Malfuzat – Volume X — Page 222
Malfuzat - English translation of Urdu Volume 10 222 mine. He is very devout in Prayers and is a pious man. He is well respected by all. He is a polite man endowed with every good quality. He is religious. I came to know about your particulars from him and it has, therefore, become my firm belief that Your Holiness is fiercely loyal to Ummat-e-Muhammadiyyah [followers of the Holy Prophet s as ] and is an ardent advocate of the Chosen Messenger [Muhammad s as ] and the Noble Companions. Those who revile you are themselves reviled, but in spite of this belief and opinion of mine, the aforemen- tioned Noor Muhammad does not pray with us in congre- gation nor does he perform the Friday Prayer [with us]. The reason he states is that ‘Our Prayer is not performed behind a non-Ahmadi [imam]. ’ Please urge him to pray behind us so that schisms do not arise, for we do not speak ill on your behalf. This is the quotation and gist of that letter. In reply to it, the Promised Messiah as wrote the following instruc- tion upon that very letter addressing the name of this humble one: 1 Write in reply that since the mullahs [Muslim clergymen] of this country have publicly declared me a kafir [disbeliever] out of their religious bigotry and have promulgated religious ver- dicts [to that effect], and [since] the rest of the people are their followers; therefore, if there are such people who would tender a public announcement to evidence their good faith that they do not follow those maulawis [Muslim clergymen] who have declared me a disbeliever, it would be acceptable to pray with them. Otherwise, the one who declares Muslims to be kafir becomes a kafir himself, so how can we offer our Prayer behind him? Verily, this is not permissible according to the Noble Law [of Islam]. 1. This refers to Hazrat Mufti Muhammad Sadiq ra , the editor of Badr. [Publisher]