Africa Speaks — Page 94
. . ~ West Africa (Weekly,) London, summed up the African tour of Ahmadiyya Chief in its issue No. 2763 dated May 23. Here is the full report. Of all the millions of Muslims in West Africa, relatively few follow the Ahmadiyya Movement, the reformist sect started in India 80 years ago; nor is it, historically speaking, the leading reformist Muslim Movement in an area where the Tijaniyya are still powerful after two centuries, and the influence of Dan Fodio lives on. But few Muslim Communities in West Africa are so much in the news as the Ahmadiyya, especially during the recent tour by the Head of the Movement. This is surely because of the energy with which the Movement follows its twin of reforming the practice of Islam, and of converting others to it. The Ahmadiyya, whose national missions are headed by Pakistanis but run mainly by Africans, are an active missionary body who like the Christian churches in West Africa, have been noted for the number of their schools which provide all round education. In Ghana, where they are most strongly established, they run 44 schools, including a secondary school in Kumasi, besides a missionary training college at Saltpond, their Ghana Headquarters, and an Arabic College at Wa. The 1960 census listed 168,000 Ahmadis in Ghana, but there may have been more. In Sierra leone they have four secondary schools at Freetown and Bo among other places, and over forty middle schools. Several new Ahmadiyya Installations, including a new mosque at Accra, were inaugurated by the Head of the Movement, Hazrat Mirza Nasir Ahmad, during his recent tour. This white-bearded Pakistani, a Balliol graduate, happens to be a descendant of the founder of the Move ment, Ghulam Ahmad: the succession is not hereditary, however, Ghulam Ahmad preached that he was the Messiah whose coming the Prophet foretold, and the title of his present successor is Khalifatul Masih (Messiah) ilL One of the main points of Ghulam Ahmad's has been its rejection of "HOLY WARS" and forcible conversion; the Ahmadiyyas revere Dan Fodio as a reformer, however, and are established in Kano and elsewhere in Northern Nigeria. In general their beliefs are not different from those of most Muslims; the belief that the Messiah has already come is sufficient to divide them from many other Muslims, and they have their own separate mosques--164 in Ghana, 158 in Sierra leone. Because of a prophecy by Ghulam Ahmad, the Ahmadiyya reserved a special blessing, to be conferred by their founder's garments, for the first Head of State to follow their Movement. This blessing was conferred on Alhaji Sir Farimang Singhateh, who as Governor General of the 93