And the moon eclipsed;

when the sun and the moon

are brought together’.


       - The Holy Qur'an, 75: 8-10 


One of the greatest signs in favour of the claims of Hazrat Munir Ahmad Azim (aba) of Mauritius as the Divinely-raised Reformer (Muhyi-ud-Din/Mujaddid) of this age is the total eclipse of the Sun and the Moon in the same Holy Month of Ramadan 1424, in November 2003.



According to the available scientific information on both total and partial eclipses over the millennium, the total eclipses of November 2003 are such a rare heavenly sign.  In the last 1400 years of the Islamic history, the total eclipses of the Sun and the Moon in the same Ramadan has occurred only very few occasions that they can be counted on our human fingers. In November 2003 when the total eclipses took place, it was occurring only the seventh time in 1400 years of Islamic history! And the next occasion is so distant that no one alive on the face of earth today will be around to witness the same astronomical phenomenon, when it occurs again in the second half of the next century!



On the other hand, partial eclipses of the Moon and the Sun can occur together in the same Holy Month at an interval of every 22 or 23 yearsa fact confirmed by the great Ahmadi astronomer Dr. Saleh Muhammad Allahdin Sahib as well.  Leaving the whole millennium of Islam, in the 19th century itself, the partial eclipses of the Sun and the Moon have occurred together in the same Ramadan 9 times. It was one of such occurrences in 1894 that formed the backdrop of the claim of the Promised Massih Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (as) of Qadian. The ‘rarity’ in that case was that there was a Divine claimant at that point of time and that such a heavenly phenomenon was visible from Qadian after many centuries. Regarding the significance of the Heavenly Signs in support of the claims of a Divine Reformer, the Promised Massih (as) was very clear about the scope and limits of the Prophecy of double eclipses in the same Ramadan and he states:



We are not concerned with how often solar and lunar eclipses have occurred in the month of Ramazan from the beginning of the world till today. Our aim is only to mention that from the time man has appeared in this world, solar and lunar eclipses have occurred as Signs only in my age for me. Prior to me, no one had this circumstances that on one hand he claimed to be Mahdi Maoud (The Promised Reformer) and on the other, in the month of Ramazan, on the appointed dates, lunar and solar eclipses occurred and he declared the eclipses as signs in his favour.


Monday, April 21, 2014

State of the World and the Celestial Signs

A Divine Mission in an age of raw passions

By the grace of Allah, throughout the years in which God dipped me in the fountain of His Divine Manifestation, He has taught me lots of things of which I never knew before. He taught me the languages of the birds and also of His beautiful creations of earth. All through the years, through His eyes, I have felt cherished in a special cocoon: Divine Love. He made me into an Adam (as) to reach out to people and make them understand the philosophy of life and living for a special purpose: the worship of one God.

Among the things He showed me is the need for peace, not only at our inner level, but also at world level. Through the inspirations He vouchsafed me, He taught me that the real cause of human strife and wars is due to selfishness, on one hand and the sacrilege of God’s remembrance and association to God in His Pure and Only Divinity, on the other. When people let go of the thread of unity, of sincerity and spirituality and preferred to indulge in self-interest, and when he forgot to act according to the divine laws, and forget to respect the rights of others, in the same go, he showed to himself the way down to hell; a hell of his very own creation.

Gone are the harmony and concord he should have gotten had he held fast to the commandments of God and act decently in the best interest of one and all. The respect he should have had for his neighbours, friends, surroundings, and his very own family, had he acted upon this respect and defended the spiritual values bestowed to him since the creation of the heavens and earth, he should have been successful in opening the secret door leading him to God.

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Ilham: “Diamond will cut diamond”

Future: Riches and people

In his testamentary will, known among the Ahmadis simply as the Al Wassiyat, the Promised Massih (as) indicated in profoundly subtle language, the future trajectories, his Jamaat, and especially the administrative mandarins within it, shall pass through in the ebb and flow of time when he wrote about the larger challenge awaiting it in the time of riches:  

Where will the money come from? And how will such a community be born- a community of people willing to perform heroic feats for their faith? These are not the questions that worry me. I am more concerned that people coming after me may stumble when entrusted with such large amounts of wealth and that they may take to the love of this world”.  
     
  -Hadhrat Ahmad (as) [ Al Wassiyat,  p.28, Qadian: Nazarat Nashro Ishaat, (2003) ]

The Conditional Continuity

In 1939, the establishment of the Jamaat e-Ahmadiyya completed its 50th anniversary, since the first Bai’at was initiated by the Promised Massih (as) in March 1889. Speaking at the Annual Jalsa at Qadian that year, Hadhrat Khalifa Sani (ra) famously observed:

“…O Community of believers, and O workers of righteousness, I say to you that Khilafat is a great bounty of God Almighty. Value it as such. So long as the majority of you continue established in faith and righteous conduct, God will continue to bestow this bounty upon you. But should a majority of you be deprived of faith and righteous conduct, then, it will be for the Divine will to determine whether to continue this bounty or to withdraw it. Thus, there is no question of the Khalifa going wrong. You will be deprived of the Khilafat when you yourselves become corrupt.”

[1939 Dec 28-29-Proceedings of the Annual Conference at Qadian, quoted in Fazl-e Umar”: The Life of Hadhrat Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad Khalifatul Masih II , p. 234, by Mujeebur Rahman, London: Majlis Khuddamul Ahmadiyya, UK (2012).

The ‘Deconstruction’ of Khilafat-e-Ahmadiyya

The noted French philosopher Professor Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) famously argued that every philosophical, religious and social institution, no matter how framed and secure it seems, is never fully complete and self-sufficient by itself. Instead the system depends on non-systematisable elements that produce and sustain the system's very possibility. If we are to understand the true nature of power and authority being exercised by the institutional elites through privileged interpreations, the demystification and deconstruction of the ideas, values and meanings that are embedded in the system is inevitable and unavoidable.     

In the Islamic religious order, the idea of Divine revelations and the possibility of Divine Reformers appearing in every century is central to any discussion on the continuing vitality of Islam as an ethical way of living and being for individual believers. Against this backdrop, the description of the Khilafat-e-Ahmadiyya as a complete way of institutional life for all times to come hangs on a precarious hope. The idea that the man-elected Khalifa will remain immune from injustice and that the Ahmadis may not stumble in course of time and that they will protect themselves against the onslaught of moral corruption had been belied by the experience of history and the incidents of our own times.