the light - november 2012
DESCRIPTION
English organ of Ahmadiyaa Anjuman Ishaat IslamTRANSCRIPT
November 2012
Editors:
Shahid Aziz
Mustaq Ali
Contents: Page
Call of the Messiah 1
Umar bin Abdul Aziz 4
Persecution and False Piety 6
حیم حمن الر بسم ہللا الرWebcasts: Please note that the Friday khutba
and prayers, the dars, as well as all meetings
are broadcast over the Virtual Mosque
(www.virtualmosque.co.uk).
Call of the Messiah (Continued from the last issue)
Prayer precedes plan
This investigation leads us obviously to the con-clusion that prior to the creation of a plan there is the stage of prayer, which the Law of God has preordained and destined as necessary and in-evitable for man, so that every seeker after an object has naturally to cross over this bridge. It is, therefore, a shameful matter if one should say or think that prayer and plan are contradictions and inconsistent with each other. What is the aim or purpose of prayer? It is evidently that the Great Knower of the Unseen, Who has knowl-edge of even the subtlest schemes, might drop some nice and excellent plan into the suppli-cant’s mind, or create one from his own side by exercising His attributes of all-powerfulness and creative action. How, then, could there be any contradiction or inconsistency between prayer and plan?
A spiritual argument
Besides this, just as the mutual relation between
prayer and plan is proved by the testimony of
the Law of Nature, in the same way, the Book of
Human Nature, too, offers the evidence that at
the time of some affliction, human minds, as is
our observation, turn to adopting a remedial
plan, and tend to prayer, sacrifice and charita-
ble deeds under a natural impulse. If a glance
should be cast upon all the nations of the
world, it seems that up to this time no nation’s
conscience has stood up against this univer-
sally accepted principle. It is, therefore, a spiri-
tual argument upon the fact that the internal
law of man has also, from ancient times, de-
creed unto all the nations that prayer shall not
be separated from plan and proposed action,
and that plan and method of procedure should
rather be sought and explored by means of
prayer. In short, prayer and plan are two natu-
ral requirements of human nature which have,
ever since the creation of man, come down
through the ages, like two real brothers, to at-
tend upon and serve human nature. Whereas
plan is the necessary outcome of prayer, prayer
is the incentive or stimulus for plan; and man’s
blessedness and obedience lies in the fact that
he should, before launching upon a plan, seek
November
2012
Webcasting on the world’s first real-time Islamic service at
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The beauty Allah created – so which of Allah’s bounties will man deny by destroying it?
2
November 2012
help and guidance from the Supreme Source of
all grace, so that, getting light from that Ever-
lasting and Ever-Flowing Fountain, excellent
and effective schemes may be devised and con-
ceived.
Portentous prophecies
There is yet another objection offered in opposi-
tion, namely that no Divine decree or destiny
can be held in suspense, and a revealed proph-
ecy bound up by conditions is against the will
and way of God. Be it known, therefore, that this
objection is a delusion of the same colour as was
the first one. Human minds have ever since been
inclined to this side, that if they be apprised be-
forehand of the coming of a catastrophe they
seek to avert the doom by means of prayer and
sacrifice. It is thus obviously clear that the inter-
nal law of the Most High God has imprinted on
human nature its decree that calamities and af-
flictions can be warded off and obviated by
means of prayer and sacrifice. It is for this rea-
son that all the nations of the world are natu-
rally inclined to this view, that at the time of the
coming of a calamity, or fear of its visitation,
they should take to prayer with all their mind
and concentration. With what pain and repen-
tance people on the sea weep and wail and im-
plore the Most High God for protection when
they find that their ship is being wrecked! In the
Holy Quran, from Prophet Noah down to the
time of the Holy Prophet Muhammad, our great
and glorious Master (peace and the blessings of
God be upon him), all the portentous prophecies
foretelling the dreadful doom of the opponents
of Truth have been, one and all, bound up with
conditions. This means that such and such a ca-
lamity is about to overtake you, and that if you
should repent and do good deeds, the chastise-
ment will be kept in abeyance and withheld,
otherwise you will be swept away and annihi-
lated. The Holy Quran is replete with such
prophecies. But it is surprising indeed that some
people who call themselves Muslims put forth
and urge such objections as are even repugnant
to the teachings of the Holy Quran. The reason
of it is that in this age, many people have so
much engulfed themselves in the pursuit of
worldly affairs that they have become hope-
lessly bereft of the Islamic teaching.
1. There is found, in these days, a group of
people even among the Muslims who say that
there is no such thing as prayer, and that the
dictates of destiny must inevitably come to pass.
But it is regrettable that these people know not
that notwithstanding the truth of the doctrine of
predestination, certain things, in the Law of God,
have been ordained as means for the removal of
certain calamities. For instance, water for the
quenching of thirst and bread for the removal of
hunger are natural means. Why, then, should it
be wondered at or doubted that prayer, too, is a
means, in the Law of God, for the realization of a
need, wherein Providence Divine has implanted
power for the stimulation of Divine favour. The
experience of thousands of saints and righteous
men bears witness to the fact that in prayer
there is undoubtedly a power to arouse and
stimulate. We have also recorded in our books
our personal experiences in this connection;
and there is no bigger argument than personal
experience. Although it is true that everything
has been foreordained, yet, just as it has been
predetermined that so and so will fall ill, and
will then make use of this medicine and recover
from his illness, in the same way it has also been
established beforehand that if such-and-such an
afflicted person will offer prayer and supplica-
tion, then the means for his deliverance will be
created through acceptance of his prayer. And
experience bears it out that wherever it may
happen, by the grace of God, that prayer be of-
fered with all its necessary conditions, that
A Muslim’s love for the Holy Quran shown in creating this beautiful copy of the Holy Book
November 2012
3
tance and pardon; for, it is one of the attrib-
utes of God that He accepts the repentance
of a penitent person, and throws into abey-
ance the prophecy foretelling for him a
dreadful doom.
Hazrat Umar bin Abdul Aziz
Mujaddid of the First Century of Hijra
(From: Noor-i-Islam, October 2012)
There are a few rulers in the world who have left
indelible impressions in history. Caliph Umar ibn
Abdul Aziz tops that list. He is considered one of
the finest rulers in Muslim history, second only to
the four rightly guided caliphs – Hazrats Abu Bakr,
Umar, Uthman and Ali, Allah be pleased with them
all. In fact, in some circles, he is affectionately re-
ferred to as the fifth and the last caliph of Islam
and it is also confirmed from all the lists published
that he was the First Mujaddid in Islam.
The Roman emperor, when he heard about his
death, said: “A virtuous person has passed away …
I am hardly surprised to see an ascetic who re-
nounced the world and give himself to the prayers
of Allah. But I am certainly surprised at a person
work is certainly accomplished and fulfilled. The
Quranic verse saying “Pray to Me, and I will accept
your prayer” also points to the same thing. And yet
one has to wonder why it should be that when all
people – despite having faith in the doctrine of pre-
destination – betake themselves to doctors and
physicians when taken ill, they do not, going by the
example of medical treatment, appreciate and ac-
cept the efficacy of prayer.
2. Just ponder over these verses:
a. “Surely he who keeps his duty and is patient
– Allah never wastes the reward of the doers
of good.” (12:90) This prophecy is of a gen-
eral nature, subject to the conditions of ob-
servance of one’s duty to Allah and patience.
b. “Why should Allah chastise you if you are
grateful and believe?” (4:147) It has been
stated in this prophecy that the approaching
doom can be averted by gratefulness and
belief.
c. “Then as to those who disbelieve, I shall
chastise them with severe chastisement in
this world and the Hereafter, and they will
have no helpers. And as to those who believe
and do good deeds, He will pay them fully
their rewards. And Allah loves not the un-
just.” (3:55–56) In these verses, too, it has
been clearly pointed out that belief is the
condition that can prevent and impede the
coming of chastisement.
d. “But if they give thee (the Prophet) the lie,
then say: Your Lord is the Lord of all-
encompassing mercy; and His punishment
cannot be averted from the guilty peo-
ple.” (6:148) This prophecy, again, is limited
by condition. If the opponents should be-
lieve, they will, of course, get a share of the
vast, all-encompassing mercy of Allah; but if
they should persist in their denial, then the
punishment of God is such that it cannot be
averted by any trick or stratagem. There are,
likewise, in the Holy Quran conditional
prophecies mentioned here and there, in the
histories of the prophets; and to deny them
is, in fact, to deny Islam. Rather it seems
from the story of Prophet Jonah that a por-
tentous prophecy, even though uninvested
with a condition, can be averted by repen-
The Holy Ka‘ba
4
November 2012
who had all the pleasures of the world at his feet
and yet he shut his eyes against them and lived a
life of piety and renunciation.”
Umar bin Abdul Aziz ruled as a caliph for
only 30 months but during this short period he
changed the world. His tenure was the brightest
period in the 92 year history of the Umayyad
Caliphate.
He was the son of Abdul Aziz bin Marwaan,
the governor of Egypt, while his mother, Umm-i-
Aasim, was the granddaughter of Caliph Umar
ibn Al-Khattab.
Umar bin Abdul Aziz wasborn in 63 A.H.
(682 C.E.) inHalwan, Egypt, but hereceived his
education inMadinah from his mother’suncle,
the celebrated scholarAbdullah ibn Umar. He
stayed in Madinah till hisfather’s death in 704
C.E.,when he was called by hisuncle Caliph
Abdul Malik and was married to his daughter
Fatima. He was appointed governor of Madinah
in 706 C.E. succeeding Caliph Waleed bin Abdul
Malik. Umar remained governor of Madinah
throughout the reigns of Caliph Waleed and Ca-
liph Suleiman. But when Suleiman fell seriously
ill, he wanted to appoint an heir, as his sons
were still minors. Reja ibn Haiwah, his advisor,
proposed Umar bin Abdul Aziz as his successor.
Suleiman accepted the suggestion.
After being nominated caliph, Umar ad-
dressed the people saying: “O people, I have
been nominated your caliph despite my unwill-
ingness and without your consent. So here I am,
I relieve you of your pledge [baiyat] that you
have taken for my allegiance. Elect whomsoever
you find suitable as your caliph.” People
shouted: “O Umar, we have full faith in you and
we want you as our caliph.” Umar continued, “O
people, obey me as long as I obey Allah; and if I
disobey Allah, you are not duty-bound to obey
me.”
Umar was extremely pious and averse to
worldly luxuries. He preferred simplicity to ex-
travagance. He deposited all assets and wealth
meant for the ruling caliph into the public treas-
ury. He even abandoned the royal palace and
preferred to live in a modest house. He wore
Masjid-i-Nabwi, the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina
November 2012
5
rough clothes instead of royal robes and often
went unrecognized in public like his great
grandfather Caliph Umar ibn Al Khattab.
After his appointment as caliph he discarded
all the pompous appendages of princely life –
servants, slaves, maids, horses, palaces, golden
robes and real estates – and returned them to
the public treasury. He also asked his wife
Fatima to return the jewelry she had received
from her father Caliph Abdul Malik. The faithful
wife complied with his bidding and deposited all
of it in the Bait Al Maal. Later, he auctioned his
articles of luxury for 23,000 dinars and spent
the amount for charitable purposes.
He never built a house of his own. Allama
Suyuti in his historical work Tarikh Al Khulafaa
records that Umar spent only two dirhams a day
when he was caliph. He received a lesser salary
than his subordinates. His private properties
yielded an income of 50,000 dinars annually
before his nomination, but when he returned all
his properties to the public treasury, his private
income was reduced to 200 dinars per annum.
This was his wealth when he was commanding
the vast empire from the borders of France in
the West to the borders of China in the East.
Once his wife found him weeping after prayers;
she asked what had happened. He replied: “I
have been made the ruler over the Muslims and
I was thinking of the poor who are starving, and
the sick who are destitute, and the naked who
are in distress, and the oppressed that are
stricken, and the stranger that is in prison, and
the venerable elder, and him that hath a large
family and small means, and the like of them in
the countries of the earth and the distant prov-
inces, and I felt that my Lord would ask me
about them on the Day of Resurrection, and I
feared that no defense would avail me [at that
time], and I wept.” He was very considerate to
his subjects.
His generous reforms andleniency led the
people to deposit their taxes willingly. Ibn Kathir
writes that, thanks to the reforms undertaken by
Umar, the annual revenue from Persia alone in-
creased from 28 million dirhams to 124 million
dirhams. He undertook extensive public works
in Persia, Khurasan and North Africa, including
the construction of canals, roads, rest houses for
travelers and medical dispensaries. The result
was that during his short reign of two and half
years, people had become so prosperous and
contented that one could hardly find a person
who would accept alms.
Umar is credited with having ordered the
first collection of Hadith in an official manner,
fearing that some of it might be lost. Abu Bakr
ibn Muhammad ibn Hazm and Ibn Shihab Al
Zuhri were among those who compiled Hadith
at Umar’s behest.
Following the example of the Holy Prophet,
peace on him, Umar sent out emissaries to China
and Tibet, inviting their rulers to embrace Islam.
It was during the time of Umar that Islam took
roots and was accepted by a large segment of
the population of Persia and Egypt. When the
officials complained that because of conver-
sions, the jizya revenues of the state had experi-
enced a steep decline, Umar wrote back saying
that “The Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace be on
him, was sent as a prophet [to invite the people
to Islam] and not as tax collector.” He abolished
home tax, marriage tax, stamp tax and many
other taxes as well.
When many of his agents wrote that his fis-
cal reforms in favor of new converts would de-
plete the Treasury, he replied, “Glad would I be,
by Allah, to see everybody become Muslim so
that you and I would have to till the soil with our
Islamic ‘Grafitti’
6
November 2012
own hands to earn a living.”
Once a Muslim murdered a non-Muslim of
Hira. Caliph Umar, when informed of the event,
ordered the governor to do justice in the case.
The Muslim was surrendered to the relatives of
the murdered person, who killed him.
The general princely class of that time could
not digest these policies of justice, simplicity
and equality. A slave of the caliph was bribed to
administer the deadly poison to him. The caliph,
having felt the effect of the poison sent for the
slave, and asked him why he had poisoned him.
The slave replied that he was given 1,000 dinars
for the job. The caliph took the amount from him
and deposited it in the public treasury. Freeing
the slave, he asked him to leave the place imme-
diately lest anyone might kill him. This was his
last deposit in the public treasury for the wel-
fare of Muslims.
Umar died in Rajab 101 AH at the age of 38
in a rented house at the place called Dair
Sim’aan near Homs. He was buried in Dair
Sim’aan on a piece of land he had purchased
from a Christian. He reportedly left behind only
17 dinars with a will that out of this amount the
rent of the house in which he died and the price
of the land in which he was buried would be
paid. And thus departed the great soul from the
world.
Persecution and False Piety by S Iftikhar Murshed
(From: The News International, Print Edition,
Sunday, September 16, 2012)
The hideous but undeniable truth is that in
the last few years more people have been
killed in Pakistan because of religion than in
any other country of the world. Shias have
been ruthlessly slaughtered; Ahmadis, Chris-
tians and Hindus have been target-killed and
their places of worship desecrated; Muslims
accused of blasphemy or suspected of apos-
tasy have not been spared.
The rot began with the adoption of the Ob-
jectives Resolution by the Constituent Assembly
in 1949 under which Islam became the state
religion. In his 2001 book, Constitutional and
Political History of Pakistan, the eminent lawyer,
Hamid Khan, observes with uncommon perspi-
cacity: “Once the state establishes a religion, it
leads to confrontation between various sects.”
Five decades earlier, the Munir Report of
1954 on the anti-Ahmadi riots in Lahore con-
cluded: “The sublime faith called Islam will live
even if our leaders are not there to enforce it. It
lives in the individual, in his soul and outlook, in
all his relations with God and men, from the cra-
dle to the grave, and our politicians should un-
derstand that if Divine commands cannot make
or keep a man a Musalman, their statutes will
not.” The document, which runs into 387 closely
typed pages, was the outcome of skilful but
courteous grilling of the ulema (religious schol-
ars) by a committee headed by Chief Justice Mu-
hammad Munir with Justice M R Kayani as its
member.
The two judges cross-examined scores of
Islamic scholars and the leaders of religious po-
litical parties who were asked to define a Mus-
lim. The response of Maulana Maudoodi (1903–
1979), the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami, was
that only a person who believed in one God, all
the prophets, all revealed scriptures, the angels,
and the Day of Judgement qualified as a Muslim.
Justice Munir observed that curiously absent
from this definition was the finality of
prophethood.
The telling comment in the Munir Report
was: “Keeping in view the several definition of a
Muslim given by the ulema, need we make any
A Modern View of the Holy City of Makkah
November 2012
7
comment except that no two learned divines agreed
on this fundamental?”
The Report mentions that a pamphlet had been
circulated by the respected cleric Maulana Shabbir
Ahmad Usmani in which he sought to demonstrate
from the Quran, the Sunnah (the Traditions), ijma
(consensus among religious authorities), and qiyas
(deduction by analogy) that the Islamic punish-
ment for irtidad (apostasy) is death. The motive
was to justify the killing of Ahmadis because they
were regarded as apostates.
The learned judges sternly disagreed: “The
death penalty for irtidad has implications of a far-
reaching character and stamps Islam as a religion
of fanatics… the doctrine of irtidad as enunciated in
the pamphlet strikes at the root of independent
thinking and Islam becomes the embodiment of
complete intellectual paralysis.” They also observed
that the death penalty for apostasy is not pre-
scribed by the Quran.
In none of the twenty instances where apostasy
is mentioned in the Quran is there any indication of
punishment in this world, leave aside the death
penalty, because the apostate, according to former
chief justice S A Rahman, “will be punished only in
the Hereafter.” In his exhaustive 1972 work, Punish-
ment of Apostasy in Islam, Justice Rahman also
questions the chain of transmission (isnad) in the
hadith which proclaims “… kill whoever changes his
religion ….”
Qiyas, which means “measure” or “scale” or
“exemplar” and, hence, “analogy,” is built around
the untenable principle of deriving laws on matters
about which neither the Quran nor the Traditions
of the Holy Prophet are explicit. This is rejected by
the Quran, which states: “For, most of them follow
nothing but conjecture: (and), behold, conjecture
can never be a substitute for truth ….” (10:35)
It is from this verse that the renowned jurist
Ibn Hazm (994–1064) categorically rejects qiyas
because it seeks to derive religious laws which are
“supposedly implied in the wording of the Quran or
of the Prophet’s teachings, but not clearly laid
down in terms of law.” The theologian, Fakhr ad-Din
ar-Razi (1149–1209), famed for his Quran com-
mentary titled “The Keys of the Unseen” (Mafatih
al-Ghayb) from the verse “With Him are the keys of
the unseen” (6:59), was even more dismissive: “ …
every deduction by analogy is a conjectural
process and is, therefore, inadmissible (in mat-
ters pertaining to religion).”
Twenty years after the publication of the
scholarly Munir Report, Ahmadis were excom-
m u n i c a t e d
from Islam
through the
S e c o n d
Amendment
to the Consti-
tution shep-
herded by
Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto’s PPP
government.
Despite its
secular pre-
tensions, the
party wears
religion on its
shirt sleeves.
On August 25,
former Prime
M i n i s t e r
Yousuf Raza Gilani bragged after attending the
Khatm-e-Nabuwat Conference in Golra that in
1974 the PPP had accomplished the mission of
Pir Mehar Ali Shah, the patron saint of Golra, by
declaring Ahmadis as non-Muslims.
Thus bigotry is not the exclusive preserve of
the clerics. Secular leaders, whether civilian or
military, have, without exception, worn the
mask of false piety for no higher motive than
pursuit of power. In 1984, Ziaul Haq promul-
gated Ordinance XX which prohibited Ahmadis
from indentifying themselves in any manner as
Muslims. When this was challenged through a
writ petition, the ruling of the court was that
believers were perfectly within their rights to
object if Ahmadis posed as Muslims.
The impact of Ziaul Haq’s eleven-year rule
was the distortion of Islamic tenets. The Hudood
Ordinances promulgated in 1979 and enforced
the following year have been critiqued often
enough by various commissions and commit-
tees, starting from the Zari Sarfraz Commission
in 1983. The 2003 Special Committee headed by
Another View of the Holy Ka‘aba
8
November 2012
Justice Majida Rizvi observed that the Hadood
laws “do not reflect the correct principles of
Is lamic criminal law and are not in accordance
with Islamic injunctions.”
During an interview in September 2008,
Justice Khalil-ur-Rahman Ramday of the
Su preme Court recalled that a review was un-
dertaken in the early 1980s to determine
whether any of the laws that had been in place
since 1841 were contrary to the injunctions of
Islam. The findings were that hardly any of the
laws enacted during the colonial era were re-
pugnant to Islam “and whatever little un-Islamic
provisions were found, unfortunately, were the
ones enacted after 1947, and not by the British.”
This applied as much to the blasphemy
laws, but it did not dissuade Ziaul Haq from in-
troducing Section 295-B in the Pakistan Penal
Code in 1982, under which “defiling the Holy
Quran” became punishable with life imprison-
ment. Subsequently, in 1986,
Section 295-C was added,
mandating capital punish-
ment for the “use of deroga-
tory remarks in respect of the
Holy Prophet.”
According to an analyst, only
seven blasphemy cases were
registered in South Asia be-
tween 1927 and 1986. But in
the last 26 years, the number
increased dramatically to
1,058. The accused included
456 Ahmadis, 449 Muslims,
132 Christians and 21 Hin-
dus. Though non-Muslims
constitute a mere four per-
cent of Pakistan’s population,
they account for 57 percent
of those accused of blasphemy.
Rimsha Masih, the little Christian girl afflicted
with Down’s syndrome, is the most recent victim of
the blasphemy laws. Though her dreadful ordeal
has brought shame to the country as well as inde-
scribable anguish to her family, she has unwittingly
achieved more than anyone else in convincing even
the clergy that the blasphemy laws are liable to
misuse.
In an article carried by a major English news-
paper earlier this month, the chairman of the All
Pakistan Ulema Council, Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi, wrote:
“Pakistan belongs as much to the non-Muslims as to
the Muslims. Blasphemy laws are often used to set-
tle personal vendettas ... strict action should be
taken against all those accusing the girl if she is
found innocent.” Like a gentle breeze from the spice
island of hope this suggests that there is a possibil-
ity of reforming the blasphemy laws with the coop-
eration of the clergy.
All seasons are beautiful – so which of your Lord’s bounties will you deny?
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