During one of my visits to some north-western African countries I used to hear people saying: Allah has full power & control over His affairs.
In Casablanca and its suburbs, in particular, people frequently say: Allah Ghalib, Allah Ghalib (Allah has full power and control over His affairs).
These words came to my mind as I was thinking about an urgent issue: The Qadiani threat that challenges our Muslim brothers in the Indian subcontinent and elsewhere.
In this article, I would like to highlight that Qadianism (or Ahmadiyyah) has nothing to do with Islam.
Qadianiyyah is a movement that started in 1900 CE as a plot supported and financed by the British colonialists and some other Western foundations in the Indian subcontinent, with the aim of diverting Muslims away from their true Religion and in particular their commitment to Jihad so that they would not oppose colonial rule.
The mouthpiece of this movement is the magazine Majallat Al-adyaan (Magazine of Religions) which was published in English.
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Al-Qadiani (1839 – 1908 CE) was instrumental in the foundation of Qadianism. He was born in the village of Qadian, in the Punjab (India) in 1839 CE. He came from a family that was well known for having betrayed its religion and country, so Ghulam Ahmad grew up loyal and obedient to the colonialists in almost every sense. Thus he was chosen for the role of a so-called prophet, so that the Muslims would gather around him and he would distract them from a rightful struggle against the English colonialists.
The British government did lots of favours for them, so they were loyal to the British. But, Ghulam Ahmad was known among his followers to be unstable, with a lot of health problems and dependence on drugs.
He began his activities as an Islamic Daaiah (preacher or caller to Islam) so that he could gather followers around him then He claimed to be a Mujaddid inspired by Allah. Then he took a further step and claimed to be the Awaited Mahadi and the Promised Messiah. Then he claimed to be a prophet and that his prophethood was higher even than that of Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).
The Qadianis believe that Allah fasts, prays, sleeps, wakes up, writes, makes mistakes and has intercourse, Exalted be Allah far above all that they say.
The Qadianis believe also that god is English because he speaks to him in English.
They believe that prophethood did not end with Muhammad (peace be upon him), but that it is ongoing, and that Allah sends a messenger when there is a need, and that Ghulam Ahmad is the best of all prophets.
They also believe that Jibreel used to come down to Ghulam Ahmad and that he used to bring revelation to him, and that his inspirations are like the Qur’an.
They say that there is no Qur’an other than what the Promised Messiah (Ghulam Ahmad) brought, and no Hadith (saying of Prophet Muhammad) except what is in accordance with his teachings, and no prophet except under the leadership of Ghulam Ahmad. They believe that their book was revealed. Its name is al-Kitab al-Mubeen and it is different from the Holy Qur’an.
They believe that they are followers of a new and independent Shariah, and that the friends of Ghulam Ahmad are like the Sahabas (the companions of Prophet Muhammad).
They believe that Qadian is like Makkah and Madeenah, if not better than them, and that its land is sacred. It is their Qiblah and the place they make Hajj to.
They called for the abolition of Jihad and for blind obediance to the British government because, as they claimed, the British were those in authority as stated in the Qur’an.
In their view every Muslim is a Kafir (disbeliever) unless he becomes a Qadiani, and every one who marries a non-Qadiani is also a Kafir.
Further to all these, they allow the use of alcohol, opium, drugs and intoxicants.
Given all the above and some other add beliefs, it is regretful that the Qadianis claim to be an Islamic sect.
Intellectual and ideological roots:
The westernizing movement of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan paved the way for the emergence of the Qadianiyyah, because it had already spread deviant ideas.
The British made the most of this opportunity so they started the Qadiani movement and chose a man from a family that had a history of being agents to the colonialists.
In 1953CE, there was a popular revolution in Pakistan which demanded the removal of Zafar-Allah Khan from the position of Foreign Minister and that the Qadiani sect should be regarded as a non-Muslim minority. In that uprising around ten thousand Muslims were martyred, and they succeeded in having the Qadiani minister removed from office. Prior to his removal, Zafar Allah Khan gave the Qadianis a large area in the province of the Punjab to be their world headquarters which they named Rabwah.
One of the first scholars who confronted Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and his evil movement was shaykh Abul-Wafa Thana al-Amristari, the leader of Jamaiyyat Ahl al-Hadeeth fi Umoom al-Hind (The All-India Society of Ahl al-Hadeeth). Shaykh Abul-Wafa debated with him and refuted his arguments, revealing his ulterior motives, Kufr and the deviation of his way.
When Ghulam Ahmad did not come to his senses, Shaykh Abul-Wafa challenged him to come together and invoke the curse of Allah, such that the one who was lying would die in the lifetime of the one who was telling the truth. Only a few days passed before Mirza Ghulam Ahmad al-Qadiani died, in 1908CE.
The British put the crown of Khilafah on the head of Noor al-Deen who became the first successor and the disciples of Ghulam Ahmad followed him.
Muhammad Ali and Khojah Kamal al-Deen are the two leaders of the Lahore Qadianis. They are the ones who gave the movement its final shape. Muhammad Ali, a coloniolist spy and the person in charge of the magazine which was the voice of the Qadianiyyah, produced a distorted translation into English of the Holy Qur’an.
This Lahori group of Qadianis are those who think of Ghulam Ahmad as a Mujaddid (renewer or reviver of Islam) only, but both groups are viewed as a single movement because odd ideas that are not seen in the one will surely be obviously found in the other.
Differences between Qadianism and Islam:
According to the tenets of their faith, the Qadianis are required to accept and follow the teachings, works and writings of Mirza Ghulam as “revelations” (wahi). In his books, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad makes the claim that he is in direct communication with God and ordains it upon his followers to believe in Islam according to his revelations.
It is obvious that most of the doctrines instructed by Mirza Ghulam Qadiani contradict verses of the Holy Qur’an – – not to mention hundreds of authentic Hadith and established Islamic doctrines.
It is unfortunate that many of the people who have been tricked into accepting Qadianism are unaware of this aspect of the Qadiani doctrine. Since the rituals of Qadianism resembles that of Islam and much of their ideology is stolen from Islam, many Qadianis are under the impression that they are following an Islamic school of thought. They continue to blindly send their donations to the Qadiani leadership thinking that by this they are supporting Islam, when in reality they are helping the enemies of Islam.
For the most part, the followers of Qadianism neither have a good and sufficient knowledge of Islam nor have access to the complete writings of Mirza Ghulam, which are mostly written in Urdo. Thus, they are not aware of his blasphemous claims.
The following are some of the differences between Islam and Qadianism:
- Qadianism rejects the concept of Absolute Finality of prophethood in Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), as confirmed in the Hloy Qur’an, Hadith, Sunnah of the Holy prophet, Tradition of the companions and the opinion of the entire Ummah for almost 1450 years.
- Qadianism maintains that Mirza Ghulam Qadiani was a prophet.
- Qadianism is based on the belief that M.G. Qadiani was the second advent of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
- Qadianism teaches that Jesus (peace be upon him) was crucified, brought down alive, recovered from his injuries, escaped to Kashmir (India), lived there for 86 more years, died and buried there and that he will not return.
- Qadianis hold two cities in India (Qadian) and in Pakistan (Rabwah) as Holy as Makkah and Madinah. They are supposed to perform Hajj by attending their annual congregation rather than performing Hajj to Makkah.
- Qadianism refers to the companions of Mirza Ghulam as Sahabas and his wives as mothers of the Believers (Ummahatul Muminin).
- Qadianism maintains that M. Ghulam Ahmad was superior to all the prophets of Allah (S.W.T.).
- Qadianism claims Mirza’s mosque at Qadian (India) to be Masjedul Aqsa.
- Qadianis believe in the transmigration of souls and incarnation.
From the above, it is clear that:
Qadianiyyah (or Ahmadiyyah as they call it now) is a misguided group, which is not part of Islam at all. Its beliefs are completely contradictory to Islam, so Muslims should beware of their activities, since the Ulama (Scholars) of Islam have stated that they are Kafirs.
As early as January 1953 a meeting was held in Karachi (Pakistan) to discuss the Qadiani issue that challenged the Ummah. The meeting was attended by 33 leaders of Islamic organizations and parties as well as the most reputable religious personalities in Pakistan. The meeting forwarded a plea to the government to treat Qadianis as a non- Muslim minority that has its rights, that a number of seats in the parliament are to be allotted to them in proportion to their number so that they should not form a threat to the Muslims in their country which is established after a long bloody struggle.
In Rabee al-Awal 1394 AH (April 1974), a major conference was held by the Muslim World league in Makkah, which was attended by representatives of Muslim organizations from around the world. This conference announced that this sect is Kafir (unbeliever) and is beyond the pale of Islam, urged the Muslims to resist its dangers and not to cooperate with the Qadianis or bury their dead in Muslim graveyards.
The Majlis al-ummah of Pakistan (the central parliament) debated with the Qadiani leader Mirza Naasir Ahmad, and he was refuted by Shaykh Mufti Mahmood (may Allah have mercy on him). The debate went on for nearly thirty hours but Naasir Ahmad was unable to give answers and the Kufr of this group was exposed, so the Majlis issued a statement that the Qadianis should be regarded as a non-Muslim minority.
Among those who ruled that Qadianis are non-Muslims and that their false faith is nothing but a plot against Islam was the reputable poet Sir Muhammad Iqbal. When asked by Jawaharlal Nehru, the former Governeor (Pandit) of India, why do you separate this sect from Islam? Dr. Muhammad Iqbal answered him:
We do so because they are not Muslims. It is equally obvious that the Qadianis, too, feel nervous by the political awakening of the Indian Muslims, because they feel that the rise in political prestige of the Indian Muslims is sure to defeat their designs to carve out from the Ummat of the Arabian Prophet a new Ummat of the Indian Prophet. I have no doubt in my mind that the Ahmadis are traitors both to Islam and to India.
Sir M. Iqbal added that,
“the concept of Finality in Islam simply means that there should be no spiritual surrender to any human being after Muhammad. Since the Qadian believe the founder of the Ahmadiyyah movement to be the bearer of Divine revelation, they declare that the entire world of Islam is infidel (Kafir).”
The following statement was issued and published by the Islamic Fiqh Council (Majma al-Fiqh al-Islami):
After discussing the question put to the Islamic Fiqh Council in Cape Town, South Afica, concerning the ruling on the Qadianis and their off-shoot which is known as Lahoriyyah, and whether a non-Muslim is qualified to examine an issue of this nature:
In the light of research and documents presented to the members of the Council concerning Mirza Ghulam Ahmad al-Qadiani, who emerged in India in the last century and to whom is attributed the Qadiani and Lahori movements, and after pondering the information presented on these two groups, and after confirming that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claimed to be a prophet who received revelation, a claim which is documented in his own writings and speeches, some of which he claimed to have received as revelation, a claim which he propagated all his life and asked people to believe in, just as it is also well known that he denied many other things which are proven to be essential elements of the religion of Islam;
In the light of the above, the council issued the following statement:
Firstly: the claims of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to be a prophet or a messenger and to receive revelation are clearly a rejection of proven and essential elements of Islam, which unequivocally states that prophethood ended with Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and that no revelation will come to anyone after him.
This claim made by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad makes him and anyone who agrees with him an apostate who is beyond the pale of Islam. As for the Lahoriyyah, they are like the Qadianiyyah: the same ruling of apostasy applies to them despite the fact that they described Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as a shadow and manifestation of our Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Secondly: it is not appropriate for a non-Muslim court or judge to give a ruling on who is a Muslim and who is an apostate especially when this goes against the consensus of the scholars and organizations of the Muslim Ummah. Rulings of this nature are not acceptable unless they are issued by a Muslim scholar who knows all the requirements for being considered a Muslim, who knows when a person may be deemed to have overstepped the mark and become an apostate, who understands the realities of Islam and Kufr, and who has comprehensive knowledge of what is stated in the Qur’an Sunnah and scholarly consensus. The ruling of a court of that nature is invalid.
And Allah knows best.
In the statement of Sheikh Muhammad Anwar Shah Kashmiri regarding the Qadiani cult we read:
Ahmad Qadiyani was born a Tatar, a member of the Mongole race. He was a Zindiq in the Ismaili sect who read many books. He was an implacable enemy of Ahl as-Sunnat. The British had been seeking the pincers who could carry out the plans they had prepared to demolish Islam from within. They selected him and bought him out with plenty of money. First he was made to appear as a Bahai. Mirza declared first that he was a mujaddid; then, he professed to be the promised Mahdi; then he announced that he was Isa the Messiah, whose descend from the heaven was prophesied; finally, he proclaimed that he was a full prophet with a new religion. He claims that he has thousands of miracles and that his miracles were more numerous and more significant than the miracles of all other prophets!
This Zindiq stated on page 148 of his book Haqiqa – tul – wahy,
“In this Ummat, Allah has created a Messiah superior to Isa. If Isa (Jesus) were alive now, he could not do as I do. The miracles I have been performing would not be seen on him”.
On page 107 of the same book, he claimed that the prophet mentioned in the Ayat, “As I sent a Messenger to Pharaoh, so I send you a Messenger,” was intended for he himself. He wrote on page 68, “Allah sent me as a prophet. He said: “You are the promised Messiah. He gave me three hundred thousand miracles.”
In his address to his students in the Mosque of Dyobund Allama Kashmiri said that:
“According to my thoraough study of Islam, in the last fourteen hundred years, there has not been a Fetna as serious as that spread by the Qadianis. Uninformed Muslims are threatened by this dangerous and misleading Fetna.. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) will be very pleased with the person who devotes himself for the purpose of exposing and removing this fetna (which is directed toward his prophethood) and will be more satisfied with this effort than with any other.”
In his work entitled “al-Qadiyani wa al-Qadiyaniyet” the Allamat Sayyid Abul Hasan Ali Nadvi made it more clear by saying:
“Among the different anti-Islam movements which have arisen in our history, Qadiyanism stands unique. For, if other movements had been directed against Islam as a whole, Qadiyanism is a conspiracy which is specifically directed against the prophethood of prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and challenges the Finality of Islam and the unity of Muslims. By repudiating the Finality of prophethood, Qadiyanism obliterated the very borderlines which distinguished this Ummah from all others.”
((art.IV – chapter 11, page 110))
Moreover, it is also to be noted that Mirza raised the standard of his prophethood and declared all those who did not accept his claim as Kafirs in a Muslim world which was already torn by dissension. By so doing, however, the Mirza raised an iorn wall between himself and the Muslims. On the one side of this wall there are a few thousand followers of the Mirza, and on the other side is the rest of the Muslim world which stretches from Morocco to China and has great personalities, virtuous movements of reform, and valuable institutions. They stand isolated from and opposed to the whole of this world. Thus, he unnecessarily added to the difficulties of Muslims, further aggravated their disunity and added a new complication to the problems facing them.
Sheikh Al-Nadvi concluded that: the Mirza has made no worthwhile contribution to the intellectual and religious heritage of Muslims which would call for his recognition and because of which he might deserve the gratitude of the present Muslim generation. Nor did he initiate a broad-based movement for the revival of Islam which could profit the Muslims as a whole, nor help Muslims to solve any of the major problems facing them, nor did his movement contain any message for the contemporary civilization which is in the grips of major crisis and is interlocked in a life and death struggle. Nor can he even be credited with any significant achievement vis-à-vis the expansion of Islam either in India or in Europe. His message remained addressed to the Muslims and of necessity could only lead to mental confusion and unnecessary religious squabbles within the readily torn Muslim community.
Among those venerable scholars who refuted Mirza Ghulam was Maulana Syed Abul A’la Maududi. In his third statement before the Court of Enquiry, Pakistan, regarding the Qadiyani sect, he made it clear that Qadiyanis are to be treated as a non-Muslim minority. Other prominent Muslim scholars who refuted Qadiyanism and declared the followers of Mirza Ghulam to be out of the fold of Islam include Sheikh Muhammad al-Khidr Hussain, the former Sheikh & Grand Mufti of al-Azhar (Egypt), al-Hafiz B.A. Masri (retired Immam of the Shah Jehan Mosque, Woking, England), and many other Ulamma in Egypt, Syria, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and elsewhere.
Though Muslim scholars were apprehensive of his calamity from its very beginning, I was priviledged to be in direct contact with the efforts exerted by Maulana Sheikh Manzoor Ahmed Chinioti, the present leader of the Islamic International Khatm-i-Nubuwwat Movement in Pakistan.
Al-Sheikh Hasanin Muhammad Makhloof, Ex-Grand Mufti of Egypt and Kubbar-al-Ulama Al-Azhar and member of the Muslim World Congress, Makkah-al-Mukarrama, commented on Maulana Chinoti’s booklet on Qadianism as follows:
“I have studied this booklet thoroughly. That faith of Mirza of Qadian and that of his followers has been clearly explained in it. But, elucidating their self-styled faith, full justice has been done to the subject. Maximum publicity should be given to this booklet so that it may serve as a searchlight for truth and clear the doubts in the mind of the readers created by the false propaganda of the Qadianis”.
Maulana Manzoor A. Chinioti fought and is still fighting very vividently with tongue and pen to expose that Qadianism is a false religion and that Mirza Ghulam and his followers are Kafirs (unbelievers) and renegades from Islam.
The government of Pakistan issued an ordinance on April 26, 1984 which was published in the Gazette of Pakistan. According to this ordinance, all followers of Mirza Ghulam (Qadianis and Lahoris) were declared to be non-Muslims and were prevented from using Islamic terms and symbols to try to misguide Muslims.
Both Qadianis and Lahoris contested this ordinance in the Federal Shariah Court and claimed it to be against Shariah and their civil rights.
In July 15, 1984 the Federal Shariah Court considered the argument presented by the advocates of Qadiani (Mr. Mujib-ur-Rahman) and Lahori ((Captain Abdul Wajid)) groups and the defense offered by the Government (Sheikh Ghiass Muhammad and Dr. Syed Riaz-ul-Hasan Gillani).
After consulting numerous experts on constitution and many learned Muslim scholars belonging to every school of thought, the court rejected the challenge of Mirzais (Qadianis and Lahoris) and upheld the Ordinance issued by the Governement of Pakistan.
In his statement regarding the Qadiani cult, Al-Hafiz Masri highlights the fact that :
“We are used to such attacks from without and know how to deal with them. The real problem arises, however, when someone from within start playing the traitor, as the Qadianis are doing. You can fond off a danger which you can see, but you more liable to be taken unawares and be bitten by a snake in the grass; and this is what happened to some of our Muslims.”
Al-Hafiz Masri was born in Qadian (India) in 1914 and spent his childhood among Qadianis. When Mirza Ghulam started his movement, Muslims in India were passing through a very difficutt period. Christian missionaries had started a vigorous campaign of conversion among the Muslims. Even the Hindus had started a similar campaign of conversion under a movement called ‘Shudhi’. On top of all these onslaughts, the British Government was still following its policy of rendering the Muslims weak. It was in such a frustrating climate, that Mirza Ghulam emerged. In his early writings, there was no passing word or allusion that he was a prophet and a promised Messiah.
Hafiz al-Masri reported further that,
“I know from personal observations that many of those who joined the movement at the outset, where honest and sincere Muslims, who had taken for granted that this was the genuine reform movement within Islam. However, with the progress of time and popularity, grandiose claims started being put into circulation one after the other, so gradually and so covertly that, today, the third and fourth generations of Qadianis have no inkling of how they have been bamboozled. They have no idea that the same Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, whom their grandparents had mistakenly accepted as a servant of Prophet Ahmad, has become ‘prophet’ Ahmad in his own right.
The present generation of Qadianis have been brainwashed so occutly into believing that belief in ‘prophethood of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’ is a prerequisite of belief in Islam. This belief is so essential for them, that all non-Qadiani Muslims are Kafirs. So much so that it is sacrilegious for them to say their prayers behind a Muslim, to perform funeral services on a deceased Muslim, to inter-marry with Muslims, and so on.
Dr. Ismail A. Balogun was a former high level Ahmadi. He recounts his upbringing and his blind faith in Qadianism as follows:
“In my childhood, I was brought up to revere the Indo-Pakistani Ahmadiyyah missionaries who guided and controlled our religious activities. When the mission came to our elders and, through the elders to us, we believed all that they told us in toto because of the implicit confidence we had in them. Their preaching appeared plausible to us and we accepted their arguments in good faith. They made references to Islamic books in order to substantiate their claims and we accepted the references without cross-checking them because of our confidence in them. The missionaries claimed to present “The true Islam” to us in the name of Ahmadiyyah.”
Over a quarter of century ago, Dr. Balogun had accurately identified the strategy employed by high level Ahmadi missionaries to misguide the uninformed. Not only the missionaries do not publicize a complete picture of their doctrine and history, but also they distort the teachings of Islam and attempt to exaseperate and capitalize upon sectarian division among few ignorant Muslims. Dr. Balogun testified :
“Even though Ahmadiyyah has been in this country for close to sixty years, I make the bold to say that, up till now, the vast majority of the adherents of the organization, within both Movement and the Mission, are still in the dark about the details of its teachings, as well as its purpose. For example, it was only very recently, when stiff opposition to Ahmadiyyah started to rear its head in this country, that certain high-ranking Ahmadis knew for the first time that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claimed to be a prophet.”
(Sunday Times, Nigeria, Jan. 20, 1974; p.3)
Dr. Balogun records that, when in 1974, the Pakistani Government and the Muslim World League both declared the Ahmadiyyah to be a non-Muslim group, he set out in earnest to defend the movement he was born into and prove its truthfulness. However, his scholarly and thorough research into the teachings of Ahmadi leadership untangled a disturbing web of deceit and left him with no alternative but to denounce the Mission. Balogun, even though a high level Ahmadi and a Professor of Islamic Studies, had himself been kept in the dark for over forty years.
He published a statement under the title :
Why did I renounce Ahmadiyyah?
In that statement Dr. Balogun documented his withdrawal from the movement as follows:
“I must say, before God and man, that the more I scrutinized the claims and purported references for them, the more I discovered that the Ahmadiyyah Mission is deceiving the world and playing on the ignorance of their followers.”
In a series of articles published in Nigeria during 1974, Dr. Ismail Balogun refuted the tenets of Ahmadiyyah and publicly denounced the movement he had been born and raised in. A Brofessor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the university of Ibadan (Nigeria), Dr. Balogun had raised through the ranks to become a top spokesman and ambassador for the movement. Throughout the years, his well articulate and emotional speeches had motivated many young Ahmadis. Similarly, his public departure and the commotion and debates that pursued caused many educated individuals to realize the truth and abandon Ahmadiyyah.
Most of the Qadianis nowadays live in India and Pakistan, with a few in Israel and the Arab world. They are trying, with the help of the colonialists, to obtain sensitive positions in all the places where they live. They are very active in Africa and in some Western countries. In Africa they have more than 5,000 teachers and preachers working full-time to call people to Qadianiyyah. Their wide-spread activity proves that they have the support of the coloialists. In calling people to their beliefs, they use all kinds of methods, especially educational means. In Britain they have a satellite TV channel which they call Islamic TV.
Obviously, a movement whose very leaders and founders have used such deceptive approach to misguide the naïve and the uninformed, for a hundred years, can not be taken seriously nor viewed as a divine organization.
I do hope that individuals who have mistakenly followed Ahmadiyyah will reconsider their standing in the light of all the evidence uncovered by Dr. Balogun and other scholars. Should those, who have been touched by the miracles of the Holy Qur’an and the teachings of the Last Prophet Muhammad (peace by upon him), exhibit loyalty and obedience to Allah (SWT) and His Last Prophet, or to individuals whose deception and falsehood has been continually exposed?
Allah (SWT) says in the Holy Qur’an:
“Those who reject Allah, hinder (men) from the path of Allah, and resist the Messenger, after guidance has been clearly shown to them, will not injure Allah in the least, but He will make their deeds of no effect.”
( the Holy Qur’an 47:32 )
and:
“Allah accept the repentance of those who do evil in ignorance and repent soon afterwards; to them will Allah turn in mercy: For Allah is full of knowledge and wisdom.”
( An-Nisa 4:17 )