Khuddam USA Souvenir 1989 — Page 12
HAZRAT MIRZA TAHIR AHMAD, KHALIFATUL MASIH IV (MAY ALLAH BE HIS SUPPORT) I from Introductory remarks by Edward Mo rtim er of the Fmoncio/ Times of London made before a speech by th e Khal1fatul Maslh IV Compiled by Syed Sa11d Ahmad from an audio tape. I ". . Not only is he fourth successor but he is also the grandson of that founding genius of the Ahmad1yya. Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad was born in Qadian, which was the birthplace of the Ahmadi movement in 1928. "He was educated in India and in that part of India which became Pakistan. . . . His father showed a typical breadth of mind and the spirit in encouraging him to come in the 1950s to the School of Oriental and African Studies here in London where he studied for two years. . . We should be appreciative of that. After all, there are many Muslims who would say that anything to do with Western Orientahsm should be eschewed as something imperialistic and seeking to distort or to denigrate Islam. I know from the khalifa's own writings that he certainty does not agree with all the Orientalists' interpre- tations of Islam but he has been prepared to read them, to study them, and to find something positive as well as negative in the exploration of Islam by Western scholars. And I think that is significant and typical of the spirit of Ahmadiyya. "I was delighted to read in his biography that while he was based in London in the 1950s, he hitchhiked all over Europe. . . . That brings home to us that we are not dealing here with some very remote and ascetic religious figure but with a religious leader who is very much part of this world and sharing in the ordinary experiences and pleas- ures of his fellow human beings and who is a person of great curiosity about the world and particularly of the different nations and societies that inhabit it. " It also (is J interesting. . . to know that he is an expert in homeopathy and his ministry is not a purely spiritual one but he also has a mission of heating which I think again helps us to situate him in the concrete and physical r ea lity of human suffering and human life and that is a very important aspect of any religious leader 's mission. "He returned to Pakistan. He led a very active life in different aspects of his community in various positions of leadership until on the death of his brother in 1982 , he in his turn , was elected as the khalifa. And it was two years after that that he was obliged, owing to the sad events that took place in Pakistan around that time , to move the headquarters of the community to this co untry. And I think we can say that Pakistan 's toss in that respect has been o ur gain. "But, of course, those events in Pakistan, which in many ways were a prolongation of earlier sad events that took pl ace in Punjab in 1953, revolved around the vexed ques- tion o f who is a Muslim. . . . This is the sensitive point when one discusses the Ahmadi community because other Muslim s do not accept the Ahmadis as Muslims. . . . I re memb er once discussing with some other Muslims 12 Centenary Souvenir and th ey said, ·o yes. or course. the Ahmadis make a great fuss about that, but you know that they are equally intolerant, and they don't regard us as real Muslims either. '. I had the opportumty to put that poi nt to His Holiness and his answer was. ' It is true. but I am not pre- ve nting General Ziaut Haq ,' who was then the ruler of Pakistan, 'from dcd. uing himself a Muslim and that is the difference between us· And of course that is the cr ucial difference "He was already a very thoughtful and acti ve member of co mmunity at the time of those riots in the Punjab in 1953. . . . He wrote a boot-. , which was a fruit of his reflections on those events, called 'Mazhab ke Nam par Khoon; which has now been trilnslated into English in an updated edition, with a rather alarming title, 'Murder in th e Name of Allah. ' But, of course. purpose of this is precisely to show how utterly wrong and contradictory it is for anybody to incite or to carry out murder and to claim that they are doing 1l in the name of the one God And I recommend this book to you. I think it is very useful book for non -Muslims. because it quotes very carefully all the examples from the Qui an, from the life of the Prophet. about which it has been alleged that they show that the Prophet resorted to coercion or that coercion in religion is in fa ct part of Islam And it refutes them very ~are fully and painstakingly and I find that. ex tremely instructive. . . . "