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Books
Section
> Clear
Evidence re Ahmadiyyah by Hafiz Sher
Muhammad
> He [Hazrat Mirza Sahib] Established
God as a Living Experience by Jilani
Kamran He
[Hazrat Mirza Sahib] Established God as a Living
Experience: Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad appeared at a time, late nineteenth century, when the Christian mission work in India was exceedingly aggressive and the defence as put forth by Muslims in this country was comparatively weaker. The Muslims lacked self-assurance and what was seriously contemplated by the Christian missionaries to be the weakest point in the Muslim religious personality was the loss of faith in a living God. This was perhaps the most difficult time in the history of Islam, because the Religion had, unfortunately, succumbed to the miseries of a civilisation which had never before experienced such a catastrophe. There were talks of compromises, alliances and of outright rejection almost everywhere. Whatever be the complexion of the scene it is quite certain that the Muslims had not only lost their political freedom, they had lost the sense of direction also. The task before Hazrat Mirza Sahib was therefore of a greater magnitude and responsibility. His mission as Mujjadid should be evaluated within the perspective which determines the history of the period. Hazrat Mirza Sahib was constrained to work within a milieu which was adverse to the ideas he proclaimed as the basic truths of his divine ministry. It should not be forgotten that he did his writing when the English were here, and that British Government had a soft corner for the missionaries who, by no mere accident, also came from the British Isles. Hazrat Mirza Sahib had no option; he had to accept the political situation as it stood then and had to work untiringly for the great glory of Islam within that situation. Critics have given wrong and misleading interpretations to his commitment in relation to his loyalty to the British Government. To all practical purposes Hazrat Mirza Sahib's acceptance of the political situation was in no way a compromise with the alien power. He was actually all against it; he in fact challenged it on higher levels. The last decades of the nineteenth century were one of the dark decades of our history. We were the victims and the Europeans were our tormentors! In our eyes the word Europe stood for our complete annihilation; it also stood for power, culture and a material wealth. Things and events obeyed the Europeans; in India the English controlled them. Islam had no doubt a glorious past to its credit, but it had only recently come out as a loser. We existed as a matter of history only. In retrospect we found our glory to be in ruins; in the future we, however, found nothing but blankness. It is rather easier today to talk of the future, but in those days the future just did not exist for us. We lived and existed in the present and there was an end to it. Hazrat Mirza Sahib restored our faith in a living God. He said that we were no longer the people whom God had deprived of His grace. His providence still worked for us and that we had only to feel it in our hearts. Hazrat Mirza Sahib made us feel God as a living experience and thereby abridged for us the distance that lies between the infinite and the finite. Such mystical education was really valuable because the Aligarh movement was then using a phraseology which had by rationalising Islam obscured the divine presence and had made God at once impersonal, indifferent and abstract. By establishing God as a living experience and His providence as an active agent in the movement of our affairs, Hazrat Mirza Sahib revealed to us the image of the future which had never been read before by us with as much confidence. He disclosed to us the advent of the Muslim renaissance, and made us realise that the possibilities of the future were once again entrusted to us by the providence. He made us see that Islam was the only true religion that suited the rhythm of the modern times. It is, however, interesting to note that his contemporaries behaved apologetically and thereby had failed to present Islam with assurance. In this respect Hazrat Mirza Sahib was the only solitary figure who proclaimed the role and significance of Islam in the world of today without the last hesitation. He was positive, assertive and full of confidence in his ministry. And it is in this direction that his importance as a teacher lies for us even today.
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