The System of Mushawarat in Jama'at-e-Ahmadiyya — Page 140
T he S ystem of M ush A wakat in J ama ‘ at - e -A hmadiyya are more pious and honest and are regular in their wor ship. Some Jama'ats naively believe that such and such a person should be sent as their representative because he knows something o f financial matters or is a good speaker. Let me say that if the knowledge o f finance was the criteria for representation in Shura, we would invite some Hindu as a delegate, or even a Christian, if he hap pened to be good at finance. The thing is that budgetary matters are only o f secon dary importance, and it would not matter if they were not included in the Shura at all. After all, no budget was prepared in the days o f the H oly Prophet33. Likew ise, no budget was prepared in the time o f Hadrat Abu Bakr™, Hadrat ‘Umarra or Hadrat ‘A ll”. And no budget was pre pared during the time o f the Promised M essiah38. The budget only started at the time o f Hadrat Khalifatul Masih Ira when the task was assigned to the Anjuman. If at any time, due to any necessity, we were to abolish this M ajlis, would it harm the Jama'at in any way? The dis cussion about the budget, therefore, is only a superficial matter, and if we were to select members who had knowledge o f finance, but were braggarts and critics, and did not consider piety and Taqwa as the criteria for se lecting the members, it would be very much like taking out someone’s soul in order to cleanse his face; and what can anyone do with a corpse, even if it has a clean and shining face! There would be nothing better than to find people who are pious and righteous, and are also proficient in worldly knowledge and in financial matters, or happen to be good speakers or lecturers. And I have never said that w e should elect only those people who are regular in their prayers but 140