Allegation Against Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II That He Changed His Belief

In the last chapter of his book Mr. Faruqi has alleged that Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II has altered his views and beliefs. He writes:

(a) “Uptil 1910 A. D. Mirza Mahmud Ahmad believed that the institution of Prophethood is definitely closed after the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace and the blessings of God be upon him) and no prophet had come so far, nor would any appear in the future. He wrote in the April 1910 issue of his monthly magazine Tashhizul Azhan, (published from Qadian): `…Some hundreds of Prophets appeared before the Holy Prophet Muhammad, some of whom we know; but thirteen hundred years have passed after the Holy Prophet Muhammad, and nobody has yet laid a claim to prophethood with success…'”

(b) “Even upto the year 1911, Mirza Mahmud Ahmad still believed that all kinds of prophethood have been terminated with the appearance of the Holy Prophet Muhammad and that through implicit obedience to his teaching, and under his seal, so to speak, righteous and holy Muslims, resembling the ancient prophets in certain attributes, would continue to appear till the day of Judgement. So Mirza Mahmud Ahmad wrote in the 22nd March 1911 issue of the Newspaper (Badar published from Qadian):

`…That the Almighty God made the Holy Prophet Muhammad as the last of the prophets, and terminated all types of prophethood with him… and his attributes reached such excellence that no Mojaddid could be appointed unless he bears a seal of the Prophet’s obedience.'” (Truth Triumphs, page 50, 51).

For a brief reply to this argument, it is to be noted that in the first quotation “no Prophet had come so far, nor would any come in future”, refers to a Mustaqil Nabi, not beholden to an earlier teaching and an earlier Prophet; in the second quotation no one can become a mamur minallah “ unless he bears a seal of obedience to him”, means an Ummati and Zilli Nabi.

So the conclusion Mr. Faruqi has drawn from these passages is clearly absurd. For, long before this, in 1906, in the very first issue of the “Tashhizul Azhan “, Introduction, page 1, Hazrat Sahibzada Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad wrote in regard to the Promised Messiah, addressing himself to mankind at large:

“Is it your idea that you belong to a big nation; or that you have jewels and diamonds; or that your strength lies in a large number of men at your back; or that you are a big chief, or a king, or a very learned man; or the presiding priest at some important shrine; or a faqir with an extraordinary reach in the occult sciences, and therefore, you have no need to accept this Messenger?”

Again, on page 8, he wrote:

“In short, every nation is eagerly waiting for the advent of a prophet; and for this advent the proper time is positively conceded to be this era itself; the signs conveyed to us by the Holy Prophet, to enable us to recognise this prophet; and facilities made available for us that we should come to identify him correctly – all these are indications of the great eminence of our Apostle.”

On page 5 and 6 he wrote:

“What we need to determine is whether in these times there is a need for a prophet, or there is no need for one. Irrespective of whether you call these times good or bad, as far as can be seen, at no time has there been so much sin and transgression, evil and wickednees, as there is these days. All mankind with one voice, has risen to cry out that sin has reached the limit. This is the time, therefore, when the need for an Appointed One from God is more acute than ever before.”

It is important to bear in mind that this article we are here quoting from is the one on which Maulvi Mohammad Ali wrote a review at the time wherein he said:

“The Editor of this journal is Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad, a son of the Promised Messiah, in the first issue, who has written an Introduction running into 14 pages. Members of the Movement would, of course, read this Introduction with due attention. But I would also very much like to hold up this article before the opponents of our Movement, as an argument in favour of the truth of this Movement. The gist of the article is that at times when evil spreads in the world; and people leave the path of truth and virtue, to stray away into wickedness and transgression; when like vultures they fall upon the carrion of worldly aims, becoming altogether oblivious of the needs of a higher life, and the requirements of the life to come – at such times, it has always been the way with Allah that, out of those people themselves, he raises a prophet entrusted with a mission to spread a righteous teaching among the people, and call them to the path of virtue. These people, blind in their sins; and drunk with lust, they heap ridicule on what they hear him saying; or they begin to persecute him, and his companions. They, in fact, wish that they must wipe out the new Movement. But, since the mission is from God Almighty its enemies fail to make a headway against it. In fact the Prophet positively declares beforehand that they would all be crushed, and Allah would bring the rest to the right path, after He has opened their eyes by destroying some of the most virulent in opposition. This has always been the way with Allah, and this is what has come about in our own time.”

This powerful review written by Maulvi Mobammad Ali bears witness that as early as 1906, within the lifetime of the Promised Messiah. Hazrat Sahibzada Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad, and Maulvi Mohammad Ali, himself, believed that the Promised Messiah was a Prophet; and it was in this light that they presented him before the world – not merely as a Wali.

Now let us come to the year 1910. In the Annual gathering at Qadian, December 1910, Hazrat Sahibzada Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad delivered a speech from which the following quotations need to be studied with care:

(a) “It is also to be remembered that Mirza Sahib is a Nabi and that, the Holy Prophet Mohammad being Khataman –Nabiyin, Nabuwwat had come to the Promised Messiah from his obedience and loyalty to the Holy Prophet Mohammad. We do not know how many more people would rise to this rank, but why should we not call him a Prophet, when Allah has called him by this name? An Ilham received by the Promised Messiah towards the later part of his life speaks of him clearly as a Prophet: یاایھا النبی اطعم اجائع و المعتر ”

(b) “He who takes even a single word of the Promised Messiah to be false, he is the rejected one from the presence of the Lord, since He does not allow His Prophet to die on an error.”

(c) “Why do you abandon your distinctive signs? You hold faith in a Chosen Prophet, while your opponents deny him.”

(d) “A Nabi appeared among us as well. If we obey him, and follow in his footsteps, we shall reap the same fruit as was gathered by the Sahaba, Companions of the Holy Prophet Mohammad.”

These quotations prove like daylight, that Hazrat Sahibzada Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad, even in 1910, when Hazrat Maulvi Nuruddin was the Khalifa, firmly held the view that the Promised Messiah was a Prophet.

Then Mr. Faruqi has referred to a writing of 1911, of which the title is: ” مسلمان وہ ہے جو سب ماموروں کو مانے” which discusses the question of kufr and Islam. In this connection Mr. Faruqi writes:

“When Mirza Mahmud Ahmad declared the non-Ahmadies as kafir he was questioned that since only a person who denies a prophet can be called a kafir, then does Mirza Mahmud Ahmad regard the Promised Messiah (Mirza Ghulam Ahmad) as a prophet? On this Mirza Mahmud Ahmad, contrary to all his previous writings, declared that the Promised Messiah was a prophet. This is the second change Mirza Mahmud Ahmad has made in his beliefs.” (Truth Triumphs, page 51)

In reply, it is to be noted that Mr. Faruqi has given no reference when and where this question was asked, or by whom. Perhaps he has himself framed it. Otherwise it can hardly arise, for in this article as well, like the one of 1906, and the speech of 1910, Hazrat Sahibzada Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad had presented the Promised Messiah as a Nabi. For instance:

“It is our faith and belief that Hazrat Sahib was an apostle of God, appointed by the Lord. It is our conviction that Allah has always been sending His prophets. At the same time it is also our belief that the Holy Prophet Mohammad, is Ra’uf, Rahim, Apostle of Allah, and Khataman –Nabiyin. After him, there has been no prophet with a new Sharia ; and he is the seal for all kinds of Nabuwwat in the future. Whosoever will reach God now, he will do so only by virtue of obedience and loyalty, and devotion to him, as we read in the Holy Quran:  ‘قل ان کنتم تحبون اللہ فاتبعونی یحببکم’ `Say, if you love Allah, follow me, and God will begin to love you.’ His honour lies only in this. Can a man be called honoured who has no subordinates under him? No, really honoured and high in rank would only be one who has many people of position and power placed under him. Look at things in this world itself. Would you prefer to be a king, or an emperor? The world emperor denotes a higher position than does the word king. It carries the sense that he rules over kings. He stands higher than kings, not lower. Similarly a Nabuwwat is higher which has some prophets placed under its authority, than another Nabuwwat which has no prophet placed under it. So, on this same principle, we hold the Promised Messiah as a Nabi, and a Mamur, duly commissioned, in the light of unassailable Reports in the works of Hadith.” (Tashhizul Azhan ) Vol. 1V & VI pages 130, 131, April, 1911)

This quotation clearly testifies that in the article entitled “مسلمان وہ ہے جو سب ماموروں کو مانے” “A Muslim is one who believes in all those who are appointed by Allah to a mission,” Hazrat Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad presented the Promised Messiah as a Prophet, under reliable reports in the Hadith. So there is here no question involved of any change in belief.

Next Mr. Faruqi has quoted a passage from Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II, in 1914:

“In regard to Nabuwwat, I desire to tell you that all Ahmadis believe the Promised Messiah is only a Zilli Nabi. However, since, at the present time, there is a tendency to present the Promised Messiah in a position greatly reduced, the contingency demands that his rank and position should be made clear. Apart from this, I myself do not like that the word Nabi should be indiscriminately used, with such frequence not because he was not a prophet, but because there is a need to safeguard against some people, at some future time, coming to extract from it a sense and content of Nabuwwat-i-Mustaqilla. But this is only a matter for a short time, and even at that, a remedial measure.” (Letter addressed to Mohammad Usman Sahib of Lucknow)

On this point Mr. Faruqi has hastened to remark that a position taken up as a more or less temporary remedial measure, in a particular contingency, has solidified into a hard reality. In 1953, an agitation was started against the Ahmadiyya Movement, accompanied by violent disorder in some places, which brought martial law. (Truth Triumphs, page 53)

The passage by Hazrat Khallfatul Masih II, to which reference is made here, is quite clear in its wording and sense that even in the days of his Khilafat he took the Promised Messiah only as a Zilli Nabi. He held, however that Zilli Nabuwwat also is a kind of Nabuwwat : a Zilli Nabi, also, is a kind of Nabi. In referring to the Promised Messiah, it was enough to speak of him as the Promised Messiah; but since the Lahore Section was taking considerable pain to present the Promised Messiah in a manner which implied a derogation in his real position, it was an urgent need of the time that his position as a Nabi should be mentioned repeatedly, so that the danger of a confusion arising at some future time should be eliminated, and the misunderstandings created by the Lahore Section should be cleared. Otherwise, as a precautionary measure to describe the sense and substance of Nabuwwat in some other terms involved no harm. The Promised Messiah himself has set down an Ilham in the following manner:

“A Prophet came to this world, but the world accepted him not.” On this he has given a note:

“One reading of this Ilham is also that `A Warner came to this world’; and this is the reading set down in Barahin. To avoid mischief, this second reading was not set down.” (Tazkira, page 108, with reference to epistle of August 7, 1899, as reproduced in Alhakam August 17, 1899, page 6)

From a too frequent use of the word Nabi, in regard to the Promised Messiah, Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II had apprehended trouble that after some time people might extract from the word Nabi the sense of a Nabuwwat-i –Mustaqilla. Thus the position is clearly implied here that if the Paigham-i-Sulha, and its friends, in season, and out of season, had not so frantically been harping on the same tune, that the Promised Messiah was not a Nabi, forcing us to join issue on the point, by insisting that he was a prophet, and the two Sections had not kept the controversy hot for fifty years, there might well have been no agitation against the Ahmadis; there would have been no disorder, no martial law, to cope with the lawlessness that raised its head. It thus stands to reason that by far the greater part of ill will against the Ahmadis is the result of the Lahore Section’s vehemence on the point in the press and from the platform, against Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II in the guise of a discussion on the question of Nabuwwat.

It is unfortunate that the Lahore Section is not prepared to stop this propaganda even now, as tracts published recently bear witness. Mr. Faruqi’s book itself is a link in the same chain.

It is entirely wrong and unjustified on his part to say that a temporary measure, in a certain contingency, has assumed a permanent form, for the Ahmadis of the Rabwah Section have never held that the Promised Messiah was a Mustaqil Nabi, nor does it hold that view now. We have always believed that he was an Ummati Nabi ; and we still hold the same belief. But what is the remedy for us when we find that the Ulama on the other side had concealed the real position and based the agitation on a false ground?

Statement of Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II before The Inquiry Commission

It is not easy to understand what is Mr. Faruqi’s aim and intention in reproducing Hazrat Khalifatul Masih’s statement before the Inquiry Commission, except that he desires to keep the old propaganda against us, which, so far has conferred no benefit on them, while it certainly has wasted a good deal of energy on both sides, which should have been poured into the missionary endeavour. But the Lahore Section, it seems, is not prepared to stop this propaganda even now. Otherwise, during the last fifty years, so much has been written from both sides on points under dispute that the reader can easily get to the truth at the bottom. The difficulty however, is that where the people opposed to us consider that the key to their success lies in their opposition to us, they cannot hold themselves back from it although their efforts on this point have always failed.

Hazrat Khalitfatul Masih II stated before The Inquiry Commission that the Promised Messiah is a Nabi, and to deny him constitutes kufr and he also explained that this kufr is not of the first kind which results from a denial of the Kalima “لا الہ  الا اللہ  محمد رسول اللہ” “there is no one worthy of worship except Allah and Mohammad is His Apostle.” In the court he was asked if Allah had called Hazrat Mirza Sahib a Nabi. His answer was: “yes”. Another question was when did Mirza Sahib, for the first time, call himself a Nabi ? His answer was “to the best of my memory, he claimed in 1891 that he was a Nabi.”

On the basis of this reply Mr. Faruqi says:

“From 1891 to 1900 makes a period of nine years; according to Mian Mahmud Ahmad Sahib, the Promised Messiah did not quite understand his own position in regard to his Nabuwwat, although, according to him, the Lord God had told him that he was a Nabi.”

Our reply is that Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II has held that the Promised Messiah was a Nabi from the very commencement of his claim in 1891 that he was the Promised Messiah, though at the time he interpreted this word to mean a Mohaddath, or a Nabi in parts. But the conception of his claim which he gave out prior to 1901, since, in fact, it was in reality Nabuwwat itself, which he took as Mohaddathiat, he wrote at the end that “Nabuwwat had no meaning more than this that the elements mentioned above should be found in it.” (Tauzih-i-Maram, page 19)

So even in 1891, the Promised Messiah described the content of his claim by calling it Nabuwwat ; but for some time he continued to interpret it only as Mohaddathiat, under an impression that a man could not really and truly be a Nabi, if he was an Ummati of a previous Nabi. In point of fact therefore, the Promised Messiah was a Nabi from the earliest commencement of his ministry, and this is the view held by Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II, all along. (Haqiqatun-Nabuwwat, page 53)

Again, it was in the light of this conception in regard to the Nabuwwat of the Promised Messiah that Hazrat Khalifatul Masih stated quite plainly: “The kind of Nabi he had been formerly, he remained that kind of Nabi for ever afterwards.” (Haqiqatun-Nabuwwat, page 36)

Then again he writes further on:

“Just from the day he became the Promised Messiah, from that very day he was a Nabi ; and God Himself had said he was a Nabi.” (Haqiqatun Nabuwwat, page 38)

Therefore Hazrat Khalifatul Masih’s reply before the Inquiry Commission, in the light of his careful study of the question, and in the light of his own belief and conviction, was quite correct that, to the best of his memory, the Promised Messiah first claimed in 1891 that he was a Nabi.

In regard to this question, the Promised Messiah himself has written:

“Wheresoever I have disclaimed Nabuwwat or Risalat, it has been in the sense that in an independent and permanent way I am not the bearer of any new Sharia ; nor am I an independent and confirmed Nabi, free of any obligation owed in any quarter, for any spiritual benefit received. But in the sense that from my own master I have received a wealth of benefits of the inner kind; and having received his name, and through the link of this name, I am a Rasul and a Nabi – but always without any new Sharia. I have never denied that I am a Nabi of this kind. In fact, this is the meaning and the sense, Allah has called me a Prophet and an Apostle. Even now I do not deny that I am a Prophet and an Apostle in this sense.” (Ek Ghalati Ka Izala, 1901)

Mr. Faruqi writes:

“Can such a person who does not understand his own prophethood, call others kafirs (infidels) if they dont accept him as a prophet? Further, what kind of a prophet is he who does not own to his own prophethood?” (Truth Triumphs, page 54)

This question we have already discussed in some detail in the earlier portions of this book. It is true that the Promised Messiah did accept an alteration in his original conception in regard to Nabuwwat. In his Ilhams, very early in the course of his career as a gentleman, with reputation for virtue, and a serious scholar of Islam, he found this word being used in regard to himself. But from a deeply engrained sense of humility, and notions generally in vogue in the Muslim society of those days, he had a conception of Nabuwwat which he was reluctant to apply to himself, and therefore he interpreted it under a general tendency not to think too much about himself, which predisposed him to take this word in a figurative sense, whenever he found it applied to himself.

But, as he has himself described, he found himself forced to modify his old ideas on the question of Nabuwwat – forced by the Wahyi coming to himself like powerful showers of rain. By and by, then this change in his old conception of Nabuwwat was solidly confirmed when he was told that the Messiah of the Mohammadi Dispensation (i. e., himself) was superior to the Messiah of the Dispensation of Moses (Kishti Nuh, 1902). The Lahore Section, therefore, should either altogether deny that he, was a Mamur ; or accept the simple explanation that he changed his conception in regard to Nabuwwat, which he has freely discussed in various places in the course of his writings and oral discourses.

Therefore, as long as he interpreted the word Nabi figuratively to mean a Mohaddath, those who denied him, he never looked upon them as Kafirs. Under insistent divine pointers, when he gave up the old concept, on page 179 of Haqiqatul Wahyi, he defined kufr as being of two kinds, denial of the Promised Messiah, in other words, denial of his own claim, he held to be kufr of the second kind, essentially milder than a kufr resulting from denial of the Holy Prophet Mohammad, which turns a man into a non-Muslim, without a mitigating circumstance, on the exterior or the outer surface.

This is the belief the Khalifatul Masih II owned up before the Inquiry Commission, where he was asked: “Does not the denial of a true Prophet amount to kufr ?” He replied: “Yes, it does amount to kufr. But kufr is of two kinds: one which throws a man out of the Millat ; the second which does not entail exclusion from the Millat. Denial of the Muslim Kalima is kufr of the first kind; while kufr of the second kind results from other minor denials, or wrong beliefs.”

These question and answers Mr. Faruqi has set forth on page 54 of Truth Triumphs. It is apparent that Hazrat Khalifatul Masih gave a reply which fully, also strictly, conforms to what the Promised Messiah said on the point, on page 179 of Haqiqatul Wahyi, where kufr is shown to be of two kinds; and denial of the Promised Messiah has been reckoned as kufr of the second kind.

In the Court of Inquiry, Hazrat Khalifatul Masih was asked: “Do you hold Mirza Sahib to be among the Mamurin, faith in whom is essential for qualifying a man to be called a Muslim?” He replied he had answered the question already, that a man who does not accept Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, he cannot be held to have gone out of the pale of Islam.

Here Mr. Faruqi has the following objection to raise:

“The readers may please compare the reply given by Mirza Mahmud Ahmad with his previous statements in his books as quoted against item (i) and (ii) above. This then is the third change that Mirza Mahmud Ahmad has made in his beliefs.” (Truth Triumphs, page 54)

We have already discussed the matter of the first and second change alleged. The third cited is no more than an attempt to create a misunderstanding. The fact is that in Anwar-e-Khilafat and A’ina-i-Sadaqat, Hazrat Khalifatul Masih did not at all say that the non-Ahmadis, by their rejection of the Promised Messiah, had thrown themselves outside the apparent outward fold of Islam.

In Anwar-i-Khilafat, there is an expression that we should not take the non-Ahmadis to be Muslims. But it does not mean that we have rejected the idea of taking them as Muslims even as far as the outward form is concerned. Otherwise, expressions of this kind, in their limited sense and meaning, have often been used by the Promised Messiah himself. For instance take the following quotations:

“It is a firm proposition in the Hadith that where a man says in regard to a momin that he is a kafir, the man who says this, himself he becomes a kafir. So in my case, when nearly 200 maulvis have declared that I am a kafir ; and they applied a fatwa of kufr on me; and when, on the basis of their own fatwa it stands established that he who says in regard to a real momin that he has become a kafir, he himself thereby, becomes a kafir, the remedy in such cases is easy. If the rest of the people have even a grain of honesty and iman, and if they are not mere hypocrites, they should come forward and denounce these maulvis, and their fatwa against me, name by name, in a big poster, and declare that they had all become kafirs, because they had said in regard to a momin that he was a kafir. When they have publicly, and quite openly disassociated themselves from this unjust fatwa, I shall readily take them as Muslims – provided in their action there is no trace of hypocrisy, and provided they do not seek to term as false open and obvious signs and miracles.” (Haqiqatul Wahyi, page 165)

Now please think very seriously here. Although the Promised Messiah in this passage does not take the non-Ahmadis to be Muslims, you interpret the general sense of the passage to mean that there is here no denial involved of the fact that outwardly they still remain formal Muslims, so to say, then what is the difficulty in holding that precisely this, and no more is the sense and meaning of the passages under reference from Anwar-i-Khilafat and A’ina-i-Sadaqat ? In this case, too, there is no intention to deny that outwardly, in any case, such Muslims remained formal Muslims.

Now remains the specific passage in A’ina-i-Sadaqat. So it is to be remembered that words of this kind, in Islam, have been used in two meanings. One meaning is to say that the person in question is a non-Muslim. The second is that the person in question is alien to the real spirit of Islam, and he has fallen a victim to a serious error in belief. This is what the Holy Prophet Muhammad, himself, has to say on the point:

“Where a man sallies forth to give support to an unjust person, knowing that he is unjust, the supporter, thereby, throws himself outside the bounds of Islam.”

When Mr. Faruqi and his friends interpret this Hadith to mean that such a person becomes an alien to the real inner spirit of Islam, though in outward form he remains a Muslim; what is to prevent them from taking the passage in question, in the same way? Here is another instance from the writings of the Promised Messiah (Izala-i-Auham, small edition, page 298)

“Now let it be quite clear that these days the objection of some unitariuns, that in species of birds, some are the creation of the Lord God, and some of Hazrat Isa, is entirely misleading and idolatorous; and the person who holds this view, without any doubt, he is outside the pale of Islam.”

Evidently, the Muslims with respect to whom the expression in question occurs in the case under discussion – that “they are outside the pale of Islam”, undoubtedly Mr. Faruqi must be interpreting this passage to mean that people of this kind are alien to the spirit of Islam – not that they have become non-Muslims. Well, this is exactly the stand Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II took before the Inquiry Commission. Hazrat Khalifatul Masih was asked: “Do you still hold the belief what you had written in the first chapter of A’ina-i-Sadaqat, page 35, that all those Muslims who did not yield a pledge of bai’at to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, even if they had never heard of him, they are kafirs, and outside the pale of Islam?

The reply from Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II was:

“It is evident from this statement itself that the people here I have in mind I take as Muslims. Therefore, when I use the word kafir, I have in my mind kafirs of the second kind which I have defined already, i.e., they are not driven or thrown out of the Millat. When I say they are outside the pale of Islam I have in my mind the view, by Mufradat-i-Raghib on page 240, where Islam has been shown to be of two kinds: one lower than the stage of Iman ; the other above the stage of Iman. In Dunal Iman, in the stage of lower than common Iman, are included people whose Islam remains at a level lower than a proper Iman and in the stage of higher than the common Iman are Muslims who stand at a level of distinction in their faith, higher than the common level. This is why I said that some people fall outside the pale of Islam, I had in my mind people who come under the category of Dunal Iman. There is an authentic Hadith in Mishkat as well, where the Holy Prophet said: `Whosoever helps a man who is unjust, he puts himself thereby out of the pale of Islam.'”

We cannot help feeling rather mystified that in regard to those Muslim people who believe Hazrat Isa to be the creator of some kinds of birds, the Promised Messiah, on the ground of this belief, holds them as outside the pale of Islam, these words sound sweet for Mr. Faruqi who immediately interprets them without any difficulty. But when the same words, in the selfsame meaning are used by Hazrat Khalifiatul Masih II, they taste extremely bitter. Is not all this a sure sign of jealousy and malice somewhere in the heart, where Hazrat Khalifiatul Masih II is concerned?

What is stranger still is the fact that before the Inquiry Commission, the meaning of “being outside the pale of Islam” given by Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II, has been omitted in the quotation Mr. Faruqi has given in his book. Evidently there is something here which Mr. Faruqi is doing his level best to conceal.

Then Mr. Faruqi has reproduced two questions asked by the Inquiry Commission, and replies given by Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II:

Question: Are the differences between the Ahmadis and the non-Ahmadis of a basic nature?

Reply: If the sense of the word “basic”, here, is the same in which the Holy Prophet took it, the differences are not basic.

Question: If the word “basic” is taken in its general meaning, what would be your reply?

Reply: Taking the word in its general sense, the meaning constitutes an important point. But in this sense as well, the differences are not basic, only collateral, in minor details.

On this, Mr. Faruqi’s comment is:

“But Mirza Mahmud Ahmad had once allowed the following statement to be published. (Al-Fazl, 21st August, 1917, page 7).”

“But the Promised Messiah has said that the faith of Islam of these common Muslims, and the one claimed by us are different from each other. Even their conception of God and our varies. Our pilgrimage is separate from their pilgrimage. So in fact we differ from them in everything.”

It is strange that the passage Mr. Faruqi has quoted from Al-Fazl in the form of an objection, Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II has himself explained before the Inquiry Commission. In this court this very passage was put before him, and he was asked if it was correct. Hazrat Khalifatul Masih replied:

“At the time when this was published, I had no diary writer. I cannot, therefore, say with full confidence that what I said was correctly reported, or not correctly reported. In any case it has to be taken figuratively. My intention and meaning when I said this was that we say and do these things with greater sincerity.”

It is evident from all this discussion, that by rejecting the Institution of Khilafat, Mr. Faruqi has taken a line of diminution in regard to the Nabuwwat of the Promised Messiah, and his beliefs do not stand on any firm foundation. His case appears to be very similar to a sect which took a similar line of diminution in regard to the Messiah of the Dispensation of Moses, and did not accept that he was a prophet. It took him only as a wali, as a great saint, only a Mojaddid in the religion of Moses. This sect was known by the name of “Anania”. Da’ud bin Anan was its founder.

Allah has saved us so far from taking the line of exaggeration and our Jama’at, by the grace of God takes the Promised Messiah, in the light of his writings, as a Nabi, from one angle, and an Ummati, from another, only a Zilli Nabi ; and in conformity with his order in Chashma-i-Ma’rifat, we take his position to be that of a kind of Nabi ; and in accord his own direction, and the command of the Lord God, and His terminology, we hold that he was a prophet. Of course, in the terminology of the non-Ahmadi Muslims, which is very attractive for our friends of the Lahore Section, we do not at all hold him to be a prophet. Therefore, when we find Mr. Faruqi likening us in his Truth Triumphs, to a sect among the Christians which took Jesus Christ as God, we feel deeply hurt over this estimate in regard to us, to which Mr. Faruqi has given expression in this book. It is a shocking case of a gross injustice he is doing to us. In the end, let us pray to God that He be pleased to open their eyes, that they begin to see their loss and gain in a proper light, so that they desist from making vile attacks on the descendants of the Promised Messiah, in order to throw the Ahmadiyya Movement into an extremely unjust dispute, since by these efforts; they are doing no more than blackening their own record with the Lord. Amen!

و آخر دعوانا الحمد للہ رب العالمین