تاریخ احمدیت (جلد 14) — Page 553
Government, is it correct to presume that Ahmadis in Government service would owe their first loyalty to you? Answer: "Loyalty to the Goverment of the day is an article of faith with us۔The moment I entered into such conflict which will put to the test the loyalty of Ahmadis in Govern- ment service I should be ready to be thrown out of my pre- sent position of being the Khalifa۔" Continuing he said: "We shall never do anything unconstitutional against the Government of the country established by law"۔If Referring to the country-wide agitation for declaring Ah- madis a minority community, Mirza Sahib said: "I dislike it, not because it is going to do any harm to us, but because it will bring a bad name to Islam۔" Explaining he added: "We are an internationally-growing community and because of our missionary work we bring lot of kudos to Islam and Muslims۔we are branded a minority community separate from the rest of Muslims, our missionary activities abroad will not be inter- preted as an effort on behalf of the Muslim people as a whole but as the work of a distinct religious community۔This will also creat an unbridgeable gulf between the Ahmadis and or- thodox Muslim۔" 31 The shrewd religious leader then posed a question: "What will be the delimiting lines of the proposed Ahmadiyya minority community He said that in the event of the authoritative body in Pakistan declaring it as a minority community, he would have no hisitation in issuing a mandate to his followers to drop the label of Ahmadi and call themselves Muslim only۔He said: "The nomeclature of Ahmadi is not a manda- tory provision in our religious books۔It was only for the sake of showing that the founder had asked his followers to declare themselves as Ahmadis in and during the census operations in his lifetime۔" Question: "Suppose the Government declare your Anjuman a political organisation and then bans it, what will be your attitude? " He promptly said: "I will change the name of the Anjuman, but never come into conflict with the Government۔" On being asked whether in view of the inter-sectarian con- flict on religious issues, he would advocate the establishment of 6