Ahmadiyya Movement

4. Movements within other communities (History, Teachings, Activities and Impact)

a) Islam

II. Ahmadiyya Movement

Ahmadiyya is an Islamic religious movement founded in Punjab, British India, near the end of the 19th century. The founder of Ahmadiyya movement was Mirza Ghulam Ahmed. This movement was a reaction against the controversy the Chrsitian missionaries had against the Muslim Maulvis in the 18^th century, which exposed the weaknesses of Islam. This movement was also a reaction against the bold policies of the Aligarh reformers.

1. The founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmed: Mirza Ghulam Ahmed was born in 1839 at Qadian in Punjab. Around 1880, he was convinced that God had called him for a special mission. In 1889, he announced that he was receiving divine revelations and that he had authority to initiate disciples. So Mirza began teaching new doctrines. He professed to be the Imam Mahdi (Guided Leader) as well as the promised Messiah. He claimed to be the world teacher for the future whom Zoroastrians, Hindus and Buddhists were awaiting. He said he is the Mujaddid (revivalist) sent by God to renew the faith of Islam during his time.

2. His teachings: Since Mirza claimed to be the messiah, he did not want people to believe in the second coming of Christ, so he denied the death of Christ on the cross. He said that Christ had only swooned on the cross and that later he revived and went on a mission to Kashmir, where he died and was buried. He discovered a tomb in Srinagar which he claimed was the tomb of Christ.  By inventing this story, he removed the claim of Jesus Christ to be the messiah. He further professed that in him Mohammed the prophet had made a “second advent”. He said he is “an image of the holy prophet.”

            Mirza claimed that he was Krishna for the Hindus and Messiah for the Christians and Muslims. He held that spiritually Krishna and the Messiah are the same person. He believed that the door of inspiration is still open and that God is having communion with his good servants. He considered himself superior to Jesus. On the one hand, Mirza rebuked the Mullas for keeping the Muslims in superstitions while on the other, he could not tolerate the Muslim rationalists like Syed Amir Ali and S. Khutda Bakhsh. He charged them with weakening the authority of the Quran since they had agreed that Quran had pre-Islamic sources.

            Mirza supported the conservatives with regard to social reforms. He did not want the abolition of purdah. He defended polygamy and divorce. Nevertheless, the conservatives called him a heretic, blasphemer, enemy of faith and an impostor. He was excommunicated and his followers were not allowed the use of ordinary mosques.

            Mirza died in 1908 and was succeeded by Hakim Nur-ud-din as Khalifa but he died in 1914 and after his death, the son of Mirza, Mirza Bashiruddin was elected to the office of Khalifa. But when Mirza Bashiruddin insisted that his father be considered as a prophet (Nabi), a schism broke out. The educated men protested as they considered Mirza Ghulam Ahmed only as a Mujaddid (revivalist). They broke away and formed another party with its head quarters at Lahore. These two groups are known as The Qadianis (mirzais) and Ahmadis (members of the Lahore group). The Qadianis consider themselves different from other Muslims, whereas Ahmadis prefer to identify with other Muslims and withdraw themselves from the Qadianis.

3. Distinct teachings: Although the Five Pillars of Islam and the six articles of belief of Ahmadi Muslims are identical to those of mainstream Sunni Muslims and central to Ahmadi belief, distinct Ahmadiyya beliefs include the following:

a. Second Coming: Contrary to mainstream Islamic belief, Ahmadi Muslims believe that Jesus was crucified and survived the four hours on the cross. He was later revived from a swoon in the tomb. Ahmadis believe that Jesus died in Kashmir of old age whilst seeking the Lost Tribes of Israel. Jesus' remains are believed to be entombed in Kashmir under the name Yuz Asaf. In particular, it is believed that the biblical and the Islamic prophecies concerning the second coming of Jesus were metaphorical in nature and not literal, and that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad fulfilled in his person these prophecies and the second advent of Jesus. Ahmadi Muslims also believe that the "Promised Messiah" and the "Imam Mahdi" are the same person, and that it is through his teachings, influence and prayers and those of his followers that Islam will defeat the Anti-Christ or Dajjal in a period similar to the period of time it took for nascent Christianity to rise (see also: Ahmadiyya relationship with Christianity) and that the Dajjal's power will slowly fade away, heralding the prophecised final victory of Islam and the age of peace.

b. Seal of Prophets: Although Ahmadi Muslims believe that the Quran is the final message of God for mankind, they also believe that God continues to communicate with his chosen individuals in the same way he is believed to have done in the past. All of God's attributes are eternal. In particular, Ahmadi Muslims believes that Muhammad brought prophethood to perfection and was the last law-bearing prophet and the apex of humankind's spiritual evolution. New prophets can come, but they must be completely subordinate to Muhammad and will not be able to exceed him in excellence nor alter his teaching or bring any new law or religion. They are also thought of as reflections of Muhammad rather than independently made into Prophets, like the Prophets of antiquity.

c. Jihad: According to Ahmadi Muslim belief, Jihad can be divided into three categories: Jihad al-Akbar (Greater Jihad) is that against the self and refers to striving against one's low desires such as anger, lust and hatred; Jihad al-Kabīr (Great Jihad) refers to the peaceful propagation of Islam, with special emphasis on spreading the true message of Islam by the pen; Jihad al-Asghar (Smaller Jihad) is an armed struggle only to be resorted to in self-defence under situations of extreme religious persecution whilst not being able to follow one's fundamental religious beliefs, and even then only under the direct instruction of the Caliph. Ahmadi Muslims point out that as per Islamic prophecy, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad rendered Jihad in its military form as inapplicable in the present age as Islam, as a religion, is not being attacked militarily but through literature and other media, and therefore the response should be likewise. They believe that the answer of hate should be given by love.

Concerning terrorism, the fourth Caliph of the Community wrote in 1989:

As far as Islam is concerned, it categorically rejects and condemns every form of terrorism. It does not provide any cover or justification for any act of violence, be it committed by an individual, a group or a government.

d. Abrogation: Unlike Sunni Muslims but like Shia Muslims, Ahmadi Muslims believe that no verse of the Quran abrogates or cancels another verse. All Quranic verses have equal validity, in keeping with their emphasis on the "unsurpassable beauty and unquestionable validity of the Qur'ān". The harmonization of apparently incompatible rulings is resolved through their juridical deflation in Ahmadī fiqh, so that a ruling (considered to have applicability only to the specific situation for which it was revealed), is effective not because it was revealed last, but because it is most suited to the situation at hand.

e. Religion and science: Ahmadi Muslims believe that there cannot be a conflict between the word of God and the work of God, and thus religion and science must work in harmony with each other. With particular reference to this relationship, the second Caliph of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community states that in order to understand God's revelation, it is necessary to study His work, and in order to realize the significance of His work, it is necessary to study His word. According to the Nobel laureate, Abdus Salam, a devout Ahmadi Muslim, 750 verses of the Quran (almost one eighth of the book) exhort believers to study Nature, to reflect, to make the best use of reason in their search for the ultimate and to make the acquiring of knowledge and scientific comprehension part of the community's life.

f. Other distinct beliefs include: That the history of religion is cyclic and is renewed every seven millennia. The present cycle from the time of the Biblical Adam is split into seven epochs or ages, parallel to the seven days of the week, with periods for light and darkness. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad appeared as the promised Messiah at the sixth epoch heralding the seventh and final age of mankind, as a day in the estimation of God is like a thousand years of man's reckoning.[Quran 22:47] According to Ghulam Ahmad, just as the sixth day of the week is reserved for Jumu'ah (congregational prayers), likewise his age is destined for a global assembling of mankind in which the world is to unite under one universal religion: Islam.

4. The Ahmadiyya Attitude Towards Jesus Christ: Ghulam Ahmad taught two things about Jesus that were to become fundamental to Ahmadiyya doctrine and which stand out from traditional Muslim beliefs. On the one hand he taught that the second coming of the Son of Mary was a spiritual descension and that it had been fulfilled in him. On the other he taught that Jesus had not ascended to heaven but had survived the cross in a swoon and that he went away to Kashmir in India where he died at the age of a hundred and twenty years and was buried in Srinagar. (An ancient tomb of one “Yus Asaf” in the city conveniently became the tomb of Jesus and is so regarded by the Ahmadiyya to this day!). But the supreme claim of the Mirza was that he was the promised Messiah.

            He even went so far as to claim that he was just like Jesus Christ and that his character was in every way a model replica of the Son of Mary's holy personality. As if this was not arrogant enough he even went so far as to claim superiority to Jesus Christ! He also sought relentlessly to dishonour Jesus and strip Islam of doctrines that seemed to draw it too close to Christianity. He denied the sinlessness, physical ascension and return of Jesus, thereby removing all the remaining traces of his glory in Islam and reducing him to the level of common prophet hood.

5. Evaluation: Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had better logic than orthodox Muslims. He considered that the Islamic doctrine of the ascension and return of Jesus went a long way towards supporting the Christian belief that Jesus was the eternal Son of God seated at the right hand of the Father and so sought relentlessly to prove that he had died and had been buried in India. He was grimly determined to refashion the image and life of Jesus until he appeared to be no more than a rather weak and unsuccessful prophet of Israel. Above all the Mirza sought to divide Islam as far as he could from Christianity.

The orthodox Muslims accept the virgin birth of Jesus as well as his miraculous entry into heaven, but they fail to understand that these experiences are superhuman and prove that Jesus is divine. Mirza realized that if he is to grant that Jesus had a miraculous entry into the world and miraculous exit from the world, he has to admit that he is divine. Therefore, Mirza denied both the virgin birth as well as the ascension into heaven of Jesus.

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