Khuddam USA Souvenir 1989 — Page 31
Council meetings such as one reported in the Ahmadiy y a Gazelle held in Dayton. Ohio, on July 7 and 8, 1973. Muhammad Ismail Jamil concentrated on sales of books. Local activities continued and national officers were m place. but national organization was still developing Late Seventies The fourth national Qa1d or Qaid+A 'la - Yahya Abdul lah Shanf, was elected at the Annual Convention of 1975 and reelected in 1977 , he had been active since the '60s on a local and national level. most recently as Nazim- i- Atfal. Yahya Sharif returned the Khuddam to the earlier structure under Munir Hamid but also more fully devel- oped the general programs. The Khuddam were ready to advance and more actively participate. And they were able to do so on nallonal and local levels These four years saw superior organization in every endeavor undertaken and the full involvement of all those Khuddam who wished to be active and to be involved The question of how to unify Khuddam throughout a vast country such as the U. S. had begun to be developed in the time of Munir Hamid through national programs. Circle Meetings, the Khadim newsletter, and some na ~ tional conference meemgs From 1975 to 1979 the methods of developing a cohesive national Majlis were advanced further The country was divided into five Zlllas or regions and numbered Khuddam branches were identified within each Zilla. One example Philadelphia was Branch 10 under Zilla Northeast I A regional Qaid, later called Za1m , was put in charge of each region as well as a Murabbi for the organization of Atfal. These regional Za1ms reported to the national and deputy Qaids. The ten departments ofKhuddamul Ahmadiyya set up by Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II were simplified as follows: The finance and administrative departments were sepa- rated from those that directly affected the training of Khuddam. The other areas were broken into four main functions Through the works of Nazi ms of three of these depart- ments (Propagation. Tahir Abdullah; Services, Abdul Kareem; and Fitness. Rashid Arshed), and the National Qaid a pamphlet was laid out called National Guidelines for Regional Program s. In 1t, guidelines-not specific pro- grams- were put together from which regional officers could develop regional and local programs. One example: Under propagation. twelve guidelines for conduct of propagation were mentioned So me of the parti cipants oj 19 78 annual 11t ema (Photo by Abdus Sam1 KhaliqJ Khuddam-ul-Ahmadiyya U. S. A. - 31