Jamaat Ahmadiyya al Mouslemeen

Friday Sermon of Hazrat Amirul Momeneen Zafrullah Domun

Friday Sermon 9th May 2008

After reading the Tashahhud, the Ta’uz and the first chapter of the Holy Quran Hazrat Amirul Mo’menine Zafrullah Domun said:

A friend of mine recently sent me an article written by a non-Ahmadi where the latter was expressing his thoughts about some distressing events that were taking place in the most populous of Muslim Countries namely, Indonesia. In fact it is the fourth most populous country in the world after China, India and the United States of America. It has approximately two hundred and thirty million inhabitants of which ninety per cent are Muslims. According to some estimates there are about two hundred thousand Ahmadis living over there in about 55 different regions.

Since some time now some biased and intolerant groups have been calling for a ban of the Ahmadiyya Jamaat over there because according to them our beliefs are un-Islamic and hence heretical. Their main contention is that there cannot be any prophet after the Holy Prophet Mohammad (s.a.w) but the Ahmadis claim that Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (a.s) was a prophet and so they say that we cannot be Muslims because the majority of Muslims do not support that there can be a prophet after the Holy Prophet (s.a.w). According to them therefore the majority view is the true one and they are right in what they claim.

It appears that in the beginning of the year there was an agreement between the Ahmadis and the Government about their beliefs in Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (a.s). Consequently the Government submitted the matter to an interdepartmental committee which submitted its report last week. It has recommended that the Ahmadiyya Jamaat should be banned over there. The Government has not yet taken any action on the matter but they have said that they are making a thorough study and they will introduce laws to that effect later on. Meanwhile some fanatics have razed to the ground an Ahmadiyya mosque there. According to an Agence France Press report at least four Ahmadiyya mosques have been destroyed since the beginning of the year.

Demands to ban the Ahmadiyya Community because it is heretical according to some Muslims have been made since the beginning of the Jamaat’s history in 1889. At that time one of the learned molvis, Hussein of Batala toured India and Afghanistan to have a fatwa signed by some 200 supposedly learned ones to declare the Ahmadis to be the rejecters (kafirs). Even after the death of the founder, many groups have tried to finish the movement but they were unable to do so. Then came the events of 1974 when an infamous law was passed in Pakistan to declare us non-Muslims but even that could not stem the progress that was promised. Since the Jamaat is a divine movement no one can destroy it. Allah planted the seed and there was a promise made that it will grow, bear flowers and bear fruit despite opposition. Its message is of divine origin and Allah has taken upon Himself to see to it that this message is not diluted in any way through the course of time. In other words nothing should be added or extracted from the pristine teachings of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. So the world should know that they may harm the Ahmadis slightly but they will never be able to give it a knock-out blow. Allah is our Protector and He is the Best of Helpers.

From the press reports received it seems that there are many Muslim groups in Indonesia who are not at all happy with the steps that are being envisaged against the Ahmadis. Some of them have even organized protests marches to condemn the treatment that is being meted out against the Ahmadis. All these actions are quite praiseworthy and we appreciate them.

A professor of the state Islamic University of Bandung has written an article to explain the sources of the differences between Ahmadis and orthodox Muslims. The article is quite interesting because he says that the main source of the difference is revelation. The muslim world olamas believe that after the Holy Prophet Mohammad (s.a.w) there can be no revelation (wahy) but only what they term as inspirations (ilhaam). Many times, at different places in his writings Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad has explained that he has been called a prophet (nabi) by Allah but he never claimed that his revelations were of the type that are known as tashrihi which means that which makes the shariah. He said it many times that he is not a prophet by himself but he is one from the oummah (“ummati” prophet). He did not come to remove or add anything to the Shariah. He came to show that the message of the Holy Quran was such that it can be defended against all types of assaults from all quarters. He even advised his followers to speak of him as an ummati prophet and not just a prophet. He came to teach the Muslims the real teachings of Islam because most of them had forgotten about the real teachings of the Holy Quran and the practices of the Holy Prophet Mohammad (s.a.w). By the Grace of Allah he was most successful in his mission.

Hazrat Ahmad (a.s) said that he was told through revelation that he is the Promised Messiah whose advent was foretold by Hazrat Mohammad (s.a.w). Through revelations Allah taught him many things that were not found in books. As an example he destroyed the myth that Hazrat Isa (a.s), son of Mary was alive in heaven. Through the knowledge that Allah gave him, he proved beyond any doubt in the light of at least thirty verses of the Holy Quran that Hazrat Isa(a.s) died a natural death. Yet the majority of the muslim world still believe in the arrival of a blood thirsty Mahdi and Messiah who will deliver them of their ills and establish peace on earth.

Today it is quite well known what wrong beliefs can do. But as a great teacher and reformer, Hazrat Ahmad, the Promised Messiah came to teach Muslims the real Islam. He explained when it was proper for Muslims to engage in Jihad. He wanted Muslims to engage themselves in the greater Jihad (Jihad Akbar), that is, to engage themselves in the purification of the self. I will give you an extract from his book “Jesus in India” which he wrote in April 1896 under the title “ Masih Hindustan Mein”. However the book was first published in November 1908. In the introduction he writes:

“ I have written this book, so that, by adducing proofs from established facts, from conclusive historical evidence of proved value and from ancient documents of non-Muslims, I might remove the serious misconceptions which are current among Muslims and among most Christian sects regarding the earlier and the later life of Jesus (on whom be peace) - misconceptions, the dangerous implications of which have not only injured and destroyed the conception of Divine Unity, but the unwholesome and poisonous influence of which has for long been noticed in the morals of the Muslims of this country. Spiritual maladies, i.e., want of good morals, evil thoughts, callousness, want of sympathy, are spreading among most Islamic sects, being the result of beliefs in unfounded stories and anecdotes of this kind. Human sympathy, pity and love of justice, humility and humble-mindedness - all good qualities - are disappearing day by day, as if they will soon bid a last farewell to this community.

This callousness and this immorality make many a Muslim appear no better than the beasts of the jungle. A Jain or a Buddhist is afraid of and avoids killing even a mosquito or a flea, but, alas! there are many among us Muslims who, while they kill an innocent man or commit wanton murder, are not afraid of the powerful God, who rates human life higher than that of all the animals. What is this callousness and cruelty and want of sympathy due to? It is due to this - that from their very childhood, stories and anecdotes and wrong views of the doctrine of Jihad are dinned into their ears and inculcated into their hearts, the result being that gradually they become morally dead and cease to feel the heinousness of their hateful actions; nay, rather, the man who murders another man unawares and thus brings ruin to the murdered man's family thinks that he has done a meritorious deed; or rather, that he has made the most of an opportunity to win favour with his community.

As no lectures or sermons are delivered in our country to stop such evils - and if there are any such lectures they have an element of hypocrisy in them - the common people think approvingly of such misdeeds. Accordingly, taking pity upon my own people, I have compiled several books in Urdu, Persian and Arabic, in which I have stated that the popular view of Jihad prevalent among Muslims, that is, the expectation of a bloody Imam, full of spite and hostility for other people, is a texture of false beliefs inculcated by shortsighted Ulema; otherwise, Islam does not allow the use of the sword for the Faith; except in the case of defensive wars, or in the case of wars waged to punish a tyrant or to uphold freedom. The need of a defensive war arises when the aggression of an adversary threatens one's own life. These are the three kinds of Jihad permitted by the Shariat, and, apart from these three kinds, there is no other kind of war which is permitted by Islam for the propagation of the Faith. I have, in short, spent a large sum of money on such books, and have published them in this country and in Arabia and Syria and Khurasan, etc.

But, by the grace of God, I have now discovered powerful arguments which are meant to eradicate these unfounded beliefs from the hearts of the people. I have clear proofs, circumstantial evidence of a conclusive character, and historical evidence the light of whose truth holds out the promise that soon after their publication there will be brought about against such beliefs a wonderful change in the hearts of the Muslims. And I hope - I am sure - that after these truths have been comprehended, there will flow out of the hearts of the righteous sons of Islam the sweet and beautiful springs of lowliness, humility and mercy, and that there will come about a spiritual change which will have a wholesome and a blessed influence on the country. I am also sure that Christian investigators and all other people who hanker after the truth and thirst for it, will benefit from my books. And the fact just now stated by me, that the real object of this book is to correct the wrong beliefs which have become part and parcel of the creeds of Muslims and Christians, requires a little explanation which I set out below.”
(Jesus in India, Page 7 and 8).

You may think that what the Promised Messiah said applied to the world of the beginning of the 20th Century. The assessment that he has made of the Muslims is even today very up-to-date. You will be amazed to know how there are schools in these backward supposed islamic countries which have been teaching their children these stupid and unislamic ideas about jihad. This has been taking place in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and even in Indonesia. Such teachings have created people who vaunt terror as a religious weapon. This is what brought about 9/11 where about 3000 persons died, the Bali bombing which killed about 200 persons, the Madrid bombing which killed almost 200 persons and the July 2005 underground massacre in London. Almost one hundred and nineteen years have elapsed since the Muslim world as in its majority rejected the Imam that Allah sent to guide them and today they are all reeling under problems of their own making but which they cannot solve. In most Muslim countries there is no peace, no progress, most of them are very poor; those who are rich are spending their money on very frivolous matters. Look at Pakistan and compare it with India. They started off together but they cannot be compared because India is far better off. Pakistan suffers from so many problems that some experts say that it is the most dangerous place on earth and it may soon become a failed state.

It is time for the Muslim world as a whole to think and not to reject what comes from Allah. When Allah sends someone to mankind, Allah wants to help mankind out of compassion. But when Muslims who have been dubbed “the best people raised for the guidance of mankind” want only to broaden their narrow mindedness and not their mental horizons and their fear of Allah, we get to the stage where we are today in the Muslim world.

Incha Allah next week I will speak more about the works of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908), the Promised Messiah and Mahdi.

Ameen.