|
|
|
|
|
|
.. |
Books
Section
> The
Great Mujaddid [Mujaddid-e-Azam] -- Vol. 3
[Biography
of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Sahib of
Qadian]
by Dr. Basharat Ahmad
Sahib
> Chapter 2: The Basis of the Holy Imam’s
Dialectics (‘Ilm al-Kalam) Chapter
2: A review of the literature and books written by the Holy Imam clearly shows that his dialectics is free of the exaggeration of the Hanabilah on the one hand, and the deficiency of the Mu'tazilah on the other. It is based on a moderate view as taken by the Asha‘irah and the Mataridiyah schools of thought. Yet he is not bound by any one of them. Like Imam Ghazali, he wants to harness modern Western philosophy to the service of Islam and like Shah Waliullah Dehlavi, he makes all possible efforts to prove the truth of Islam. Hazrat Mirza’s style is unique in this respect. Though Imam Ghazali harnessed Greek philosophy to the service of Islam, yet the basis of his arguments was the same Greek philosophy. Similarly, it is the way of all the dialecticians of Islam that the foundation of their dialectics are based upon the accepted philosophies of their times. But the correct intuitive insights of the Holy Imam concluded that the dialectics which is based on worldly, mundane philosophies has a foundation that is like an undercut sandbank – sooner or later it is bound to collapse – for philosophies change with the change of time and with the change of people’s knowledge and thinking. What appeared to be very reasonable yesterday appears like a child’s fantasy today. Take, for instance, the very case of Greek philosophy, how until recently its every statement was considered to be on the same level with divine revelation and inspiration, but today it is considered a collage of childish ideas and a play on semantics. And consider Western philosophy, too, how till yesterday what was considered an undeniable truth has been blown away like dust by the latest findings. When the materialists of the West set their stamp of approval on the idea that matter is eternal, the Muslim ‘ulama and leaders like Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Maulana Shibli surrendered in abject acquiescence to this notion, their inferiority complex not letting them stir up enough moral courage to stand up against it. They were browbeaten by Western philosophy. But had they been alive today, they would have seen that it has been proven by the same materialistic people that matter is not eternal; rather, it is composed of minute particles called electrons, and when one comes to the end of the research one finds that matter is a form of energy, and the two are interchangeable. In other words, this whole universe is a display of energy emanating from some Great Source. This Great Source has willed that energy should take on various forms of matter. The greatness of matter can be gauged from the fact that if we can somehow gain access to the energy stored in a drop of water, a large ship will be able to go around the world eight times by using this energy. But we are not able to harness this stored-up energy yet. Maulana Shibli, while supporting the Mu'tazilah and rebutting the arguments of Imam Ghazali in favour of the creation of matter, writes with great pride that "we do not observe any matter being annihilated into nothingness." But were he to observe the decay of radium through radiation, he would have to retract his argument. Yet I must make one observation about this argument by the Mu'tazilah. While the Mu'tazilah mock at the Hanabilah, Mushabbah or the Zahiriyyah schools of thought for their view that God has hands, eyes and ears, though the last named maintain that this is only a conjecture they have made relying on their finite wisdom, but they do not know the reality as it exists, still the notion of these people that one should imagine God to be comparable to human form is laughable in the eyes of the Mu'tazilah. It is all the more surprising that when they come to the question of God’s knowledge and power, the same Mu'tazilah begin to measure it according to human standards, saying that since we cannot destroy and annihilate matter, therefore God also cannot create or annihilate matter. Is this not the same logic as presented by the Mushabbah Zahiriyya? If they consider God to have hands, eyes and ears because we humans have them, they are dubbed as fools, for this leads one to accept that God has a corporeal body and leads to His being limited in space and thus finite. On the other hand, the Zahiriyya consider these sensory organs of God to be infinite. Yet the same Mu'tazilah consider God’s power and knowledge to be finite like human power and knowledge, because they measure His power and knowledge by comparing these to human power and knowledge. Still, they consider themselves to be full of wisdom and intelligence. Their argument is erroneously based on the assumption that since man cannot create or annihilate matter, therefore God also cannot do so. The logical conclusion of this is that God does not possess more power or knowledge than human beings. Therefore, some of these Mu'tazilah believe that God does not possess a detailed knowledge of His creation, thus making God finite and as a result, depriving Him of His Godhead. Instead of laughing and mocking at their own lack of wisdom, they laugh at the Hanabilah. There are many instances of such unjust attitudes of the Mu'tazilah. For example, in the time of Caliph Mamun Rashid, the biggest argument given by the Mu'tazilah in favour of the Quran being a creation of God was that God has declared Himself to be the Creator of everything in the Quran. So, how can the Quran be considered to be outside His ambit? However, the Quran, being the word of a non-created Being, it ought also to be considered as non-created! Still, I do not wish to enter into this discussion at this juncture. Here I only want to highlight the fact that when the Mu'tazilah were forced to accept the Quran as created because of the verse, The Creator of everything, why did they forget this verse when it came to accepting that matter is also a creation of God? It was so because they were at that time very much influenced by the logical arguments based on Aristotle and Plato and no one was there to draw their attention to the Quranic truths. If matter is some tangible thing, then why should God not be its Creator? To this, these advocates of reasonableness have given us two childish lollipops: One is that the question of the eternal existence of matter or its creation is not an Islamic question. But this is totally wrong. If matter is eternal like God, and a non-creation, then it is another god and this is against the doctrine of tauhid (monotheism), and it amounts to atheism. Because if matter is eternal, then it must be conceded that its properties are also eternal. Thus, we do not need God for the purpose of changing matter into various forms, and even if we did, there is no need to believe in Him, because out of these two eternal entities, one does not enjoy the right to rule over the other, whereas God, Most High, says in the Quran: O people! Serve Allah your Lord Who created you and those before you, perchance you may guard against evil and keep your duty (2: 21). That is, man is bound to worship his Lord because He is man’s Creator. If He is not the Creator, then He controls neither good nor evil for us. So why should we subject ourselves to the useless rule of an impotent god? The fact is that materialism and atheism are both born out of the theory of the eternal existence of matter and it is the root cause of the lack of spirituality and God-gnosis among mankind. The second childish lollipop that these people offer to us is that though both God and matter are eternal, yet one is the Cause and the other the effect, and their relationship to one another is like the relationship between the key and the lock. The turning of the key and the opening of the lock are simultaneous, but one is the cause and the other the effect. What an excellent example of the deceptive tactics of philosophy. Let us get out of the labyrinth of semantics and try to solve this problem. The question is whether God is the Creator of matter or not; whether He has created matter out of nothingness, instantly or gradually, and if He has not, then what is the object of giving this example? We are not discussing whether there is any interval of time between God’s act and the result thereof. The question is whether God has the power to bring matter into existence out of nothingness. And if He cannot, and if He is dependent on some matter or spirit to bring this universe into being, then where is the aptness of this example of the key and the lock? It is just a labyrinth of semantics. Scientific progress has brought about such rapid changes in philosophy that it would be a mistake to base any religious dialectics on this philosophy. During the time when the Holy Imam was still alive, materialistic philosophy not only considered matter to be eternal, but it also considered time and space to be so. But today, just as the theory about the eternity of matter has been discarded, similarly the very existence of time and space has been challenged. Einstein’s theory, which has gained wide popularity, is that time and space are not entities in themselves. These are neither matter nor energy; rather they are symbols that delimit certain finite things. Just as the three dimensions – length, breadth and height – are accepted as three defining parameters of a finite thing, similarly the fourth dimension, that of time and space, is also a defining parameter. So time and space are the names of delimiting parameters of material things, and have no independent existence of their own. Dayanand Sarsawati had based his religious doctrines on the eternal existence of matter, the spirit, time and space, but today this foundation has been totally demolished because of the collapse of the eternity theory. Now the Arya Samajist may well try to draw out a fresh thread, like a spider’s web, and try to make the web stand, but all these old threads have been snapped. The Holy Imam did not know English, nor had he studied the present-day books of science and philosophy. He was like a recluse, living in a remote hamlet away from the populous cities, but he was vouchsafed the knowledge from God, the Wise and All-knowing, that it is a mistake to base religious dialectics on philosophy and science. He gave out a clarion call that the Holy Quran was a perfect book, and whatever it states or claims, it provides the supporting arguments itself. It is not befitting a perfect book that it should look towards its followers for supporting arguments to back up its claims. The Holy Quran says: The month of Ramadhan is the month in which the Quran was revealed, a guidance to men and clear proof of the guidance and the Criterion (between Truth and falsehood) (2:185). In other words, the Quran not only provides universal guidance to the whole world, but it provides the supporting arguments and proof itself. Not only does it provide the rationale for its verities, but it proves false the teachings of other religions which may go against its guidance and thus sets up a criterion between truth and falsehood. The Quran is not dependent on the dialectics of anyone, but it contains its own dialectics within its covers, so the Holy Imam declared that the dialectics presented by him is no other than the dialectics of the Holy Quran. Any philosophy which agrees with the Quranic philosophy is true, and any philosophy which is opposed to the Quranic philosophy is false, whether it be the philosophy of Aristotle or Plato, or whether it be the philosophy of Europe or America. Not only did he make a claim to this effect, but he always acted on this principle. Whenever he wanted to address any question, he would first go through the entire Quran, keeping the question in mind, and would try to find out what the Quran had to say about the question and what arguments it gave about it. Whatever verses he found to be relevant he would note down. Only then would he proceed and write the thesis. This style is to be found in all his writings. In his first book, Barahin-i Ahmadiyyah, a challenging treatise, we discern the same Quranic philosophy at work. In the great religious debate between the Holy Imam and Deputy Abdullah Atham on the topic, "Islam versus Christianity", held in Amritsar in 1893, a debate which was later published in book form under the name Jang-i Muqaddas (The Holy War), the Holy Imam challenged his opponent to the same thing, that is, he told his opponent that it was the duty of a perfect divine Book that it should give supporting arguments to back up the religious doctrines and principles propounded by it and not look to its believers to provide the arguments in favour of the claims that it makes. It should also prove fallacious any claims made by other religions that are counter to its own claim. "We will provide the rationale for the true teachings of Islam and the rebuttal of the false doctrines of Christianity from our Holy Book, the Quran, and the arguments in support thereof will also be provided from the Quran. So if the Evangel is a perfect Book, then bring forth the supporting rationale of the special Christian doctrines and also the rebuttal of special Islamic doctrines from your Book, and give supporting arguments from the Book as well," he challenges. The book, Jang-i Muqaddas, is even today available in the market and anyone who wishes to examine it may do so. The Holy Imam kept to those principles throughout that debate. On the other hand, Deputy Abdullah Atham could not take even one step in that direction. Hence that debate proved to be a great victory for Islam. In December 1896, a great religious conference was held on a grand scale at Lahore. In it all the major religions were represented and the following five questions were set: 1. What are the physical, moral and spiritual conditions of a human being? In that debate, the condition was that every spokesman of a religion should answer the questions by referring to his own divine Book. But none could fulfil this condition except the Holy Imam. Every spokesman tried to give whatever replies he could to the best of his ability. But firstly, none of them referred to his revealed Book, and secondly, the answers were sketchy, incomplete and unsatisfactory. Whatever was presented was the brainchild of the spokesman himself. However, the entire thesis presented by the Holy Imam in answer to these questions was taken from the Quran. Whatever arguments he gave were taken from the Quran and the answers were so complete and satisfactory that the entire assembly, Muslims and non-Muslims, were unanimous in their verdict that his thesis was the one that reflected the essence of the entire conference. Even the English press admitted this fact. In short, this was the style of his dialectics, even to his last day, and this was the strategy that he taught to his disciples. I think it will be appropriate here to mention some special features of his dialectics. Dialectics based
upon arguments offered by the Quran: A researcher, instead of trying to interpret the Quranic verses to fit these philosophies, should look for the fault in these philosophies. He emphasised that such a research was bound to succeed because the Quran, which is the Word of God, could not be wrong. On the other hand, philosophy, a man-made discipline, could be wrong. In this matter, the Holy Imam was in fact treading the path of the prophets because it is an admitted fact in the eyes of all Muslim scholars that a philosopher leads the argument from outward observation towards the inner aspect, and a prophet argues from his inner experience towards the outward and the tangible. For instance, a philosopher, observing the universe and the principles of nature, may infer that there ought to be a god. But a prophet, because of his inner spiritual experience, by developing a personal relationship with God and by knowing Him through his inner senses, reaches a stage of perfect certainty and God-gnosis and declares to the world that God exists. If he now gives some further arguments in favour of the existence of God, he would do so by basing them on his personal spiritual experience. The conclusion drawn from his arguments cannot be wrong because his inner eyes have been opened and he is arguing while actually seeing or perceiving God. On the other hand, a philosopher is like a blind man, groping in the dark, trying to discover some argument. It is quite possible that he may or may not find correct arguments by this blind search and he may or may not draw the correct conclusions from these. That is why God, Most High, has differentiated between a prophet and a philosopher in the Quran: Can a seeing man and a blind man be alike? (35:19). A man, seeing an elephant, says "This is an elephant," and if he now gives arguments to this effect to explain an elephant to some blind men, he would be doing so by basing it on his actual visual experience. But if some blind men try to discover an elephant by groping around its body, and if, on touching its leg, they take it to be something like a column, or like a rope on touching it on its trunk, it would not be surprising. Thus the difference between a philosopher and a prophet is the same as the difference between a blind man and a man with his sight. God, Most High, told the Holy Prophet in the Quran: Say: This is my way. I invite (you) to Allah (basing this invitation) on actual experience, I (do so) and also those who follow me (12:108). Hence all those perfect followers of the Holy Prophet who had tasted of the spiritual experience based their invitation to men on this personal experience of God and their spirituality. But prior to our present times, those personal experiences were kept confidential and those saints avoided presenting their personal spiritual experiences to the public. For instance, Imam Ghazali says in a very muted way that "I have had the taste of the spiritual through mysticism and spiritual exercises," but he is not very open about it, limiting himself to just hinting at it. In these times of ours, when materialism and atheism are at their zenith, the followers of these creeds contemptuously demand from the followers of spirituality and God-gnosis that the latter should back up what they claim by actual empirical evidence based on experience and observation. The materialists openly declare that unless a claim is supported by experience and observation, mere verbal talk and philosophical arguments definitely cannot satisfy anyone, because both parties have arguments on their side. At such a time the Holy Imam made a bold announcement: "I have had the honour of going through the spiritual experience and observing it, and I achieved this through following the Quran and the Sunnah, an experience similar to the one claimed by the prophets and the saints of long ago, so whatever I am presenting to you is based on my personal experience. Along with the Quranic philosophy, I am presenting to you my personal spiritual experience and observation, because the religion presented by the Quran is not limited to philosophy. In fact, it is a regular science based on reality and it leads its followers to those heights of spiritual perfection to which it claims to lead." How full of certainty are the following Urdu couplets of his: Ham nay Islam ko khud tajrubah ker kay daykha When the Holy Imam argues from the Quran, he has the knack of stating very intricate and delicate points in very easy and simple terms so that both an esoteric person and an unsophisticated one can equally benefit from it, and his arguments are in complete consonance with common-sense, reasonableness and intellectual axioms, yet so simple and easy to understand, that they go straight to the heart. The well-known Urdu poet, Ghalib, says in the following couplet: Daykhna taqrir ki lazzat keh jo usnay kaha His theses and arguments were always free of the conundrums of the theorems and the terminology of Greek philosophy. Rather, he developed those arguments from the Quranic verses so deftly that it left one wonder-struck, realising that though one had these Quranic words before one’s eyes all the time yet one’s mind never thought of these meanings. His explanations and exegeses would be based on such clear-cut and obvious axioms that one marvelled at how such an obvious explanation had escaped one’s mind and one felt as if someone had removed a veil and made the arguments visible. Such is God-given knowledge, which in keeping with the promise contained in the Quranic verse: On Us devolves the task of explaining it (75:19). This is vouchsafed to certain persons with the help of the Holy Spirit. No human mind can fathom it. Moreover, his style of writing and his choice of expression are so simple and so appropriately worded that one does not even have to tax one’s mind in the least to understand him. Unlike some literati, he does not aim at impressing the reader with his excellence of knowledge and learning, nor trying to adorn his writing with couplets from famous poets, but he expresses himself in easy flowing Urdu, using apt and eloquent expressions. His style is so effective and charming that the theme penetrates one’s mind like sips of a delicious drink, and has such a supernatural effect and light in it as to make one’s spirit dance with ecstasy. The intelligence of the reader follows him with ease, without straining his intellect. Soon the reader finds himself at his destination regarding the question under discussion. Keeping in mind all the doubts, misgivings and objections which may arise in people’s minds about the question under discussion, he goes along shedding such penetrating light upon all of them that the reader finds the question answered fully and without even having taxed his own mind. The Holy Imam did not believe in indulging in tawil (that is, interpreting a thing by taking it away from its obvious meaning). The term tawil, though its Quranic meaning is "the underlying reality", has been used by Muslim dialecticians to mean "turning language away from its apparent meanings". That is, wherever some meanings do not conform to proven logical axioms, then the language should be turned away from its apparent meaning to some inner, allegorical or metaphorical meaning. The Holy Imam did not believe in indulging in this practice of tawil, for nothing in the Quran is against common-sense or against accepted logical axioms. However, if any word occurring in the Quran is explained in another place in the Quran itself, this cannot be called tawil, but is called exegesis through the Quran. Every word has several meanings, and no intelligent person would call it tawil if the speaker himself tells us in what sense he has used a certain word. The Holy Quran has itself clarified this point in the verse: He it is Who has revealed the Book to thee; some of its verses are decisive – they are the basis of the Book – and others are allegorical. Then those in whose hearts is perversity follow that part of it which is allegorical, seeking to mislead, and seeking to give it their own tawil (interpretation). And none knows its tawil save Allah, and those firmly rooted in knowledge. They say: We believe in it, it is all from our Lord. And none mind except men of understanding (3:6). That is, those firmly rooted in knowledge and blessed with intellect believe that since the allegorical verses are from the Lord, how then can anyone interpret these in a way that would be against the verses with a clear import, for God is free from contradicting Himself, as the Quran says: Had this Quran been from someone else besides Allah, they would have found a lot of contradictions in it (4: 82). So, in order to arrive at the real meanings of allegorical verses, it is essential that we refer to the sayings of the Speaker, Himself, that is, we should look for an explanation of the allegorical verses by referring to the decisive verses. Consequently, it was the Holy Imam’s practice to bring the allegorical verses under the dictates of the decisive verses, and he would thus find the appropriate meaning of a word that had many meanings. For instance, when faced with the allegorical verses about the power of raising the dead vouchsafed to Jesus, he looked at the decisive verses of the Quran in this context and found the verse: And it is forbidden to a town which We destroy: they shall not return (21:95). Again, he found the following decisive verse in another place in the Quran: Allah takes (men’s) souls at the time of their death, and those that die not, during their sleep. Then He withholds those on whom He has passed the decree of death and sends the others back till an appointed term (39:42). From this we can infer that once a person is afflicted with death he cannot return to this world. Similarly, there is the verse: And before them is a barrier, until the day they are raised (23:100), meaning that no man will return to this world after death and he will stay in barzakh (the intermediate state) till the Day of Resurrection when he will be raised. Hence, if it is said about any prophet that he used to raise the dead, it cannot mean that he used to bring literally dead people back to life to this world, but rather, the intention seems to be that he used to give life to the spiritually dead. A similar power is ascribed to the Holy Prophet in the Quran: O you who believe, respond to Allah and His Messenger, when he calls you to that which gives you (ah-ya) life (8:24). Here, the obvious meaning of ah-ya is giving spiritual life. So, when the Quran itself explains the meaning of the word mau-ta, we cannot say that tawil has been indulged in by giving to it the meaning "spiritually dead". Instead, we would call it an interpretation of the Quran by the Quran. When the Book itself attributes a certain sense to a word and negates all others, this cannot be called tawil. Instead, we will call it exegesis. Another principle that the Holy Imam highlighted when arguing from the Quran was that there is no verse that is abrogated, and none that supersedes an abrogated verse. Unfortunately, when some of the exegesists found two verses to be contradictory in their view, they declared one to be abrogated and superseded by the other, even though there is no authentic hadith reported from the Holy Prophet abrogating any verse or superseding it by another. There is no mention of abrogation of any Quranic verse in this verse of the Quran: Whatever ayah (message) We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or one like it (2:106). Rather, it pertains to the abrogation of old religious laws like the Mosaic Law. The people of the Book used to get angry on finding commandments in the Quran that were not contained in their Books or were against them. So God, Most High, has made the rationale of this process clear in this verse; that is, that some of the old commandments that have been omitted in the old Books or which people had forgotten, have again been revealed in the Quran, and certain commandments that were specific for a certain people or for a certain time were cancelled and better and more universal laws were revealed instead; laws that would suffice for all humanity and for all times. What is mentioned in this verse is not the abrogation of certain old religious laws like the Mosaic Law, otherwise the words, We bring its like, would become meaningless. When a likeness was to be brought in, the act of abrogation becomes meaningless. The Holy Imam not only presented this concept by way of a doctrine, but he and his disciples, working under his guidance, corrected this erroneous concept by bringing all those verses that were considered abrogated or those supposedly superseding the abrogated verses into conformity with one another. He further made it clear that no verse of the Quran is abrogated nor does any other verse take its place, and no command of the Holy Quran is such as may be considered outside the Holy Book and yet, according to some orthodox maulawis, obligatory in the matter of compliance. This last view is an entirely false notion. The Holy Imam established another principle that should be observed when arguing from the Quran, and that is, he made a distinction between what is against common-sense and human intellect, and what is beyond our intellect. He first enunciated this principle in his book, Surma Chasma-i Arya. A summary of this concept is that to declare anything which we do not understand to be contrary to common-sense and human intellect is not prudent. Unreasonableness and contrariness to our intellect is one thing, and something being beyond our understanding and intellect is another. A fact contrary to common-sense and intellect is one that is against the known principles of knowledge and against obvious common-sense axioms. For instance, two and two are four and if someone says these add up to five, then this is something against our intellect and worthy of rejection. But it would be foolish to reject that which is not against known principles and to reject something reasonable which we do not find in our daily lives, or is beyond our understanding and knowledge merely on the ground that our intellect cannot fathom its reality. We should not do so because firstly, our human intellect is finite. Secondly, the ambit of knowledge and intellect is different for different persons; a thing which is incomprehensible to one is easily understood by another. Thirdly, due to constant scientific research, what at one time were incomprehensible things to us are now part of today’s knowledge. For instance, when wireless communications were invented, the inventor was considered mad, and scientific circles, considering it against common-sense and intelligence, made a mockery of it. But today, the same thing is considered a major scientific invention. Hence the wireless was not against common-sense and intellect, but at the time of its invention, it was beyond our comprehension and intellect. Eventually our intellect grasped its reality when it got fully informed of the scientific knowledge underlying it. There are hundreds of such similar matters pertaining to the spiritual sphere that are no doubt beyond our comprehension and intelligence but this does not mean that these are against common-sense and human intellect. Scientific and scholastic discoveries and spiritual experimentation eventually make the human intellect grasp these matters. What the human intellect was unable to understand at one time, it had to bow its head to it eventually. Hence to keep on hurriedly interpreting every spiritual matter or supernatural miracle materialistically is a cardinal mistake. The Holy Quran mentions the Sunnah (Practice) of Allah and very emphatically it says: Thou would not find a change in the Sunnah of Allah (33:62). The earlier Mu'tazilah and the present-day Mu'tazilah (that is, Sir Syed’s Naturalists) have taken this to mean those laws of nature that philosophy or science keep discovering through their limited experiments and observations. Therefore, these people have tried to make tawil of those verses of the Quran that they find contrary to the laws discovered by materialist sciences, and distorting the meaning of the Quranic verses, they try to make these conform to materialistic philosophy and science. This is a fundamental mistake. The limited vision of man cannot possibly encompass all God’s laws of nature. The laws that we know today may take on another hue tomorrow. There are hundreds of subtleties hidden within these, subtleties that even years of study may not enable man to grasp. Along with these, there are other laws that we do not notice but which become apparent with the passage of time. Thus, it is a grave presumption and a mistake to call the man-discovered laws of nature as Allah’s Sunnah. Maybe the two could be the same, but it cannot be said so with certainty. Who can claim that man has discovered every aspect of God’s law? Therefore, Allah’s Sunnah mentioned in the Quran is definitely not the laws so far discovered by the finite intelligence of man. This Sunnah refers to those laws which are mentioned by Allah in the Quran. It can be said with certainty about the Sunnah of Allah, stated in the Quran and based on God’s perfect knowledge, that this is Allah’s Sunnah because God’s knowledge cannot be defective. For instance, God has stated in the Quran the following Sunnah of His: He withholds him on whom a decree of death has been passed (39:42). That is, God, Most High, does not send back to earth anyone who has been afflicted with death. So this will now be termed as Allah’s Sunnah and since His Sunnah does not change, we are forced to interpret those verses of the Quran in which mention of raising the dead is made to mean not the physically dead but the spiritually dead. Thus, by indicating the correct sense of the term, Allah’s Sunnah, the Holy Imam closed the door on unjustified tawil, and made the exegesis of the Quran free of subservience to the materialist laws of nature. The Holy Imam promoted the principle that the original philosophy is the one expounded by the Holy Quran and all the other philosophies, be they Greek or European, are subservient to it. "Accept man-made philosophy," he said, "if it conforms to the Quranic philosophy. Wherever the two do not conform, reject the man-made philosophy and get busy in trying to discover its flaws," was his advice. But the arrogance of the human intellect was not prepared to tolerate this, and it tried to measure the Quranic philosophy according to its own standards, and was inclined to declare the Quranic philosophy to be wrong when it did not conform to artificial standards. It therefore became necessary to propound such arguments and signs in favour of the Quran being a book sent by God as would make this fact crystal clear and would create a living and perfect faith about the Quran in the hearts of men, a faith that would prepare them to accept every Quranic principle and doctrine without demur and debate. Once a perfect faith in the truth of the Quran is aroused in the minds of men, a definite result would be that man would never give precedence to any man-made philosophy over the Quranic philosophy, because man’s knowledge has no significance in comparison to God’s knowledge. In fact, it is a human weakness that all sorts of doubts and misgivings are aroused in the mind by the objections of diverse philosophers. But a staunch believer and a visionary cannot at all be perturbed by such objections. The Holy Imam used to say that any verse of the Quran which becomes a target of a detractor’s objection indeed possesses a treasure of verities and subtleties which are hidden from his eyes. By virtue of the objection, a visionary’s attention is drawn to it and he finds the treasure through thinking and meditation. In other words, the objection falls on this hidden treasure like a pickaxe, causing all the hidden treasures to be dug out. Hence, unless this faith is there, man is not prepared to give precedence to the Quranic philosophy over man-made philosophies. It is therefore essential that one should develop a faith and a gnosis that are based on certitude. The Holy Imam says in his book, Izalah-i Auham: "My dear ones! The sterile logic of this world is a Satan. And the ephemeral philosophy of this world is like Iblis. It greatly covers the light of faith and gives rise to bravado and takes one close to atheism. So you should guard yourself against this and develop a humble and meek heart and become such that you obey the commandment without dispute and dissent, just as a child obeys his mother." There can only be two ways to develop such a living faith: one, to bring forth such arguments and proof in favour of the Quran being from Allah as would make hearts bow before it; and two, to prove the Quran to be from Allah through the display of supernatural heavenly signs. These heavenly signs can be divided into two categories, as God says in the Quran: We will soon show them Our signs in the afaq (farthest regions) and among their own people, until it is quite clear to them that it is the Truth (41:53). In the afaq (remote regions, heavens) means that God, Most High, keeps displaying hundreds of heavenly signs in every epoch as proof that the Quran and the Holy Prophet were sent by Him, and by among their own people is meant that thousands of people became heirs to all the spiritual perfection, which was promised in the Quran, by completely following the Holy Prophet and the Quran, and all those spiritual states which seemed impossible to achieve were attained by these followers. It was this reason that made the Holy Imam spend all his energies on proving the Holy Quran to be the Word of God. His first challenging book had this issue as its main theme and its name was Barahin-i Ahmadiyyah 'ala Haqiqatul Quran wan-Nubuwwatul Muhammadiyyah (Ahmad’s Proof about the Reality of the Quran and the Prophethood of Muhammad). In this challenging publication, the Holy Imam has given three hundred arguments in favour of the Holy Quran and the prophethood of Muhammad. To anyone who cherished the ambition to demolish any of these arguments, he offered a reward of ten thousand rupees. In this book, in addition to the arguments, he has also included the heavenly signs that God, Most High, has manifested, from time to time, in support of the Holy Quran and the prophethood of Muhammad. These signs are both personal and heavenly. In the personal category, he has presented his own prophecies and spiritual observations and experiences and has written: "I have attained this spiritual perfection through closely following the Holy Quran and the Holy Prophet, and if the ultimate objective of religion is to develop a personal relationship with God, I have, by following the Quran and the Holy Prophet, achieved this objective. There is no other religion in the world that can transport a man to these heights. Islam is the only living and true faith, a faith by following which one attains to God-realisation." How forcefully he states this theme in the following verses, originally in Urdu: We have let our imagination traverse the universe, The Holy Imam not only presented his own observation and personal spiritual experience as proof of Islam being a living and a true faith, but he also challenged the opponents of Islam to come to him and remain in his company to observe fresh heavenly signs in support of the truth of Islam and observe his spiritual experiences from close quarters. And if nothing was witnessed as promised, he was prepared for a hangman’s noose round his neck and to compensate the observer financially for his wasted time. How forceful are the following verses on this subject: O visitor, if you come to us, This was a great challenge that could not have been issued except by a perfect mujaddid and a man blessed with glorious God-gnosis and spirituality. It is also a fact that many intellectuals, philosophers and atheists, who were Muslim in name, became men of knowledge and God-gnosis through his spiritual friendship. Among these was the late Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din. He was an atheist and was prepared to become a Christian for worldly gains when he happened to glance through Barahin-i Ahmadiyyah. His thoughts took a sudden turn and he presented himself before the Holy Imam. He attained such God-gnosis and faith in the company of the Holy Imam that he abandoned his prosperous law practice and took up residence in England to preach Islam and thus become a source of guidance to hundreds of Englishmen. This impact of the Holy Imam is not limited to Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din alone. Hundreds of philosophers and atheists became blessed with true faith and God-gnosis and sacrificed all their worldly interests for the true faith of Islam. Another of them is Maulana Muhammad Ali, who enjoys international fame for his services to the faith of Islam. There is not a person who, having remained in the Holy Imam’s company for some time, did not witness the spiritual experiences of the Holy Imam according to his own capacity and efforts, and who did not partake of the living faith in a living God to be found in the Holy Imam’s company. This was the faith which was reported in the Hadith as having gone up to the Pleiades and which was brought back to this world by a son of Persia (that is, the Holy Imam). The Holy Imam laid great emphasis on the need to inculcate in the hearts of men such a living faith in the Quran being from the Lord through arguments and heavenly signs that they would begin to give precedence to the Quranic philosophy over every mundane philosophy. Moreover, wherever there was a contradiction, they should not get upset and make the Quranic philosophy subservient to the mundane philosophy, but they should get busy in research, and discovering the flaw in the mundane philosophy, they should disclose it to the people. In this way, not only would the people progress in their faith, their God-gnosis and their religious knowledge, but when the flaws of the mundane philosophies were pointed out, the tendency of the materialists would be to hasten towards religion, and especially Islam. Thus progress would be made both in the worldly as well as the spiritual spheres. The results of the
Holy Imam’s new dialectics: The task of the propagation of Islam can also be divided into two categories: one, to preach the Islamic doctrines in their original sense and in a very reasonable way, so as to leave no room for denial by an intelligent person, and this sensible teaching should be derived directly from the Quran and the Hadith, without any tawil and distortion of meanings; and two, to adopt such ways and means as would help in the propagation of Islam. Its defence against
external enemies: The second enemy is the Christian religion, which has helped the growth of atheism and materialism. Another is the Hindu religion, which could boast of nothing except idol-worship and a lot of superstitions. It was for the reformation of these very shortcomings that Dayanand Sarsawati laid the foundation of the Arya Samaj. Since no virtue or perfection could be found in their own faith, the only way for survival for the Arya Samaj was to follow in the footsteps of Christianity and by carrying out attacks on other religions, especially Islam, to prejudice their own followers so that they would deem it prudent and safe to stay in their ancestral religion. Then there is Sikhism, which in fact is an outcome of Islamic interaction with Hinduism. It is not a regular religion because it has no religious law of its own. In fact, it is another form of mysticism. But in the present times, it has taken on a political hue and in order to subjugate Muslims, it adopted enmity towards Islam as a policy. Buddhism is another enemy of Islam. Though it has not mounted a direct attack against Islam, and contains nothing but idol-worship, yet, because its idea of nirvana enjoys a certain amount of popularity among the philosophers, it comes in conflict with Islam in the area of principles. The sixth enemy of Islam is Bahaism, which is in fact an offshoot of the Muslim sect, the Shi‘ites. But now they have separated themselves from Islam and call Islam a fruitless tree and think that Islamic Law and the prophethood of Muhammad have been abrogated and superseded. In addition to these, there are the Jewish and the Magian religions. But since they are, like Hinduism, confined within a particular community, and are not proselytising religions, they do not come into conflict with Islam. Secondly, with the passage of time, their original form has been completely disfigured. Whether it is a country or a religion, two strategies are usually adopted for its defence: one, a defensive strategy and two, an offensive strategy. Unless both these strategies are adopted, a complete defence of religion cannot be ensured. That is, firstly, the objections of the antagonists should be rebutted and the truth of Islam be thus established, and secondly, the hostile religion should be proven to be false by attacking its principles. The Holy Imam used both these strategies very well in the defence of Islam. Safeguarding Islam
defensively: The Holy Imam used to answer each objection both by way of scholastic research and also by counter-objection. To him it was not enough to make a reply through a counter-allegation, because, he argued, if someone calls us one-eyed, and if in return we also call him one-eyed, this is in a way an admission of our weak point in that we have tried to silence the opponent by pointing out a similar defect in him. If it is in fact something objectionable, then the objection still stands. The defect itself is not removed by merely saying to the opponent that the same defect exists in him. Hence a counter-allegation is only desirable when a researched reply has already been made. It ought to be proved that either the objection itself is a lie and a fabrication, or, if such a thing does exist in Islam, to which the detractor is objecting, then it ought to be proved that the very act of raising the objection is a mistake, because his viewpoint is not right, for the way the doctrine is found in Islam is in itself a reasonable and desirable thing. Whatever is said against it is condemnable and nonsensical. Having done this, if there is still the need for a counter-allegation, then it is worthwhile, because this would be tantamount to saying that the weakness and defect which was put forth about us is not to be found in us, but is certainly present in the objector. If one goes through all the Holy Imam’s writings, the same strategy is found to be at work in every one of them. He would first consider the enemy’s objection with the clinical eye of a researcher, that is, to see whether such a thing existed in Islam. If it did, he would get hold of it very boldly and would then discuss it with such criticism and research that he would throw light on all aspects of the problem, so much so that his discussion always forced all sensible people to bow their heads in agreement. His discussion used to be couched in such simple and straightforward terms, quite free of illogical twists and turns, that both the untutored and the philosopher would benefit from it. If in comparison to it something contrary was to be found in the objector’s religion, he would ensure that the absurdity of such a defect was thoroughly highlighted. Once, when the objections made by the Christians against Islam were collected, they reached several thousand, but the Holy Imam was not upset for a moment on reading these. He answered all these questions with great certitude and ease of mind in his various books from time to time in such a beautiful manner that the reader begins to marvel at it. And as stated above, he always remained steadfast in his dialectical style of replying, on the basis of the Holy Quran, to all objections. Whatever the question under consideration, he would go through the entire Quran, keeping the question in view, and would make notes on it. He would then make the relevant Quranic verses the basis of his thesis. The objections would be answered through a researched reply in the light of the Quran and the refutation of the false notions of the objector would also be based on the Quran. This was in accordance with the Quranic claim contained in the verse: The month of Ramadhan is that in which the Quran was revealed, a guidance to men and clear proofs of the guidance and the Criterion (between truth and falsehood) (2:185). That is, the Holy Quran not only contains universal laws and principles for all peoples for all times, but whatever guidance has been given is justified and supported by arguments and signs. Not only that, the Quran has differentiated between truth and falsehood by proving the falsehood of anything against the Quranic teachings which is to be found in any religion. In short, the Holy Quran is such a perfect book that it not only gives guidance but gives the rationale of the guidance also, and rebuts and proves false any doctrine opposed to this guidance and does not look towards its followers to do so. This ultimate perfection of the Holy Quran, which had escaped the notice of the Muslim dialecticians for the past thirteen centuries, was first highlighted by the Holy Imam. And the secret of the external success of the dialectics developed by the Holy Imam lies in the very fact that it is founded on the firm and unshakable arguments of the Holy Quran which no human philosophy can challenge. Philosophies keep on changing and it is quite possible that our observations and experiments may be wrong, but it is not possible that the knowledge and wisdom and the philosophy propounded by God, Most High, could be wrong. As the Holy Quran claims: Falsehood cannot overtake it, neither from the front nor the rear (41:42). Hence the Quran is not vulnerable from the front nor the rear, neither outwardly nor inwardly, neither now nor in the future. It states further: But We strike falsehood with Truth, so it crushes its skull and it (the falsehood) flees (21:18). Hence the dialectics whose foundations are based on the Quranic philosophy cannot be rendered ineffective even till the Day of Resurrection, and the beneficence of this service to the faith and this dialectics extend right up to the Last Day. So, if in this context it is said that the Holy Imam was the Khatam al Khulafa (Last of the Caliphs) in the continuing chain of the caliphs of Muhammad, that is, the Muhammadan Caliphate ended in his person and now no caliph of Muhammad would come who would change this dialectics, it would be in order to say so. The prophecy in the Hadith, that there would be a war between the Mahdi and Satan in the Last Epoch and that Satan would be killed, does not mean that all the entities that motivate evil in this world would be wiped out, but what it denotes is that whatever onslaughts would be mounted by Satan against Islam would be met by the weapon of this new dialectics, which would provide a permanent antidote to them. Safeguarding Islam
through offence: Refutation of
atheism: But atheism is such a thing that, though counter-arguments in favour of the existence of God seem quite reasonable, and when one looks at God’s universe one’s heart cries out that there must be a creator of the universe, yet, until and unless observation and experience testify that the God Who is the Creator and the Lord of this world really exists, one’s heart is not fully convinced and set at rest. Philosophy’s reach extends only to the point that it can say that there ought to be a creator of this universe and there could be a relationship between God and His servants, but a full conviction about this fact cannot be had except through the testimony of some visionary who has undergone the spiritual experience. That is why God, Most High, has always selected the prophets and the saints, men with spiritual experience, who, after having had the spiritual encounter and having witnessed the Unseen, came and testified before the people saying: "God is a real entity. We have found Him and He converses with us." Philosophers were never able to produce godliness in people. Mere philosophy cannot generate that certitude and satisfaction in human hearts as is produced by the spiritual experience of the prophets. Hence, is it not essential in the present times, when atheism is at its zenith, for God to appoint some seer who would declare to the world, basing this declaration on his personal observation and experience, that: "I have found God and He talks to me," and would thus establish firm belief and faith in God in the hearts of men? Is it not a fact that just a few years earlier the grip of religion was so firm in people’s hearts that even if someone wanted to remove the power of religion, he could not? The belief in God was imbued in the nature of men. But nowadays, the materialists of Europe, with all their material progress and glitter, have promoted atheism as a symbol of fashion and wisdom in a manner that has affected a whole multitude of the modern educated classes with this Dajjaliyyat (Anti-Christ syndrome). As this syndrome permeated and subverted human hearts and intellects and caused human nature to be suppressed, the inner voice of nature also abated, and the grip of religion and the belief in God’s existence continued to grow weak. Many men, enamoured with the new materialistic society, shut their eyes and ears to religion and became atheists and agnostics. That is the reason why even among religious-minded people, inaction, self-indulgence and love of material gains became rampant. Mere philosophy was not enough to wipe out this worship of the world, this agnosticism, atheism and materialism. In these times, science is supreme, and today, more than ever, everyone demands proof through observation and experience, and questions why now, when atheism is reigning supreme and the existence of God has been denied, does He not signal His Presence and thus guide the world? What has happened to His attribute of Hadi (Guide)? If His Holy Person cannot develop a relationship with the worldly, why does He not light up the heart of some saint with His Light? So, if He does not exhibit Himself to anyone, why should we not agree with the proposition that the life-details of the religious leaders of the past and the stories of their relationship with God and the illumination of their hearts with God’s Light are all stories having no reality? And if these were real, then why has this practice of God changed now? It is true that the religion of Islam has already attained perfection and the need for prophethood has ceased to exist, but, in order to keep a perfect and complete religion alive, it is still essential that God should illuminate the hearts of some men in every epoch with His Light and should continue to demonstrate His existence through heavenly signs. If this is not done, religion would take on the complexion of a story and would be erased from the world and from the hearts of men, especially in these times when there is a tempest of atheism raging all around the world and no religious philosophy remains acceptable unless accompanied by personal spiritual experience and observation. At just such a time, how appropriate and how commensurate with the need of the times was the call made by the Holy Imam, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, which proclaimed: "God has illuminated my heart with His Light and He talks to me and has appointed me so that I should declare to the world on the basis of my own observation and experience, that God exists and He is a Living God. Even today He discloses Himself to His chosen servants and answers their prayers and converses with them as He spoke to His servants in olden times. Hence I am a person who has undergone the spiritual experience and whatever I say is not based on mere hearsay, but I speak from personal experience and, having personally felt the Person of God, I give the glad tidings to the world that I have realised the Living God and He is to be found through following Islam. Whoever wishes can come to me and can satisfy himself both through arguments and spiritual experience." In this context, I will produce a couple of quotations from his writings: "The real motivating source of the fervour of my sympathy is that I have discovered a gold-mine and I have come to know of a treasure-trove of jewels, and I have fortunately come upon a glittering and priceless gem from this mine, and were I to distribute it among my brethren, each one of them would become richer than the person who owns the greatest amount of gold and silver today. What is that Gem? The True God. To realise Him means to know Him and to have true faith in Him and to develop a truly loving relationship with Him and to receive such vast riches that it would be very unfair if I keep mankind unaware and deprived of this bounty" (Arba‘in, No. 1). In this epoch of materialism, when all the sciences are based on observation and experiments, the mere rhetoric of the ‘ulama and the theologians and the arguments of the philosophers cannot produce certitude and satisfaction in the hearts of men until and unless someone with spiritual experience gets up and announces: "By treading on the path taught to me by Islam, I have discovered that Living God Who is the Master of the entire universe and whoever wishes can come to me and satisfy himself." He publicised this invitation to the public hundreds of times, and once he made this request in the following verses: O visitor, if you come to us These were the doctrines that established and solidified the foundations of every religion revealed by God, because the principle that upholds the foundations of religion is faith in a Living God. If there is no faith in God and His revelation, the whole edifice of religion comes crashing down to the ground. The Holy Imam has done a great favour to all the revealed religions in that he has set a seal of authenticity on the truth of every revealed religion. He did this by claiming to have discovered a Living God and by claiming to be in touch with Him through revelation, and by proving this claim to communion with God by propounding diverse arguments and by showing a multitude of heavenly signs, because initially, every religion which is based on revelation, was founded on righteousness and reality, and was not a fabrication. It is another matter though that, with the passage of time, it has become completely disfigured, but when it first came to this world, the person bringing it was not a forger, but a righteous person. It was this feat of the Holy Imam that made fair-minded and research-oriented atheists bow their heads before him and made them see the Face of God. By the blessings of his company, they were vouchsafed such God-realisation and belief in His unity that, sacrificing all their worldly interests, they set their faces towards serving the faith. They turned out to be such beacons of light that they became instrumental in guiding whole multitudes, lost in the wilderness of deviation, back to the right path. One from among these is Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, the Muslim missionary based at Woking, England, whose services to Islam as a missionary in Europe have been universally acknowledged. How apt is this couplet of his in praise of the Holy Imam: If you want to see a heavenly sign Refutation of the
Dev Samaj and the Brahmo Samaj: Victory of religion
over agnosticism: The proof of the strength and power of these arguments is the fact that he issued a notice, while setting forth these arguments, promising that anyone who managed to rebut successfully any of these arguments would be paid a reward of ten thousand rupees. It was a grace of God that no atheist or opponent could refute any of these arguments. However, it is true that the last weapon that he used to strike at the root of atheism, after which it could never recover, was the public disclosure of his own spiritual experience and testimony, that he had found God and that He speaks to him. This was what caused the religious argument to triumph over the apologists for agnosticism and atheism. Victory of Islam
over all other religions: "I have myself put Islam to the test and have realised God through following the Quran and the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet. He is the God Who is the Creator and the Master of the entire universe. So I am calling all men to God, basing my call on my personal observation, and whoever wishes can come to me and put my spiritual experience to the test. Today, there is no other religion except Islam through which one can realise God. If there is any claimant, let him confront me." But it is a fact that no claimant came forward to confront him. They kept criticising him from a distance, but none dared to come near this lion of God. If one goes through the Holy Imam’s writings, one finds them full of such announcements. Below is a sample of his verses: We ourselves have put Islam to the test. These were the various factors that carried the argument home to followers of all other religions. Though every follower of every religion makes verbal claims of God-realisation, to challenge the whole world, basing one’s challenge on one’s personal spiritual experience and observation and to invite them to God and His Messenger is a work that can only be accomplished by those who have been purified and sanctified by God’s Own Hand, and who are appointed for the service of His faith by God Himself. This is not a job for any maulawi, mullah, pir (religious guru) or any fakir. In fact, it can be accomplished only by one who is in communion with God and who has been made to stand up for proclaiming the Word of God and for the service of the faith by God, Himself. Muslims themselves
became critical of this victory of
Islam: Today, in this age of materialism, the biggest reason for the rejection of religion is this very denial of divine revelation. The philosophers of these times, whether they be Muslims like Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, or non-Muslims like Mahatma Gandhi, have conceded the possibility of divine revelation, but they have given it nothing more than the status of "an inner voice", that is, that it emanates from within the human consciousness and then affects it. Therefore, the foremost duty of the Holy Imam, who had been appointed by God to the office of the Mujaddid of the Fourteenth Century, was that he should bolster this foundation of religion and should elucidate and prove the fact that the chain of prophethood and divine revelation and inspiration is true. That is, God, Most High, has been entering into dialogue with His chosen servants, and since His attributes are perpetual, therefore, even today, He continues to converse with His chosen servants. There is no doubt that prophethood has come to an end and religion has been perfected because there remains no need for prophethood, but the revelation granted to saints still continues. That is, by way of giving glad tidings, the divine dialogue between man and God still continues in the same way as long ago, so that it can be an argument in favour of the chain of prophethood and so that the certitude and God-gnosis of man can be perfected. The Holy Imam laid great stress in his writings and speeches on this fact and vehemently declared in this age of materialism and agnosticism that God speaks even now, as He did in the past, and proclaimed very loudly: "I am an experienced person in this field, having had personal spiritual encounters," and along with these, he presented his divine revelations, dreams and visions in which the news of coming events had been foretold, and he also produced witnesses to these in order to prove their authenticity. He challenged all atheists and materialists to come to him and stay with him in order to satisfy themselves over the truth of his divine revelations. Along with it, he also announced that divine revelation is not the name of any "inner voice" but it comes from external sources in the form of words and comes down on the inner consciousness of the recipient. However, this external voice comes in a manner just as a telephonic voice comes from an external source, and this could be called a spiritual telephonic message that is received by human consciousness. It is similar to the way the inner eye sometimes sees, while one is fully awake, scenes about coming events and sometimes sees some scenes from the spiritual world. We get news of such unseen matters through such divine revelation and inspiration as are beyond human power to know in normal circumstances. Sometimes a question and answer session can take place during this spiritual state of revelation which can go on between a human being and his Lord. Also, there is a wonderful majestic light which accompanies the divine words of God and one is so certain of its divine origin that this certitude enters one’s consciousness like a steel peg. God’s acts support this divine revelation. That is, anything that is foretold comes about as foretold, and if there are any impediments and difficulties in the way of its fulfilment, God, Most High, removes them through His Omnipotent power to prove the truth of His Word. It is then that one develops a living faith in God’s Word and His existence, and this faith is the root of all good deeds and high morals. By developing a high degree of God-gnosis and instilling His love in men’s hearts, He makes them heir to all those rewards and spiritual progress for which they have been created by God. Therefore, it is this ability to communicate and converse with God which provides the truest | ||
