From Sufism to Ahmadiyya , livre ebook

FROM SUFISM TO AHMADIYYA
FROM SUFISM TO AHMADIYYA
A MUSLIM MINORITY MOVEMENT IN SOUTH ASIA
Adil Hussain Khan
Indiana University Press
Bloomington Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2015 by Adil Hussain Khan
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No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
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ISBN 978-0-253-01523-5 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-253-01529-7 (ebook)
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For my parents
Contents
Acknowledgments
A Note on Transliteration and Translation
Introduction
1 Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani before Prophethood
2 The Prophetic Claims of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
3 Authority, Khil fat , and the Lahori-Qadiani Split
4 Politics and the Ahmadiyya Movement under Mirza Bashir al-Din Mahmud Ahmad
5 Religion and Politics after Partition: The Ahmadi Jihad for Kashmir
6 Early Opposition and the Roots of Ahmadi Persecution
7 Persecution in Pakistan and Politicization of Ahmadi Identity
Conclusion
Appendix: Mirza Ghulam Ahmad s Family Tree
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
M ANY PEOPLE HAVE contributed to the publication of this book in various capacities. I am deeply indebted to Professor Christopher Shackle, whose support and guidance shaped this project from its earliest stages. I would also like to thank Professors Paul Gifford, Kate Crosby, Oliver Scharbrodt, David Azzopardi, James Alexander Kapalo, and Sarah Stewart for their stimulating discussions and input in the direction of my research. Dr. Matthew Nelson and Huma Chughtai provided valuable insights into Pakistani politics and the National Assembly debates. Professors Ian Talbot and Avril A. Powell provided constructive feedback on earlier drafts of this project, from which I benefited greatly. I would also like to thank the editorial staff at Indiana University Press, who provided numerous suggestions for improvement and saw this project through to its completion.
The imam of London s Fazl mosque, Maulana Ataul Mujeeb Rashid, patiently dealt with and responded to endless questions on the subtleties of Ahmadi theology, especially during my first two years of research. Maulana Abdul Mannan Tahir and family were kind enough to extend their hospitality to me on a number of occasions; they also put me in touch with many notable Ahmadis in Britain, India, and Pakistan. The extended family members of Abdul Mannan Tahir guided me through Rabwah and Qadian upon my arrival and helped me make the most of my visits, which would have otherwise been far less productive had I been on my own. Maulana Sayyid Mir Mahmud Ahmad Nasir, principal of the Ahmadi seminary in Rabwah, was exceptionally kind and provided access to seminary resources in addition to granting me permission to speak freely with faculty members in Rabwah. The late Maulana Dost Muhammad Shahid graciously answered several questions both in person and through correspondence and pointed me in the appropriate direction regarding historical aspects of my research, even when our trajectories differed. I am also very grateful for the help of Dr. Navidul Haq Khan and family, whose faithful devotion to Jama at-i Ahmadiyya left a lasting impression in my mind. Siraj and Sabah were particularly helpful and always eager to offer assistance by enthusiastically sifting through Ahmadi literature with me.
I must also thank Sabahussalaam Smith, Pasha Dougela, Tariq Sami, Syed Tayyeb Ahmad Shah, Waqar Jamil, and Ray Mynatt for their long conversations, which often challenged my developing ideas and enabled me to pursue new avenues of research, especially at the beginning of this project. The family of Jamshed and Sharaf Tirmizi warmly welcomed me into their home in Lahore, which allowed me to explore the Punjab without worry and at times provided a much-needed escape from religious controversy.
Funding from the Additional Award for Fieldwork from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and the University of London Central Research Fund made possible trips to India and Pakistan during the spring of 2006. The Bobet Fellowship at Loyola University New Orleans helped bring this project to a close. Loyola s specialist librarian, Brian Sullivan, provided tremendous help on numerous occasions.
Chapter 4 is a revised version of my article The Kashmir Crisis as a Political Platform for Jama at-i Ahmadiyya s Entrance into South Asian Politics, which appeared in Modern Asian Studies 46:5 (September 2012). The material is included with permission from Cambridge University Press, for which I am grateful.
Lastly, but certainly not least, none of this would have been possible without the immeasurable love, support, and assistance of my family: Hina, Esa, Sana, Dean, Ameena, Musa, and Yusuf; my wife, Nasima; and most of all my parents, Khalid and Nusrat, whose prayers alone have brought me this far. Any good that may come of this is because of them.
Despite the greatly appreciated advice and efforts of many people, any errors, mistakes, or shortcomings in this book are my own.
A Note on Transliteration and Translation
T HE TRANSLITERATIONS IN this book largely follow a simplified version of the system adopted by the International Journal of Middle East Studies . There are a number of drawbacks to adhering to this scheme strictly, however, for reasons discussed in the text. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad frequently switched from one language to another within the same work, which complicates the act of transliteration, since there are different conventions associated with each language. A given word may be spelled or pronounced differently in each language, leading to different transliterations of the same word, such as the Qur anic concept of kh tam al-nubuwwa and the Pakistani organization known as Khatm-i Nubuwwat. In this book, I have transliterated words based on their original context so that they may be identified as easily as possible by readers familiar with the language in question, even though this creates apparent inconsistencies in usage from one passage to another. I have also used anglicized plurals in most cases, such as khal fas instead of khulaf .
In rendering proper nouns that have been widely used in English, such as names or titles of individuals who regularly wrote their own names in English, I have used the preferred or most recognized spellings. In cases where names were not commonly written in English with consistent spellings, I have provided the full transliteration at the word s first appearance and used a simplified spelling thereafter. In cases where English words were rendered into Urdu script, I have used conventional English spellings instead of providing reverse transliterations.
The definitions of technical terms throughout the book reflect the context of the original passage in which they appeared, since religious terminology takes on different connotations in each language. These distinctions might not be as clear in the glossary, where most terms may be traced back to Arabic roots. I hope that this will convey a more accurate account of original passages despite apparent inconsistencies, especially for those who are not familiar with the religious undertones of each language. All translations, unless otherwise noted, are my own.
FROM SUFISM TO AHMADIYYA
Introduction
J AM AT-I AHMADIYYA, OR the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, is one of the most controversial movements in contemporary South Asian Islam, whose members have been legally declared non-Muslim in countries such as Pakistan. This controversy over whether Ahmadis are in fact Muslims stems largely from the spiritual claims of the movement s founder, who is believed by Ahmadis to have taken on a messianic role which infringes upon mainstream conceptions of prophethood in Islam. In short, Ahmadis claim that their community was founded by the second coming of Jesus Christ, who was sent to the world by God to reform society in advance of the final judgment. This belief has shaped the development of the Ahmadiyya movement and has framed questions of legitimacy surrounding its interpretations of Islam as it continues to spread throughout the world. The transnational scope of the movement today has enabled this controversy to have lasting repercussions for conceptions of Muslim identity worldwide by helping many Muslims delineate what contemporary Islam is not. This is also true in Western European countries, such as Britain, France, and Germany, as well as in Canada and the United States, where the Ahmadiyya movement has increasingly taken root since the 1980s through the establishment of South Asian immigrant communities and converts to Islam. The impact of the Ahmadi controversy has been most evident, however, in the development of South Asian politics after India s partition in 1947, which was determined largely by religion.
Jama at-i Ahmadiyya originated as an Islamic reform movement in nineteenth-century Punjab, when the Indian subcontinent was under British colonial rule. At the time, many Muslim thinkers were preoccupied with internal religious debates ranging from the ritual practices of Sufis to the role of hadith in the broader Islamic tradition. Close encounters with non-Muslims fueled interreligious rivalr