Jihad Bissaif (Armed holy war)
In a period when Christian nations, especially Britain, France, and the Czarist Russia, were wrecking Muslim realms every where, Mirza declared armed jihad (holy war) as forbidden by God for all Muslims, and termed the Promised Mahdi and Messiah, to whose advent the Muslims were looking forward and who were to come and fight the forces inimical to Islam, as “the blood-thirsty Mahdi” and “the blood-thirsty Messiah”. Some of Mirza’s writings and pronouncements on this point are reproduced below:
(a) Give up the idea of jihad now, O friends, because war and fighting in the cause of religion have now been forbidden (by Allah). The Promised Messiah, who is the leader of Religion (i.e., Mirza himself) has now arrived, and this has put an end to all religious wars. The Light of God now descends from the heavens, rendering holy war as meaningless. Whoever participates in jihad from now on wards will be an enemy of God and a rejecter of the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H).
(Tabligh-e-Risalat, op. cit. Vol. IX)
(b) Look! I have come to you with the message that from now on all armed jihad has come to an end, and only the jihad to purify your souls remains.
(The British Government and Jihad By Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, published by Zia-ul-Islam Press, Qadian, 22 May 1903)
(c) Ghulam Ahmad (i.e., Mirza himself) enjoins upon this party, which regards him as the Promised Messiah, that it should always desist from such unholy practice. Since God has sent me as the Promised Messiah and invested me with the garb of Jesus Son of Mary, I admonish my people to avoid making mischief.
(d) Jihad is now totally forbidden. It was valid only when the use of the sword has necessarily to be made in the cause of Islam. Now an environment has been created when every one views the shedding of blood for the sake of religion with disdain.
(Tohfa-e-Golraviyah)
(e) From now on, all holy wars on earth have been stopped forever, and have come to an end. According to the Prophet’s hadith which indicates that fighting is in the path of religion would be banned after the re-appearance of Jesus Christ on earth, such fighting has been forbidden from today. Any one who now wields the sword in the cause of religion and kills infidels is guilty of disobedience to God and His Prophet (P.B.U.H)---- Now that I have come as the Promised Messiah, there is to be no armed jihad in future. We have raised aloft the white flag of peace. (Appendix to Khutbah-e-Ilhamiyah-The Inspired Discourse published by Zia-ul-Islam Press, Qadian, 1913)
Mirza thus made a persistent attempt, by either disregarding or distorting the relevant Quranic verses and the Prophet’s ahadith, to strike out of the Islamic shariah a duty that has been enjoined upon the Muslim Ummah as absolutely essential for its continued survival against forces threatening its existence from time to time.
In pursuance of the pronouncements of their “Promised Messiah” reproduced above, the successors of Mirza also adopted the same soft and permissive attitude towards the suppression of evil by force where and when warranted. This attitude, too, was characterized by the same inconsistency and opportunism that had marked the conduct of the “Leader” himself. In 1929, for example, when Ghazi Ilmuddin Shaheed assassinated Rajpal, a bigoted Hindu who had written and published an insulting and abusive treatise concerning the Prophet (P.B.U.H) of Islam, Mirza Bashiruddin Mehmood, Khalifa of Qadian, denounced this action in his speeches and ruled that killing others to avenge disrespect to any prophet was not permissible. Yet only two years later, when one of his disciples, Qazi Muhammad Ali of Nowshehra, was sentenced to death by hanging for killing one Haji Muhammad Hussain for the simple reason that the latter had stood surety for a person who had insulted Mirza Bashiruddin, both Mirza Bashir and the Qadyani Newspaper Al-Fazl praised his action as an evidence of the strength of his iman (faith) and predicted salvation for Qazi Muhammad Ali.
(iv) Miraj (Ascension) of the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H)
In his Izalah-e-Awham, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad expressed the view that the Miraj of the Holy Prophet to heaven had not been “physical”, as borne out by the Quran and the hadith and firmly believed in by the mass of Muslims through out history. Instead, he averred that it had been a kashf (vision) of a very high order. He wrote further that he himself had ample experience of such visions!
(v) Attitude about Allah’s true prophets
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad referred in slighting and disparaging terms to Jesus Christ on many occasions. In his book Dafi-ul-Bala, for example, he wrote”:
“The truthfulness of Jesus Christ was no greater than that of other truthful persons of his time. In fact Yahya (John the Baptist) was superior to him since unlike Jesus, Yahya did not drink wine nor had any immoral woman ever touched him with her hand or hair or “any un-related young woman” served him at any time (as had been with the case with Jesus Christ). That is why the Quran had referred to Yahya as Hasur (chaste) (cf. III, 39) but not so Jesus Christ since incidents like the above did not permit this.
In the Appendix to his Nazul-ul-Massiah (Descent of the Messiah), he wrote:
“----- And the Jews have raised such strong objections concerning Jesus Christ and his prophecies that even we (Muslims) are unable to rebut them. One is thus left with no argument in favour of Christ’s prophethood beyond the fact that the Quran has called him a prophet of Allah. On the other hand, there are a number of grounds to refute his claim to prophethood,------Alas! Three of Christ’s prophecies turned out to be patently false”.
Since the sinlessness of the true prophets of Allah, and the protection vouchsafed by Allah to all their thoughts as well as deeds against error and transgression, precludes any of their predictions to prove wrong, non of the prophecies of Jesus Christ ever turned out to be incorrect. On the other hand, as already demonstrated above most of Mirza’s own predictions met this fate to the embarrassment of his followers.
To pre-empt a possible adverse reaction, amounting even to punitive measures, from the ruling British (Christian) Government of India to his fore-going disrespectful references to their sacred religious personalities and especially to Jesus Christ whom the mass of Christians believe to be the son of god, Mirza was quick to submit an apologia in the form of “A humble petition to the Exalted (British) Government” as follows:
“------- I also confess that when the writings of some Christian priests and missionaries became increasingly harsh and disrespectful about our Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H),-------- I became apprehensive lest these might cause a violent reaction from the highly sensitive Muslim community--- I therefore concluded, in good faith and with clean intensions, that the best strategy to avoid such a backlash and thereby prevent a possible law and order situation, would be to reply somewhat firmly to the Christian missionaries’ writings----”.
(Appendix to Tiryaq-ul-Qulub).
Jihad Bissaif (Armed holy war)
In a period when Christian nations, especially Britain, France, and the Czarist Russia, were wrecking Muslim realms every where, Mirza declared armed jihad (holy war) as forbidden by God for all Muslims, and termed the Promised Mahdi and Messiah, to whose advent the Muslims were looking forward and who were to come and fight the forces inimical to Islam, as “the blood-thirsty Mahdi” and “the blood-thirsty Messiah”. Some of Mirza’s writings and pronouncements on this point are reproduced below:
(a) Give up the idea of jihad now, O friends, because war and fighting in the cause of religion have now been forbidden (by Allah). The Promised Messiah, who is the leader of Religion (i.e., Mirza himself) has now arrived, and this has put an end to all religious wars. The Light of God now descends from the heavens, rendering holy war as meaningless. Whoever participates in jihad from now on wards will be an enemy of God and a rejecter of the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H).
(Tabligh-e-Risalat, op. cit. Vol. IX)
(b) Look! I have come to you with the message that from now on all armed jihad has come to an end, and only the jihad to purify your souls remains.
(The British Government and Jihad By Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, published by Zia-ul-Islam Press, Qadian, 22 May 1903)
(c) Ghulam Ahmad (i.e., Mirza himself) enjoins upon this party, which regards him as the Promised Messiah, that it should always desist from such unholy practice. Since God has sent me as the Promised Messiah and invested me with the garb of Jesus Son of Mary, I admonish my people to avoid making mischief.
(d) Jihad is now totally forbidden. It was valid only when the use of the sword has necessarily to be made in the cause of Islam. Now an environment has been created when every one views the shedding of blood for the sake of religion with disdain.
(Tohfa-e-Golraviyah)
(e) From now on, all holy wars on earth have been stopped forever, and have come to an end. According to the Prophet’s hadith which indicates that fighting is in the path of religion would be banned after the re-appearance of Jesus Christ on earth, such fighting has been forbidden from today. Any one who now wields the sword in the cause of religion and kills infidels is guilty of disobedience to God and His Prophet (P.B.U.H)---- Now that I have come as the Promised Messiah, there is to be no armed jihad in future. We have raised aloft the white flag of peace. (Appendix to Khutbah-e-Ilhamiyah-The Inspired Discourse published by Zia-ul-Islam Press, Qadian, 1913)
Mirza thus made a persistent attempt, by either disregarding or distorting the relevant Quranic verses and the Prophet’s ahadith, to strike out of the Islamic shariah a duty that has been enjoined upon the Muslim Ummah as absolutely essential for its continued survival against forces threatening its existence from time to time.
In pursuance of the pronouncements of their “Promised Messiah” reproduced above, the successors of Mirza also adopted the same soft and permissive attitude towards the suppression of evil by force where and when warranted. This attitude, too, was characterized by the same inconsistency and opportunism that had marked the conduct of the “Leader” himself. In 1929, for example, when Ghazi Ilmuddin Shaheed assassinated Rajpal, a bigoted Hindu who had written and published an insulting and abusive treatise concerning the Prophet (P.B.U.H) of Islam, Mirza Bashiruddin Mehmood, Khalifa of Qadian, denounced this action in his speeches and ruled that killing others to avenge disrespect to any prophet was not permissible. Yet only two years later, when one of his disciples, Qazi Muhammad Ali of Nowshehra, was sentenced to death by hanging for killing one Haji Muhammad Hussain for the simple reason that the latter had stood surety for a person who had insulted Mirza Bashiruddin, both Mirza Bashir and the Qadyani Newspaper Al-Fazl praised his action as an evidence of the strength of his iman (faith) and predicted salvation for Qazi Muhammad Ali.
(iv) Miraj (Ascension) of the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H)
In his Izalah-e-Awham, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad expressed the view that the Miraj of the Holy Prophet to heaven had not been “physical”, as borne out by the Quran and the hadith and firmly believed in by the mass of Muslims through out history. Instead, he averred that it had been a kashf (vision) of a very high order. He wrote further that he himself had ample experience of such visions!
(v) Attitude about Allah’s true prophets
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad referred in slighting and disparaging terms to Jesus Christ on many occasions. In his book Dafi-ul-Bala, for example, he wrote”:
“The truthfulness of Jesus Christ was no greater than that of other truthful persons of his time. In fact Yahya (John the Baptist) was superior to him since unlike Jesus, Yahya did not drink wine nor had any immoral woman ever touched him with her hand or hair or “any un-related young woman” served him at any time (as had been with the case with Jesus Christ). That is why the Quran had referred to Yahya as Hasur (chaste) (cf. III, 39) but not so Jesus Christ since incidents like the above did not permit this.
In the Appendix to his Nazul-ul-Massiah (Descent of the Messiah), he wrote:
“----- And the Jews have raised such strong objections concerning Jesus Christ and his prophecies that even we (Muslims) are unable to rebut them. One is thus left with no argument in favour of Christ’s prophethood beyond the fact that the Quran has called him a prophet of Allah. On the other hand, there are a number of grounds to refute his claim to prophethood,------Alas! Three of Christ’s prophecies turned out to be patently false”.
Since the sinlessness of the true prophets of Allah, and the protection vouchsafed by Allah to all their thoughts as well as deeds against error and transgression, precludes any of their predictions to prove wrong, non of the prophecies of Jesus Christ ever turned out to be incorrect. On the other hand, as already demonstrated above most of Mirza’s own predictions met this fate to the embarrassment of his followers.
To pre-empt a possible adverse reaction, amounting even to punitive measures, from the ruling British (Christian) Government of India to his fore-going disrespectful references to their sacred religious personalities and especially to Jesus Christ whom the mass of Christians believe to be the son of god, Mirza was quick to submit an apologia in the form of “A humble petition to the Exalted (British) Government” as follows:
“------- I also confess that when the writings of some Christian priests and missionaries became increasingly harsh and disrespectful about our Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H),-------- I became apprehensive lest these might cause a violent reaction from the highly sensitive Muslim community--- I therefore concluded, in good faith and with clean intensions, that the best strategy to avoid such a backlash and thereby prevent a possible law and order situation, would be to reply somewhat firmly to the Christian missionaries’ writings----”.
(Appendix to Tiryaq-ul-Qulub).
(vii) Attitude towards descendants of the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H)
In his various writings and posters, etc., Mirza has tried to prove himself to be a descendant of Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H), his successor, and his “spiritual son”. In particular, he has tried to downgrade the importance of blood relationship with the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H). Some examples:
the al (offspring) of Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H) does not denote any worldly relationship, but refers to those who inherit the spiritual legacy of the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H). This is what the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H) meant by the word al whenever he used this word, and not the transitory worldly relationship which ceases to exist after death.-----How is it possible that while Allah indicates the worldly relationship pertain to the present world only and would not remain valid on the Day of Judgment, His Apostle (P.B.U.H) should continue to emphasis a lowly physical relationship, and that too based on the offspring of his daughter (Fatima)-------”
(Tiryaq-ul-Qulub)
However, the foregoing principle laid down by Mirza does not apply to his own offspring. In one of his “inspirations”, for example, he claims that verse 33 of Surah XXXIIII of the Quran, reproduced below, which refers to the purification by Allah of members of the Holy Prophet’s (P.B.U.H) household from uncleanliness and sin, is applicable to his own family members as well. Some examples:
Translation: "Allah wishes to remove uncleanliness far from you, O folk of the (Prophet’s) Household, and cleanse you with a thorough cleansing". (XXXIII, 33)
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