My Mother — Page 23
chapter four Spiritual Haven M aulvi Mubarak Ali—whose father, Maulvi Fazal Ahmad, had had the honour of being one of the tutors of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in the latter’s early years—was the Mutawalli and Imam of the Juma Masjid in Sialkot Cantonment, which had a large area of arable land attached to it. The produce of this area enabled the Mutawalli to maintain the Masjid in good order and to support himself in reasonable comfort. It so happened that Maulvi Mubarak Ali joined the Ahmadiyyah Movement towards the close of the nineteenth century. His identification with a set of doctrines that were vehe- mently condemned by orthodox divines, became a source of irritation and uneasiness for the bulk of the congregation at the mosque which were gradually fanned into intolerance and hostil- ity. At last a number of worshippers at the mosque instituted a civil suit against Maulvi Mubarak Ali, seeking a declaration that by joining the Ahmadiyyah Movement the defendant had ceased