The Essence of Islam – Volume I — Page xxi
INTRODUCTION. Haḍrat Mirzā Ghulām Aḥmadas was born on 20 February 1835 in Qādiān, an outlying small town about 70 miles to the north east of Lāhore. His family was of Persian origin and had been settled at Samarqand in Central Asia. In the first half of the 16th century, his ancestor, Mirzā Hādī. Beg, moved from Samarqand into India together with a couple of hundred retainers and settled in the Eastern. Punjab, where he founded the township which eventually became known as Qādiān. As Mirzā Hādī Beg was, at third or fourth remove, a cousin of Emperor Bābar, he was appointed Judge (Qāḍī) and administrator of a sizeable tract of land which comprised over 100 villages around Qādiān. The town was named Islāmpūr Qādī. In course of time, Islāmpūr was dropped and Qādī, by easy transition, became Qādiān. . The descendants of Mirzā Hādī Beg continued to flourish at Qādiān, and maintained a semi-royal state under the. Moghul emperors. The decline of the Moghul imperial authority, which started towards the middle of the 18th century, began to affect the fortunes of the chieftains of. Qādiān also. Mirzā Gul Muḥammad, the greatgrandfather of Ḥaḍrat Mirzā Ghulām Aḥmad, was an enlightened personage, learned and pious, who made. Qādiān a centre of learning and resort for scholarly divines. He had a very generous disposition and gave away several villages to smaller Muslim chieftains who had lost their own estates to the Sikhs whose power was on the increase at the cost of the central Moghul authority. . Mirzā Gul Muḥammad was succeeded by his son, Mirzā ‘Atā Muḥammad, during whose time Sikh depredations