The Riots of 1953 — Page 48
48 Q. Does the appearance of a nabi give rise to a new ummat? A. No. Q. Does it give rise to a new Juma‘at? A. Yes. Q. Does not the belief in a new nabi affect his followers’ conduct towards others? A. The answer to this question is in the affirmative if the nabi comes with a new shara’. If he brings no new Shara’, the conduct of the followers of that nabi will be affected according to the treatment that they receive from others. Q. Are Ahmadis a separate class in the second sense? A. We are not a separate ummat but a sect (“firqa”) of Muslims. Q. Is the first duty of an Ahmadi to his State or to the head of his community? A. It is a part of our creed that we should obey the Government of the State in which we live. Q. Before 1891, did not Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Sahib repeatedly say that he was not a nabi and that the wahi revealed to him was not wahi-i-nubuwwat but wahi-i-wilayat? A. He said in 1900 that till then he was of the view that a person could be a nabi only if he brought a new shara’, but that Allah in one of the wahis revealed to him that this was not a necessary qualification of a nabi and that a person could be a nabi without bringing a new shara’. Q. Was Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Sahib ma’sum? A. If the meaning of the word ma’sum is that a person can never err, then nobody is ma’sum, not even our Holy Prophet. When the epithet ma’sum is applied to a nabi, the meaning is that he cannot contravene any rule of the shara’ by which he is governed. In other words, he is not capable of committing any kind of sin, sagheera or kabeera, or even of acts that are