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Books
Section
> by
Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Sahib of
Qadian
> A
Correction of an Error [Ek Ghalti ka Izala]
by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
Sahib
> Important Documents that Appeared After this
Book ['Ek Ghalati ka Izala'] was Printed on
5th November, 1901 Important
Documents that Appeared After this Book ['Ek Ghalati ka
Izala'] was Printed on 5th November,
1901: It is asserted by some that in his pamphlet entitled Ayk Ghalati Ka Izala (‘Correction of an Error’), published in November 1901, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad announced that he was indeed a prophet and that his previous denials of making such a claim were in error and should now be disregarded. Historically, it so happened that when Correction of an Error was published, one or two opponents of Hazrat Mirza accused him of claiming to be a prophet in this booklet. However, he and his followers denied this allegation forthwith. Therefore the issue of whether he claimed to be a prophet in this booklet was settled very clearly at the very time of its publication.
“This letter should be answered in detail so that our beliefs are conveyed to him.” (Newspaper Al-Hakam, 30 November 1901, p. 2) In obedience to this instruction, the Maulana wrote a letter to Hafiz Muhammad Yusuf which was also published in the Ahmadiyya community’s paper Al-Hakam. The editor added the following introductory note: “Below we reproduce an invaluable letter by Maulana Sayyid Muhammad Ahsan of Amroha which, although written by him as a reply to a postcard from Muhammad Yusuf of Amritsar, is in fact a subtle exposition of that pamphlet which Hazrat Aqdas [Hazrat Mirza] published under the title Ayk Ghalati Ka Izala. The points of truth and knowledge contained in this letter need no advertisement from us -- the name ‘scholar of Amroha’ is sufficient. But we would say that in this letter the scholarly gentleman is speaking with support of the Holy Spirit. ...” (Al-Hakam, 24 November 1901, p. 9) The letter, published under the title Raqimat al-Wudud, is as follows: “Sir, the pamphlet with reference to which you say that Mirza sahib has claimed prophethood in it, that very pamphlet contains the following texts in which this claim is clearly and explicitly denied. It is to be regretted that you neither understood the claim itself nor the denial. The texts are as follows:
“Afterwards, Husain Bakhsh, who is familiar with the history of Hazrat Mirza, asked me if he had advanced a new claim. I told him that there was no new claim. The claims were the same as in the beginning. He said that he had heard that, in a recent poster, a claim to prophethood had clearly been made. I told him that he could see the poster, which did not contain anything of the sort. Therefore, upon his request, Mian Muhammad Yusuf brought the poster entitled Ayk Ghalati Ka Izala from his home and read it out seriously and thoughtfully, which made a deep impression upon the audience. He could not understand the issue of burooz. Sometimes he would call it re-incarnation, and sometimes he would say that Mirza sahib will in future lay claim to divinity, as Shams Tabriz and Mansur had done. I tried my best to make him understand this point, and quoted parallels from the lives of Hazrat Mujaddid of Sirhind and Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi, etc.”
“I say that in no lexicon does the word tahdees convey the meaning of disclosing the unseen.” In Tauzih Maram, published 1891, he had written: “The muhaddas ... has the honour of being spoken to by God. Matters of the unseen are disclosed to him. His revelation, like that of prophets and messengers, is protected from the interference of the devil. The real essence of the Shari‘ah is disclosed to him. He is appointed just like the prophets, and, like them, it is his duty to proclaim himself openly. His denier is, to some extent, liable to Divine punishment.” There is no contradiction in the above two passages. In the first, he is referring to the literal or root meaning of muhaddas. In terms of its root meaning as a word of the Arabic language, it does not convey the significance of news of the unseen being revealed, but merely news of something. In the passage from Tauzih Maram, he is explaining the technical meaning of muhaddas from Hadith and Islamic Shari‘ah, which is that of a person “spoken to by God, though not being a prophet”. To the end of his life, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claimed to be a muhaddas in terms of this technical meaning, and no more. In this pamphlet, he has not denied being just a muhaddas, but has only stated that the root sense of muhaddas is not sufficient to convey his status. Historical Evidence: About the year 1914, when Maulana Nur-ud-Din was head of the Ahmadiyya Movement, some non-Ahmadis raised this particular objection. At this, one Hafiz Raushan Ali, a well-known scholar in the Ahmadiyya Movement, wrote a reply which was much liked by Maulana Nur-ud-Din and published in the magazine Tashhiz al-Azhan. Given below is the relevant extract from that magazine: “Objection: In Tauzih Maram you call yourself a muhaddas and say that a muhaddas too is a prophet in one sense. But now in this poster you write that ‘my title cannot be muhaddas because in no lexicon does the word tahdees convey the meaning of disclosing the unseen’. This magazine was edited by Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad, and the issue cited above dates from a few months after the split in the Ahmadiyya Movement, when he had become head of the Qadian Section.
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