Statement of Al-Hafiz B.A. Masri
(Retired Imaam of the Shah Jehan Mosque, Woking, England)
Regarding the Qadiani (Ahmadiyya) Cult

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Beneficent

Qadianism , which is also known as Mirzaiyyat or Ahmadiyyat has become quite a serious and controversial issue these days. Throughout the world, Muslims have started campaigning against this distorted movement within Islam. Why is it so?  Why has our opposition against them become so intense during recent years?  I am often being asked by our young Muslims, as to why we feel so strongly against Mirzaiyyat (Ahmadiyyat), while Islam teaches tolerance and forbearance in matters of theological differences; especially (since), the modern educated young muslims, think that we do not even feel the same way against those religions whose doctrines are sharply in contest to the doctrine of Islam.  For example, there are religions, some of which believe in their Prophets as the son of God, some of them worship animals, while there are others who do not believe in the very existence of God.  In spite of all such discordance in belief, we go on tolerating them.  Such Muslims feel that we should leave the Mirzais too alone to let them follow their own path as they like.  In order to understand the full implications of this and various other similar questions we shall have to dig deep into understand the true nature of this creed .

Is this movement of reform within Islam, as it claims to be; or is it a pious fraud in the name of Islam? This audio cassette will not be enough to deal with many various aspects of this subject. What I intend doing is to treat this recording, as an introduction to this subject.

During the initial stages of this movement of Qadianism, about 100 years ago, our ulama did not get much alarmed by the falsified and deceitful doctrine which this creed had started grafting into the body of Islamic theology and Shariah ,under the pretext of reform. They hoped that this corruption, this fitna, would die its natural death -- in the same way as many similar fiascoes, which had appeared in past in the name of Islam, had fizzled out of their own accord.  However, as time passed on, they realized that this movement was not what meets the eye and that it was much more sinister than what it appeared to be.

In due course of time it become obvious to Muslims that the Qadianis had the benevolent patronage of the British Raj. The Colonial Government in India at that time considered the Muslims a perpetual and potential threat.  It was only 35 years earlier that the Muslims had carried out a near successful revolt, known in history as ‘The Mutiny of 1857’.  The British administration saw in the Qadianis a useful collaborator in disrupting the established doctrinal framework of Islam and started aiding and abetting them.  It is under such circumstances that we see in the Qadianis literature volumes of publication preaching loyalty to the British Government. They even went so far as to declare that allegiance to the British Sovereign was a religious obligation of the Indian Muslims.  In support of this diction or ‘fatwa’, they cited the verse of holy Quran, commanding us to obey those who had being entrusted with authority over us -- meaning the British Government.  However, while quoting these verses, they conveniently omitted the proviso laid down by the holy Quran that the rulers should be from amongst us, that is they should be Muslims.

It was not only during those early day that the Qadianism started playing the role of henchmen of the colonial power.  Right throughout their history of 100 years, they has been secretly joining forces with the enemies of Islam.  It is an open secret now that in the current international struggle of power politics, especially in the Middle East, they offered their mercenary services to the open enemies of the Muslim Nations.

Some of our people become impressed by the apparent organisation of this cult and by their exaggerated claims of success in opening up their mission houses in various parts of the world. Little do they know that these are in reality spy centers in the guise of daawa (invitation to Islam) missions.  For that matter, even the Qadiani public doesn’t know what is going on behind the scenes. They are given the impression that all this progress is being made possible by their donations. While the fact is that large sums of money are being paid to the Qadiani establishment by those countries, whose political and economic interests are at stake in these Islamic countries. Such enemies of Islam have found in Qadianis willing partisans and useful spies. It makes it much easier and safer for the Qadianis (Ahmadis) to work as such, for the simple reason that they are functioning under the garb of Islam and are accepted by the non-Muslims as a sect within Islam.

Have you ever wondered, why it is that for the last some years, it has become so easy for Qadianis/Ahmadis to migrate to European Countries and America, while the immigration restrictions for others are becoming more and more stringent?

I have mentioned earlier that the Muslim conflict with this creed is mainly because of their hypocritical claim of being muslims. Let me assure you, that it is not because of intolerance or false dogmatism. Let these people declare themselves as a new religion, out of the pale of Islam, and we shall start treating them the same as we treat all the other religions. We do have our doctrinal differences with other religions; In spite of the fact that some of those differences are fundamental, we always try to sort them out with the good grace through amicable debate.  We cannot, however, take it lying down when an impostor, shamming to be one of us, start misrepresenting very fundamental articles of our faith.

Let us take a few examples:

The concept of Finality of Prophethood in Islam is original and unprecedented in the history of revealed religions.  We are told that there has never been a period nor any part of the world where God did not send his messenger for the spiritual uplift and guidance of mankind and that it is one of the condition of our faith in Islam that we should acknowledge all of them as Messengers of Allah.

This whole concept is based on the principle that God reveals its guidance for the spiritual development of mankind gradually, bit by bit, in accordance with the mental capacity of human beings in each age. This process of gradual revelation through messenger after messenger, went on until we reached the intellectual age when the law of Allah, what we call Shariah, was completed through the holy Prophet Muhammad^(SAW). According to this precept, Muslims believe in all sincerity that there is going to be no more Prophets after the Holy Prophet Muhammad^(SAW) and that anyone who claims to be one is either insane or an impostor or a hypocrite.

When Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadiani announced his claim that he was a Prophet, sent by God as the Promised Messiah, the Muslim Ummah naturally took their stand on the issue, and denounced him as an heretic. As I have said before, this theological sedition, or fitna, in Islam would have been nipped in the bud, but for the patronage of the British Government and now for the financial support it is receiving form some of the anti-Muslim countries.

This short recording is not enough to go into the details of the issue of the Finality of the Prophethood. However, I would try very briefly to explain why Muslims have always taken this issue so seriously.

In spite of the fact that there are many schools of thought in Islam, their differences revolve around only secondary subjects of inquiry and interpretation. There is no discord among any of these school in the major and fundamental articles of faith. Two things have contributed mainly to the continuity of the characteristic spirit of the Muslim brotherhood as a whole :-

• One is the Finality of the Quran-e-Majeed, as the Word of Allah;
• Second is the Finality of Hazrat Muhammad^(SAW), as the Messenger of God.

You shake these two corner stones and the whole edifice of Islam comes tumbling down. Thus it is that the personality of Muhammad^(SAW), as the last and final Messenger, (which) has become the pivot on which the universal brotherhood of the Ummah oscillates. Thus is why, wherever the opponents of Islam plan to strike at the roots of Islam, they start challenging the validity of Quran-e-Majeed and maligning the personality of the holy Prophet^(SAW).

We are used to such attacks from without and know how to deal with them. The real problem arises, however, when someone from within start playing the traitor, as the Qadianis are doing. You can fend off a danger which you can see, but you more liable to be taken unawares and be bitten by a snake in the grass; and this is what happened to some of our Muslims.

When Mirza Ghulam Ahmad started this movement -- which he named Ahmadiyyat -- Muslims in India were passing through a very difficult period. Christian Missionaries had started a vigorous campaign of conversion among the Muslims.  Even the Hindus had started a similar campaign of conversion under a movement called ‘Shudhi’. On top of all these onslaughts, the British Government was still following their policy of rendering the Muslims weak. It was in such a frustrating climate, that Mirza Gulam Ahmed emerged. During his early writings, there was no passing word or allusion that he was a Prophet and a Promised Messiah.

I was born in Qadian in 1914 and spent my childhood among these people.  I know from personal observations that many of those who joined the movement at the outset, where honest and sincere Muslims, who had taken for granted that this was the genuine reform movement within Islam.  However, with the progress of time and popularity, grandiose claims started being put into circulation one after the other, so gradually and so covertly that today the third and the fourth generation of Qadianis have no inkling of how they have been bamboozled. They have no idea that the same Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, whom their grandparents had mistakenly accepted as a servant of Prophet Ahmad, has become ‘Prophet’ Ahmad in his own right.

The present generation of Qadianis have been brainwashed so occultly into believing that belief in ‘prophethood of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’ is a prerequisite of belief in Islam . This belief is so essential for them, that all non-Qadiani Muslims are ‘Kafirs’. So much so that it is sacrilegious for them to say their prayers behind a Muslim, to perform funeral services on a deceased Muslim, to inter-marry among Muslims, and so on. Qadian has taken the place of Makkah for them, its various locations and sites have become for them the signs of God, in the same sense as Quran-e-Majeed called some sacred sites in Makkah as signs of God  (Sha’air Allah). The wife of their so-called Prophet is given the same title of the Mother of the Faithful (Umm-ul-Momineen) just as Muslims gave to the wives of the holy Prophet Muhammad^(SAW).

The Second of their Khalifas, Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmood, son of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani, started claiming that his spiritual status is superior to that of Hazrat Umar ibn Al-Khattab, the second Khalifa of Islam, while the actual position is that this renegade was a well-known pervert and debauchee.

Recently, the present Head of the Qadianis, issued a challenge of Mubahillah (prayer duel) to Muslims.  I too was sent a copy of this challenge by registered post, which I accepted.

In my reply, I have put on record my personal observations of the moral corruption that prevails in the Qadiani society.  My reply, the details of the characters of their issues and the circumstances in which I denounced this creed, all this had been published in the booklet form as an Open Letter to the Amir of Qadianis.  It is available from Maulana Sohail Hasan, 101 Belmont Road Tottenham London N17 68O, England.

Wassalamo Aleikum wa Rahmatullahe wa Barakatuh.