ÿþ<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>AHMAD&#298YAH MOVEMENT</TITLE> <style type="text/css"> .BODY { background-color: #EAF1F7; background-image: url('images/gtbh.jpg'); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: fixed; background-position: center; color: #0066CC;} .C1{text-align: justify;color: #0066CC;FONT-size: SMALL;FONT-family: Tahoma;} .BIB{text-align: center;color: #000099;FONT-size: SMALL;FONT-family: Tahoma;} .CONT{text-align: right;color: #FF0000;FONT-size: SMALL;FONT-family: Tahoma;} </style><META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="AHMAD*YAH,MOVEMENT"> <META http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></HEAD> <BODY class="BODY" oncontextmenu="return false" ondragstart="return false" onselectstart="return false"> <FONT ALIGN="JUSTIFY" FACE="Tahoma"> <p class="C1">&#65279AHMAD&#298YAH MOVEMENT, started in the late nineteenth century as a reforming and rejuvenating current in Islam, originated in Q&#257d&#299&#257&#7749 in Gurd&#257spur district of the Punjab. In the 1880's, Mirz&#257 <u>Gh</u>ul&#257m Ahmad, son of the chief land-owning family of Q&#257d&#299&#257&#7749, after he had received revelations and preached a renewal of Islamic faith, began to draw followers. Although he had been educated traditionally by tutors in <i>Qur'&#257n</i> and <i>had&#299th</i>, Ahmad had been sent to Si&#257lko&#7789 by his father to serve his apprenticeship as a law clerk and to train for the legal profession. Unsuccessful in his work and while becoming increasingly religious, Ahmad came in contact with Christian missionaries and became convinced that they posed a threat to Islam. Following the advent of the &#256rya Sam&#257j in the Punjab in 1877, <u>Gh</u>ul&#257m Ahmad also realized the threat posed by renascent militant Hinduism.</p> <p class="C1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Spurred by a commitment to Islam reinforced by revelatory experiences, and aware of the growing threat posed by Christianity and Hinduism, Mirz&#257 <u>Gh</u>ul&#257m Ahmad, in 1880, at the age of 40, began to publish a four-volume work, <i>B&#257r&#257h&#299n-i-Ahmad&#299yah</i>, in which he attempted to refute the claims of several Hindu reform movements that they were superior to Islam. In 1889, he permitted his followers to make <i>bay'at</i> or confirm their allegiance to him. This <i>bay'at</i> was not the kind made by S&#363f&#299s in joining a <i>tar&#299qah</i> or order but rather more of the traditional Islamic commitment made to a <i><u>kh</u>al&#299fah. </i></p> <p class="C1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In 1891, <u>Gh</u>ul&#257m Ahmad claimed to be the <i>mas&#299h maw'&#363d</i> (Promised Messiah) and <i>mahd&#299</i> of the Muslims. While the former claim was sufficient to bring the wrath of Muslim <i>'ulam&#257</i> or religious scholars down on him, the latter claim was explicitly offensive to most Muslims. The <i>mahd&#299</i> usually understood by Muslims to be Jesus Christ, is the figure who will come at the end of time to establish the kingdom of God on earth. Ahmad's claim to be the <i>mahd&#299</i> stemmed from his theory that he was the successor to Jesus. This involved an elaborate explanation proving that Jesus was not in heaven, as taught by Islam, but that on being taken off the cross, Jesus had been treated with a miraculous ointment and cured of his wounds. He had then escaped, wandering eastward, coming finally to Kashm&#299r. There he ministered to the lost tribes of Israel, until his death at the age of 120. <u>Gh</u>ul&#257m Ahmad demonstrated in his book, <i>Mas&#299h Hindust&#257n Me&#7749</i>, that he had located Jesus' grave on <u>Kh</u>&#257n Y&#257r Street in Sr&#299nagar.</p> <p class="C1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;By proving that Jesus had died a natural death, <u>Gh</u>ul&#257m Ahmad believed he had proved his claims to be <i>mahd&#299</i> and promised Messiah of the Muslims. Through his writings in Urdu and Arabic as well as through his preaching in the Punjabi language, Ahmad won some thousands of followers during his lifetime. In 1891, the first Ahmad&#299yah <i>jalsah</i> or annual community gathering was held at Q&#257d&#299&#257&#7749. This meeting has been held annually during the last week of December ever since, though since partition it is also held in the new international headquarters at Rabw&#257h near Chinio&#7789, West Punjab, Pakistan.</p> <p class="C1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;While Ahmad's forthright stand against Hindus and Christians at first won him the admiration of certain Islamic sects, his claims to a kind of prophethood and his call for <i>j&#299h&#257d</i> by missionary effort rather than by militant activity brought on him the wrath of both Sh&#299&#257h and Sunn&#299 religious leaders. His right to prophecy was also challenged in court. He had also prophesied that the wrath of God would fall upon his enemies. When Pa&#7751&#7693it Lekh R&#257m, the militant &#256rya Sam&#257jist, was murdered by a Lahore Muslim in 1897, two years before the awful death predicted for him by <u>Gh</u>ul&#257m Ahmad, communal controversy in Lahore reached an unprecedented level for those times.</p> <p class="C1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Mirz&#257 <u>Gh</u>ul&#257m Ahmad's first interaction with the Sikh community occurred in 1895 at the height of his controversy with the &#256rya Sam&#257j. After studying Sw&#257m&#299 Day&#257nand's <i>Saty&#257rth Prak&#257sh</i> (The Light of Truth), in which the Sw&#257m&#299 had attacked every other religion including the Sikh, Ahmad, though he had not heard of any Sikh responses to these attacks, decided to take up "the cudgels against Dayanand to protect the honour of Nanak, " according to Ahmad's biographer, Abdur Rahm&#257n Dard. It was thus that Ahmad began a work in Urdu on the life of Gur&#363 N&#257nak, which not only sought to answer Day&#257nand's charges against Sikhism but also attempted to separate legend from known facts about Gur&#363 N&#257nak. Ahmad's ultimate aim in this study was to win over the Sikhs to Islam and to convince the Sikhs that he was the promised Messiah by proving that Gur&#363 N&#257nak had been a Muslim.</p> <p class="C1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Sikh scholars answered the claims of Mirz&#257 <u>Gh</u>ul&#257m Ahmad and refuted his arguments about Gur&#363 N&#257nak. <i>Bh&#257rat Sudh&#257r</i>, an &#256rya Sam&#257j journal published at Lahore, sought a rapprochement with the Sikhs by attacking Ahmad.</p> <p class="C1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Since the partition of the Punjab, the principal seat of the Ahmad&#299yah movement has moved to Rabw&#257h, Pakistan, with only a token staff remaining to care for the original shrines and buildings of Q&#257d&#299&#257&#7749, now situated a few miles on the Indian side of the border. In Pakistan the Ahmad&#299yahs have since been declared a heretic, non-Muslim sect.</p> </font> <p class="BIB"> BIBLIOGRAPHY<p class="C1"><ol class="C1"><li class="C1"> Lavan, Spencer, <i>Ahmadiyah Movement</i>. Amritsar, 1976<BR> <li class="C1"> Abbott, Freeland, <i>Islam and Pakistan</i>. New York, 1968<BR> </ol><p class="CONT">Spencer Lavan<br></p><BR> </font> <img src="counter.aspx" width="1px" height="1px" alt=""> </HTML></BODY>