Registered No. L. 303 ·--==-========================-::::::::=:::::::::::::::::::-:~~,as;:~~1- ~ {j((~ Vol. VI .. No. 8. THE J :REVIEW OF IONS i RELIC ! I AUGUST 1907. CONTENTS. Payes. I rJ'IIE MITIIAMMADAN~, TJIJ ◄: l\lAJ1])f ANDrl1 fl]~ AlfMADIYYA I ! I. 271 'l'Ul~ PURI l'Y OP TUI~ 'l 1 l ◄:XT OF rl'HE IIOLY QURAN ... 201 A:\[ l ◄:IUO.-\ N PHES:--l ON TI I I◄: DO-\VIE PllEOTC'rION 300 AH1:·A i-:L\MA.J AN[) POLJTJCS 305 I ----- ·-· ! QADIAN, Dl~TIUU'l' 'OUltDAHPU R, PUN.JAB, l'.'i IHA. Annual Subscription Rs. 4. I Sngle Copy As .... 6. www.alahmadiyya.org THE REVIEW OF RELIGIONS. VoL. VI.] AUGUS'r, 1\)07. [No. 8. r~.:i.. ;J 1 1:.1,6,~ ) 1 11.JJ 1 r-! r~• J!J ) 11.J )"" ) 1_ _s1.c V'Laj j ll v.+,S\j The Mul1ammadans, tl1e Mahdi and the Ahmadiyya Movement. _.,~--~·-- An article _headed ' 1 Islam and J ehad'~ has appeared in the Civil a11 d Mi,lita1·y Gaietto of 19th July 1\)07, under the signature of ' 1 Abu Said }ifuhammacl Husain, Editor, Isha'at-us-Sunnat, Batala", which poses to contain the views of a disinterested person-1 'impartial ,vords"­ on the papers published under the heading of '·~f uhammadans a.nd Jehad" in the same paper under the signatures of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Sahib of Qadian and Syed l\iuhammma<l of Peshawer. Even Shylock sitting in judgment over Antonio would not have presented a more interesting scene than that which is presented by Maulvi Muhammad Husain of 13a,tala. sitting in juclgment over the Ahmacli­ yya movement and its founder, f.)r while Shylock Llid not claim more than a pound of Antonio's flesh, 1\faulvi Muhamnrnd Husain advocates the wholesale murder of the whole Ahmadiyya community and its leader. Strancre0 ironv• of fate that the man who thirsts for onr blood should come to sit in ju<lgrueut over us. Maulvi Abu Said Muhamma<l Husain is the oldest and bitterest foe of the move­ ment. He was the man who travelled over the whole of N~rthern India to prepare against the members and founder of the Ahmadiyya movement a big fatwa of Irtidad 01· heresy (death being the punish• ment of a· heretic) in which he secured the seals and signatures of nearly two hundred ·Maulvi;:;, whoso Ishaat-us-Sunnat has always been filled with the most scurrilous termr:; against them and· who compares 272 '1'11E llEVIEW 011' UEL1G10.NS, himself to a. mad man in his opposition to this movement, as ho says in the folm'at-us-:::lunnat, vol. xviii, No. 4, p. 13~: ''Only I am your customer, and fortunatdy for yon, in the excitement and heat of the reiutat.ion o.f your ideas and writings, I have become the verifier of t.ho vorsc, 'the lot foll upon me, the mad man.''' 'l'his gentleman has ahvays piously advocated the murder of the founder of the Ahmadiyya. movement; vide lsha'at-1ts-Sun11at, vol. xviii, No. 3, P· !J5, where ho writes: "Had we been under a l\Iuslim rule, we would have given you a proper reply. ,v e would have at once cut off your head with a. sword and made yon a dead body.'' Coming now to the article itseH, the most important point raised hy Maulvi :VIuhammacl Husain is the expression of the views o.f "the learned Uuhammada,ns" as to t11e corning of the Mahdi and the :Messiah. He says: ''It is ah;o untrue to say tl1at the belie£ in the com­ ing of Messiah and J\Ial1di is dangcro11s, for the lrarnod l\fuhamrnad .. ms do not believe that the Promised l\fessiah and Mahdi will propagate Islam by" the sword. According to Sahih B11klw1·cc, a book unani­ mously believed to be an authority hy S111111i:-!, the Promised Messiah will put an cn<l to all fighting and will propagate Islam simply by meaus of heaYen]y signs and spiritual powers. Imam Mahdi will also come at the same time and there shall be no bloodshed and no Jehad. Islam will be spread by peaceful methods.'' This will come as strange news to :Muhammadans as well as non-Muhammadans from a writer who calls himself the advocate of the Alil-i-IIac1is sect. Is it an c:x:pres· sion of the belie£ of the Ahl-i-Hadis sect? Certainly not. \Vith regard to the belie£ in the Mahdi, the :Muhammadans may be broadly divided into three clm;scs; those who believe in the coming of a .Fatimitc 1tfahdi, who 8lmll he a temporal as well as a. spiritual caliph, and who shall conquer the whole world with his sword and shall by means of the same weapon spread lslam, murdering all those who refuse to accept it; thoso who <lcny the coming of any Mahdi or lifossiah at all; and, those who believe in the coming of a Mahdi and Messiah who shall establish the superiority o.f Islam by heavenly signs and sound arguments and who shall not resort to the sword at all. ~l.10 the first class. belong all the orthodox llfuhammadans, the Ahl-i-Hadis , the Sunnis, tbe Shiahs, &c.; to the second belong men like the late Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and his followers who go by the name of 1iaichris 1007) THE MUHAMMADANS, 'fIIF. MAHDI AND 'fIIE AIIMAI>I\'YA MOVEMENT. 278 who do not pay much regard to religion, or men like Ibn Khaldoon who regard the traditions speaking of the l\fahdi as untrue and therefore do not look for the advent of any Mahdi at all, while to the thinl class belong tho members of: the Ahmadiyya community and the members of that community alone. According to this division which, as I will just now show, has been in the main accepted· by Maulvi Muhammad Husain himself, "the learned Muhammadans" who ''do not believe that the Promised Messiah and Mahdi will prJpa· gat.o Islam by the sword" hnt that lie will propagate it H simply by means of heavenly signs and spiritual powers,'' are the Ahmadis, and not a single Muhammadan outside tlrn Ahmudiyya movement can be shown to have expressed this belief up to the present time, not even Maulvi Muhammad Husain who boldly puts down this article of faith in the Civil and 1tnlita1·y Gazette as the general belief of the J\fnhammaclans in India ancl eYen throughout the vrnrld. In the first place, Manlvi :Muhammad Husain, tho ,vriter of the article has himself never expressed in public either orally or in writing that he does not believe in the coming of the Mahdi whom the Muhammadans generally expect. Turn over the pages of his Ishaat-us-Sunnat since 1878, and not a single remark would be found in it which should even indirectly lead to the conclusion that he denies the coming of the Glrnii Mahdi. Nor has he ever tried to oppose the idea of the appearance oJ a Mahdi who should fill the earth with the blood of non-Muslims, and all talk of "learned Muhammadans not believing that the Promised Messiah and 1\1 ahdi will propagate Islam hy the sword," in which category the l\faulvi evidently intends to inclucle himself, is mere 8ham. I would not trouble the reader with turning over the dusty pages of the Ishaat-us­ Sunnat to satisfy himself of the truth of what I have said, as the .Maulvi's own confession is on record. Dnt before quoting his words it is necessary to explain the circumstances which led him to make that confession. In 1898, Maulvi Muhammad Husain got printed in the English language "a list of articles in the Ishaat-us-Sunnat wherein the illegality of rebellion against, or opposition to, the Government and the true nature of Jehad (crescentade)"* were explained. In this *This is the heatling of the list in Muhammad Husain's own words. nm IlE\'IEW OF llELIGIONS, tAugust list ho statcJ. that 110 liad wriLton an article on page 40 of the volume for 188G containing ''Criticism oI traditions rogar<ling the Mahdi unu. arguments showing their incorrectness.'' rrhis heading was Tcally absolutely incorrect, for on a reforcuco to the page referred to we find that there is no criticism at all 0£ such traditions and no nrguments showing that they were incorrect. In fact, the whole of tlio Ishaat-us-Snnnat contains no article whose heading or contents may correspond with what is exprcssctl in the list of articles. The article referred to was written in dofonco of Siddiq Hasan Khan, the leader and reformer of the Ahl-Hadis sect, who at that time was under the displeasure of the Government on account of his having expressed dangerons and sedition;;; views in connection with the doctrine of J chad anJ. the belief in the coming of the Ghaz:i Mahdi. "\Vhat these views were I will state later on. \V'hat I have to say here is that while defending the expression of these dangerous doctrines by the leader and reformer of the A.hl-i-IIadis sect to which the Maulvi himself belongs, he guarded himself against the possibly dangerous consequences of such defence to himself or to the soot whose cause he advocated by adding in a short footnote on page 49, Vol. ix, No. 2 of Islrn'a.t-us•Snnnat that certain of the Ahl-i-Hadis in the past as well ns in the pre ;ont denied the coming of the Mahdi.