تاریخ احمدیت (جلد 17) — Page 284
PAN دنوں اسلام کی تبلیغ واشاعت کے لئے عمل میں آرہی تھیں۔رسالہ لائف نے اس امر کا بھی اعتراف کیا که مبلغین احمدیت جس خوش ذوق و شوق اور جان فروشی کے ساتھ افریقہ میں تبلیغ اسلام کر رہے ہیں اس کے نتیجہ میں عیسائی پادری بے بس نظر آتے ہیں اور جہاں ان کی کوششوں کی بدولت ایک شخص عیسائیت میں داخل ہوتا ہے وہاں احمدی مبلغوں کی مساعی سے دس افراد حلقہ بگوش اسلام ہوتے ہیں۔اس مفید مضمون کا ایک اہم حصہ (مع ترجمہ) درج ذیل کیا جاتا ہے :- MISSIONS A NEW SECT SEEKS TO WIN CONVERTS TO ISLAM Though no faith in history spread with such fabulous speed as Islam, it was no - contrary to Western opinion propagated ex- clusively with fire and sword۔While it is true that the Koran sanctions holy war and that many Pagan chose Islam in prefer- ence to oblivion the Moslems were generally tolerant of Chris- tians and Jews and granted religious freedom to those who paid tribute۔Numerous converts adopted Islam because of its doctrinal appeal۔And in the centuries that followed its first swift florescence, it continued to spread quietly in the wake of Arab traders who carried its precepts to India, China and eventually Indonesia۔Until recently Islam had no organized missionary movement۔For just as the orthodox Moslem abhorrence of mediation between man and God has obviated a priesthood, so individual faith makes every Moslem a missionary۔But Islam has also been a victim of its own pride; contemptuous of other doctrines, it long denied itself the refreshing impact of new and outside ideas۔Today, however, there are signs that it has begun to interest itself in the technique of Christian missions۔Even the ancient Al Azhar University at Cairo, Intellectual center of Islam, which has resisted Western influences, now trains a few students annually for missionary work in the field۔And certain off shoot sects are exhibiting symptoms of religious energy۔Of these the most vocal is a modern sect called the Ahmadiyya, with headquarters in Pakistan and missionary centres throughout Eruope, Africa, America and the Far East۔The Ahmadiyya movement evolved in India during the last half century۔Its origin, as with many other Islamic sects, was eccen- tric۔In 1890 a performer named Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, of Qadian in the Punjab, announced that he was the bearer of a new evelation, a new interpretation of Islam for the modern era, and that his com- ing was foretold both in the Bible and the Koran۔He claimed to be both the Messiah and the Mahdi, a Moslem version of the Messiah, and cited in evidence the similarity of his character to that of Christ (though he afterward asserted his superiority to him)۔A few years۔later he insisted that he was also an avatar, or incarnation, of the