REGARDING QADIANI (AHMADIYYA) MOVEMENT:
Regarding the Qadiani (Ahmadiyya) Movement
(This Statement was produced in 1936 to Clarify Dr. Iqbal's position and request
the non-Muslim Governor of India to declare the Qadianis a non-Muslim minority
On the appearance of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru's three articles in The Modern
Review of Calcutta, I received a number of letters from Muslims of different
shades of religious and political opinion. Some writers of these letters want me
to further elucidate and justify the attitude of the Indian Muslims towards the
Ahmadis. Others ask me what exactly I regard as the issue
involved in Ahmadism. In this statement I propose first to meet these demands
which I regard as perfectly legitimate, and then to answer the questions raised
by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. I fear, however, that parts of this statement may
not interest the Pandit, and to save his time I suggest that he may skip over
such parts.
It is hardly necessary for me to say that I welcome the Pandit's interest in
what I regard as one of the greatest problems of the East and perhaps of the
whole world. He is,I believe, the first Nationalist Indian leader who has
expressed a desire to understand the present spiritual unrest in the world of
Islam. In view of the many aspects and possible reactions of this unrest, it is
highly desirable that thoughtful Indian political leaders should open their mind
to the real meaning of what is at the present moment agitating the heart of
Islam I do not wish, however, to conceal the fact, either from the Pandit or
from any other reader of this statement, that the Pandit's articles have for the
moment given my mind rather a painful conflict of feelings. Knowing him to be a
man of wide cultural sympathies, my mind cannot but incline to the view that his
desire to understand the questions he has raised is perfectly genuine; yet the
way which he has expressed himself betrays a psychology which I find difficult
to attribute to him. I am inclined to think that my statement on Qadianism - no
more than a mere exposition of a religious doctrine on modern lines - has
embarrassed both the Pandit and the Qadianis, perhaps because both inwardly
resent, for different reasons, the prospects of Muslim political and religious
solidarity particularly in India. It is obvious that the Indian Nationalist
whose political idealism has practically
Only a true lover of God can appreciate the value of devotion even though it is
directed to gods in which he himself does not believe. The folly of our
preachers of toleration consists in describing the attitude of the man who is
jealous of the boundaries of his own faith as one of intolerance. They wrongly
consider this attitude as a sign of moral inferiority. They do not understand
that the value of his attitude, is essentially biological. Where the members of
a group feel, either instinctively or on the basis of rational argument, that
the corporate life of the social organism to which they belong is in danger,
their defensive attitude must be appraised in reference mainly to a biological
criterion. Every thought or deed in this connection must be judged by the
life-value that it may possess.
The question in this case is not whether the attitude of an individual or community towards the man who is declared to be a heretic is morally good or bad. The question is whether it is life-giving or life-destroying. Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru seems to think that a society founded on religious principles necessitates the institution of Inquisition. This is indeed true of the history of Christianity; but the history of Islam, contrary to the Pandit's logic, shows that during the last thirteen hundred years of the life of Islam, the institution of Inquisition has been absolutely unknown in Muslim countries. The Qur'an expressly prohibits such an institution: "Do not seek out the shortcomings of others and carry not tales against your brethren." Indeed the Pandit will find from the history of Islam that the Jews and Christians, fleeing from religious persecution in their own lands, always found shelter in the lands of Islam.
The two propositions on which the conceptual structure of
Islam is based are so simple that it makes heresy in the sense of turning the
heretic outside the fold of Islam almost impossible. It is true that when a
person declared to be holding heretical doctrines threatens the existing social
order an independent Muslim State will certainly take action; but in such a case
the action of the State will be determined more by political considerations than
by purely religious ones. I can very well realize that a man like the Pandit,
who is born and brought up in a society which has no well-defined boundaries and
consequently no internal cohesion, finds it difficult to conceive that a
religious society can live and prosper without State-appointed commissions of
inquiry in so the beliefs of the people. This is quite clear from the passage
which he quotes from Cardinal Newman and wonders how far I would accept the
application of the Cardinal's dictum to Islam. Let me tell him that there is a
tremendous difference between the inner structure of Islam and Catholicism
wherein the complexity, the ultra-rational character and the number of dogmas
has, as the history of Christianity shows, always fostered possibilities of
fresh heretical interpretations. The simple faith of Muhammad is based on two
propositions-that God is One, and that Muhammad is the last of the line of those
holy men who have appeared from time to time in all countries and in all ages to
guide mankind to the right ways of living. If, as some Christian riters think, a
dogma must be defined as an ultra-rational proposition which, for the purpose of
securing religious solidarity, must be assented to without any understanding of
its metaphysical import, then these two simple propositions of Islam cannot be
described even as dogmas; for both of them are supported by the experience of
mankind, and are fairly amenable to rational argument. The question of a heresy,
which needs the verdict whether the author of it is within or without the fold,
can arise, in the case of a religious society founded on such simple
propositions, only when the heretic rejects both or either of these
propositions. Such heresy must be and has been rare in the history of Islam
which, while jealous of its frontiers, permits freedom of interpretation within
these frontiers. And since the phenomenon of the kind of heresy which affects
the boundaries of Islam has been rare in the history of Islam, the feeling of
the average Muslim is naturally intense when a revolt of this kind arises. That
is why the feeling of Muslim Persia was so intense against the Bahais. That is
why the feeling of the Indian Muslims is so intense against the Qadianis.
It is true that mutual accusations of heresy for differences in minor points of
law and theology among Muslim religious sects have been rather common. In this
indiscriminate use of the word Kufr, both for minor theological points of
difference as well as for the extreme cases of heresy which involve the
excommunication of the heretic, some present-day educated Muslims, who possess
practically no knowledge of the history of Muslim theological disputes, see a
sign of social and political disintegration of the Muslim community. This,
however, is an entirely wrong notion. The history of Muslim Theology shows that
mutual accusation of heresy on minor points of difference has, far from working
as a disruptive force, actually given an impetus to synthetic theological
thought. "When we read the history of development of Muhammadan Law,"
says Professor Hurgronje, "we find that, on the one hand, the doctors of
every age, on the slightest stimulus, condemn one another to
the point of mutual accusations of heresy; and, on the other hand, the very same
people with greater and greater unity of purpose try to reconcile the similar
quarrels of their predecessors." The student of Muslim Theology knows that
among Muslim legists this kind of heresy is technically known as "heresy
below heresy," i.e. the kind of heresy which does not involve the
excommunication of the culprit. It may be admitted, however, that in the hands
of mullas whose intellectual laziness takes all oppositions of theological
thought as absolute and is consequently blind to the unity in difference, this
minor heresy may become a source of great mischief. This mischief can be
remedied only by giving to the students of our theological schools a clearer
vision of the synthetic spirit of Islam, and by reinitiating them into the
function of logical contradiction as a principle
of movement. in theological dialectic. The question of what may be called major
heresy arises only when the teaching of a thinker or a reformer affects the
frontiers of the faith of Islam. Unfortunately, this question does arise in
connection with the teachings of Qadianism. It must be pointed out here that the
Ahmadi movement is divided into two camps known as the
Qadianis and the Lahoris. The former openly declare the founder to be a full
prophet; the latter, either by conviction or policy, have found it advisable to
preach an apparently toned down Qadianism. However, the question whether the
founder of Ahmadism was a prophet the denial of whose mission entails what I
call the "major heresy" is a matter of dispute between the two
sections. It is unnecessary for my purposes to judge the merits of this domestic
controversy of the Ahmadis. I believe, for reasons to be explained presently,
that the idea of a full-prophet whose denial entails the denier's
excommunication from Islam is essential to Ahmadism; and that the present head
of the Qadianis is far more consistent with the spirit of the movement than the
Imam of the Lahoris.
The cultural value of the idea of Finality in Islam I have fully explained
elsewhere, Its meaning is simple: No spiritual surrender to any human being
after Muhammad who emancipated his followers by giving them a law which is
realizable as arising from the very core of human conscience. Theologically, the
doctrine is that: the socio-political Organization called "Islam" is
perfect and eternal. No revelation the denial of which entails heresy is
possible after Muhammad. He who claims such a revelation is a traitor to Islam.
Since the Qadianis believe the founder of the Ahmadiyyah movement to be the
bearer of such a revelation, they declare that the entire world of Islam is
infidel. The founder's own argument, quite worthy of a medieval theologian, is
that the spirituality of the Holy Prophet of Islam must be regarded as imperfect
if it is not creative of another prophet. He claims
his own prophethood to be an evidence of the prophet-rearing power of the
spirituality of the Holy Prophet of Islam. But if you further ask him whether
the spirituality of Muhammad is capable of rearing more prophets than one, his
answer is "No". This virtually amounts to saying: "Muhammad is
not the last Prophet: I am the last." Far from understanding the cultural
value of the Islamic idea of finality in the history of mankind generally and of
Asia especially, he thinks that finality in the sense that no follower of
Muhammad can ever reach the status of prophethood is a mark of imperfection in
Muhammad's prophethood. As I read the psychology of his mind he, in the interest
of his own claim to prophethood, avails himself of what he describes
as the creative spirituality of the Holy Prophet of Islam and, at the same time,
deprives the Holy Prophet of his "finality" by limiting the creative
capacity of his spirituality to the rearing of only one prophet, i.e, the
founder of the Ahmadiyyah movement. In this way does the new prophet quietly
steal away the "finality" of one whom he claims to be his spiritual
progenitor.
He claims to be a buruz of the Holy Prophet of Islam insinuating there by that,
being a buruz of him, his "finality" is virtually the
"finality" of Muhammad; and that this view of the matter, therefore,
does not violate, the "finality" of the Holy Prophet. In identifying
the two finalities, his own and that of the Holy Prophet, he conveniently loses
sight of the temporal meaning of the idea of Finality. It is, however, obvious
that the word buruz, in the sense even of complete likeness, cannot help him at
all; for the buruz must. always remain the other side of its original. Only in
the sense of reincarnation a buruz becomes identical with the original. Thus if
we take the word buruz to mean "like in spiritual qualities" the
argument remains ineffective; if, on the other hand, we take it to mean
reincarnation of the original in the Aryan sense of the word, the argument
becomes plausible; but
its author turns out to be only a Magian in disguise.
It is further claimed on the authority of the great Muslim mystic, Muhyuddin ibn
Arabi of Spain, that it is possible for a Muslim saint to attain, in his
spiritual evolution, to the kind of experience characteristic of the prophetic
consciousness. I personally believe this view of Shaikh Muhyuddin ibn Arabi to
be psychologically unsound; but assuming it to be correct the Qadiani argument
is based on a complete misunderstanding of his exact position. The Shaikh
regards it as a purely private achievement which does not, and in the nature of
things cannot, entitle such a saint to declare that all those who do not believe
in him are outside the pale of Islam. Indeed, from the Shaikh's point of view,
there may be more than one-saint, living in the same age or country, who may
attain to prophetic consciousness. The point to be seized is that, while it is
psychologically possible for a saint to attain to prophetic experience, his
experience will have no socio-political significance making him the center of a
new Organization and entitling him to declare this Organization to be the
criterion of the faith or disbelief of the followers of Muhammad.
Leaving his mystical psychology aside I am convinced from a careful study of the
relevant passages of the Futuhat that the great Spanish mystic is as firm a
believer in the Finality of Muhammad as any orthodox Muslim. And if he had seen
in his mystical vision that one day in the East some Indian amateurs in Sufism
would seek to destroy the Holy Prophet's finality under cover of his mystical
psychology, he would have certainly anticipated the Indian Ulama in warning the
Muslims of the world against such traitors to Islam.
II
Coming now to the essence of Ahmadism. A discussion of its
sources and of the way in which pre-Islamic Magian ideas have, through the
channels of Islamic mysticism, worked on the mind of its author would be
extremely interesting from the standpoint of comparative religion. It is,
however, impossible for me to undertake this discussion here. Suffice it to say
that
the real nature of Ahmadism is hidden behind the mist of medieval mysticism and
theology. The Indian Ulama, therefore, took it to be a purely theological
movement and came out with theological weapons to deal with it. I believe,
however, that this was not the proper method of dealing with the movement; and
that the success of the Ulama was, therefore, only partial. A careful
psychological analysis of the revelations of the founder would perhaps be an
effective method of dissecting the inner life of his personality. In this
connection, I may mention Maulvi Manzur Elahi's collection of the founder's
revelations which offers rich and varied material for psychological research. In
my opinion the book provides a key to the character and personality of
the founder and I do hope that one day some young student of modern psychology
will take it up for serious study. If he takes the Qur'an for his criterion, as
he must for reasons which cannot be explained here, and extends his study to a
comparative examination of the experiences of the founder of the Ahmadiyyah
movement and contemporary non-Muslim mystics, such as Rama Krishna of Bengal, he
is sure to meet more than one surprise as to the essential character of the
experience on the basis of which prophethood is claimed for the originator of
Ahmadism.
Another equally effective and more fruitful method, from the standpoint of the
plain man, is to understand the real content of Ahmadism in the light of the
history of Muslim theological thought in India at least from the year 1799. The
year 1799 is extremely important in the history of the world of Islam. In this
year fell Tippu, and his fall meant the extinguishing of the
Muslim hopes for political prestige in India. In the same year was fought the
battle of Navarneo which saw the destruction of the Turkish fleet. Prophetic
were the words of the author of the chronogram of Tippu's fall which visitors of
Serangapatam find engraved on the wall of Tippu's mausoleum: "Gone is the
glory of India as well of Roum." Thus, in the year 1799, the political
decay of Islam in Asia reached its climax. But just as out of the humiliation of
Germany on the day of Jena arose the modern German nation, it may be said with
equal truth that out of the political humiliation of Islam in the year 1799
arose modern Islam and her problems. This point I shall explain in the sequel.
For the present I want to draw the reader's attention to some of the questions
which have arisen in Muslim India since the fall of Tippu and the development of
European imperialism in Asia.
Does the idea of Caliphate in Islam embody a religious institution? How are the
Indian Muslims, and for the matter of that all Muslims outside the Turkish
Empire, related to the Turkish Caliphate? Is India Dar-ul-Harb or Dar-ul-Islam?
What is the real meaning of the doctrine of Jihad in Islam? What is the meaning
of the expression "From amongst you" in the Qur'anic
verse: "Obey God, obey the Prophet and the masters of the affair, i.e.
rulers, from amongst you"? What is the character of the Traditions of the
Prophet foretelling the advent of Imam Mahdi? These questions and some others
which arose subsequently were, for obvious reasons, questions for Indian Muslims
only. European imperialism, however, which was then rapidly
penetrating the world of Islam, was also intimately interested in them. The
controversies which these questions created form a most interesting chapter in
the history of Islam in India. The story is a long one and is still waiting for
a powerful pen. Muslim politicians whose eyes were mainly fixed on the realities
of the situation succeeded in winning over a section of the Ulama to adopt a
line of theological argument which as they thought suited the situation; but it
was not easy to conquer by mere logic the beliefs which had ruled for centuries
the conscience of the masses of Islam in India . In such a situation, logic can
either proceed on the ground of political expediency or on the lines of a fresh
orientation of texts and traditions. In either case, the argument will fail to
appeal to the masses. To the intensely religious masses of Islam only one thing
can make a conclusive
appeal, and that is Divine Authority. For an effective eradication of orthodox
beliefs it was found necessary to find a revelational basis for a politically
suitable orientation of theological doctrines involved in the questions
mentioned above. This revelational basis is provided by Ahmadism. And the
Ahmadis themselves claim this to be the greatest service rendered by them to
British imperialism. The prophetic claim to a revelational basis for theological
views of a political significance amounts to declaring that those who do not
accept the claimant's views are infidels of the first water and destined for the
flames of Hell. As I understand the significance of the movement, the Ahmadi
belief that Christ died the death of an ordinary mortal,
and that his second advent means only the advent of a person who is spiritually
"like unto him," give the movement some sort of a rational appearance;
but they are not really essential to the spirit of the movement.
In my opinion, they are only preliminary steps towards the idea
of full prophethood which alone can serve the purposes of the movement
eventually brought into being by new political forces. In primitive countries it
is not logic but authority that appeals. Given a sufficient amount of ignorance,
credulity which strangely enough sometimes coexists with good intelligence, and
a person sufficiently audacious to declare himself a recipient of Divine
revelation whose denial would entail eternal damnation, it is easy, in a subject
Muslim country to invent a political theology and to build a community whose
creed is political servility. And in the Punjab, even an ill-woven net of vague
theological expressions can easily capture the innocent peasant who has been for
centuries exposed to all kinds of exploitation. Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru advises
the orthodox of all religions
to unite and thus to delay the coming of what he conceives to be Indian
Nationalism. This ironical advice assumes that Ahmadism is a reform movement: he
does not know that as far as Islam in India is concerned, Ahmadism involves both
religious and political issues of the highest importance. As I have explained
above, the function of Ahmadism in the history of Muslim religious thought is to
furnish a revelational basis for India's present political subjugation. Leaving
aside the purely religious issues, on the ground of political issues alone it
does not lie in the mouth of a man like Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru to accuse
Indian Muslims of reactionary conservatism. I have no doubt that if he had
grasped the real nature of Ahmadism he would have very much appreciated the
attitude of Indian Muslims towards a religious movement which claims Divine
authority for the woes of India.
Thus the reader will see that the pallor of Ahmadism which we find on the cheeks
of Indian Islam today is not an abrupt phenomenon in the history of Muslim
religious thought in India. The ideas which eventually shaped themselves in the
form of this movement became prominent in theological discussions long before
the founder of Ahmadism was born. Nor do I mean to insinuate that the founder of
Ahmadism and his companions deliberately planned their programme. I dare say the
founder of the Ahmadiyyah movement did hear a voice; but whether this voice came
from the God of Life and Power or arose out of the spiritual impoverishment of
the people must depend upon the nature of the movement which it has created and
the kind of thought and emotion which it has given to those who have listened to
it. The reader must not think that I am using metaphorical language. The
life-history of nations shows that when the tide of life in a people begins to
ebb, decadence itself becomes a source of inspiration, inspiring their poets,
philosophers, saints, statesmen, and turning them into a class of apostles whose
sole ministry is to glorify, by the force of a seductive art or logic, all that
is ignoble and ugly in the life of their people. These apostles unconsciously
clothe despair in the glittering garment of hope, undermine the traditional
values of conduct and thus destroy the spiritual virility of those who happen to
be their victims. One can only imagine the rotten state of a people's will who
are, on the basis of Divine authority, made to accept their political
environment as final. Thus, all the actors who participated in the drama of
Ahmadism were, I think, only innocent instruments in the hands of decadence. A
similar drama had already been acted in Persia; but it did not lead, and could
not have led, to the religious and political issues which Ahmadism has created
for Islam in India. Russia offered tolerance to Babism and allowed the Babis to
open their first missionary center in Ishqabad. England showed Ahmadism the same
tolerance in allowing them to open their first missionary
center in Woking. Whether Russia and England showed this tolerance on the ground
of imperial expediency or pure broadmindedness is difficult for us to decide.
This much is absolutely clear that this tolerance has created difficult problems
for Islam in Asia. In view of the structure of Islam, as I understand it, I have
not the least doubt in my mind that Islam will emerge
purer out of the difficulties thus created for her. Times are changing.
Things in India have already taken a new turn. The new spirit of
democracy which is coming to India is sure to disillusion the Ahmadis and to
convince them of the absolute futility of their theological inventions.
Nor will Islam tolerate any revival of medieval mysticism which has already
robbed its followers of their healthy instincts and given them only obscure
thinking in return. It has, during the course of the past centuries, absorbed
the best minds of Islam leaving the affairs of the State to mere mediocrity.
Modern Islam cannot afford to repeat the experiment. Nor can it tolerate a
repetition of the Punjab experiment of keeping Muslims occupied for half a
century in theological problems which had absolutely no bearing on life. Islam
has already passed into the broad day light of fresh thought and experience, and
no saint or prophet can bring it back to the fogs of medieval mysticism...
[From the Book: Islam and Ahmadim, Dawah Academy, international Islamic University, Islamabad]
BIOGRAPHY - IQBAL WORKS - IQBAL'S ENGLISH WORKS - IQBAL LETTERS -
IQBAL THE VISIONARY - IQBAL AND POLITICS - IQBAL AND THE QUAID i AZAM
IQBAL IN YEARS - IJTIHAD AND ISLAMIC MOVEMENT BY IQBAL
QUOTES FROM IQBAL - REGARDING QADIANI (AHMADIYYA) MOVEMENT
ETHNIC, RACIAL ISLAMIC REVOLUTION