Website: www.aaiil.uk

The company of the righteous:
Maulana Muhammad Ali, Hafiz Sher Muhammad and Prof. Asghar Hameed

Friday Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz, for Lahore Ahmadiyya UK, 11 October 2024

“And whoever obeys Allah and the Messenger, they are with those upon whom Allah has bestowed favours from among the prophets and the truthful and the faithful and the righteous, and a goodly company are they!” — ch. 4, An-Nisa’, v. 69	وَ مَنۡ یُّطِعِ اللّٰہَ وَ الرَّسُوۡلَ فَاُولٰٓئِکَ مَعَ الَّذِیۡنَ اَنۡعَمَ اللّٰہُ عَلَیۡہِمۡ مِّنَ النَّبِیّٖنَ وَ الصِّدِّیۡقِیۡنَ وَ الشُّہَدَآءِ وَ الصّٰلِحِیۡنَ ۚ وَ حَسُنَ اُولٰٓئِکَ رَفِیۡقًا ﴿ؕ۶۹﴾
“…Those of His servants only who are possessed of knowledge fear Allah. Surely Allah is Mighty, Forgiving.” — ch. 35, Al-Fāṭir, v. 28	…اِنَّمَا یَخۡشَی اللّٰہَ مِنۡ عِبَادِہِ الۡعُلَمٰٓؤُا ؕ اِنَّ اللّٰہَ عَزِیۡزٌ غَفُوۡرٌ﴿۲۸﴾

Around these days of October, there are death anniversaries of three very great scholars and leaders of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement. Maulana Muhammad Ali, the first Head of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement, died on 13th October 1951. Hafiz Maulana Sher Muhammad, a great scholar, author, orator and missionary, died on 12th October 1990. Prof. Dr. Asghar Hameed, the fourth Head of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement, died on 14th October 2002. In their remembrance I have selected the verses of the Quran that I just recited.

The first verse promises that those who obey Allah and the Messenger, the Holy Prophet Muhammad, will receive the companionship of the prophets and of the true believers of the highest ranks. Those who make an effort to follow the prophets and the righteous believers, and manifest a desire to be alongside them, they will be in Allah’s estimation counted as having been with them. The Holy Prophet himself stated that those who love Allah and His Messenger, even though they may have fallen short in deeds, will be included as being with the Messenger and his leading Companions. A Companion and servant of the Holy Prophet, Anas ibn Malik, said:

“We had never been so happy as we were on hearing the Holy Prophet say the words: You will be with those whom you love.”

He further said:

“I love the Prophet, Abu Bakr and Umar, and I hope that I will be with them because of my love for them though my deeds are not like theirs” (Bukhari, hadith 3688).

Being “with them” is not only having their company in the life after death, but also trying to emulate their qualities in this life and help them in their mission. There are two other similar hadith, relating that a man asked the Holy Prophet about someone who loves a people but cannot join them. The Holy Prophet replied:

“A man is with those whom he loves” (Bukhari, hadith 6169 and 6170).

What is meant by he “cannot join them” is that he cannot reach their status and level in faith and good deeds.

This conveys to us the good news that, although we may not be able to reach the level of faith, sacrifices and achievements in the way of Allah of those who have passed away before us in this Movement, we can still have their companionship through our love and devotion for them, and our desire and efforts to follow in their path. The verse I recited mentions that we can attain the companionship of prophets and of the truthful (ṣiddīq) and the faithful (shahīd) and the righteous (ṣāliḥ). Commentators of the Quran have discussed what is meant by these three categories of Muslims.

They say the ṣiddīq are those who can recognise the truth straightaway when they see it, and they accept it immediately and believe in it very strongly. Because Hazrat Abu Bakr showed this quality, Muslims gave him the title ṣiddīq. The shahīd are those who excel the ordinary believers in terms of knowledge. They learn knowledge firsthand, remember it and convey it to others. That is why a witness to anything is also called a shahīd because he bears witness through having knowledge. The third word ṣāliḥ is applied to those who, in terms of deeds and actions, excel others in following the commands of the religion to do good and refrain from wrongdoing.

Maulana Muhammad Ali had the qualities of all of these, of being ṣiddīq, shahīd and ṣāliḥ. He was ṣiddīq in recognising the truth of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as soon as he saw him for the first time. A little later, in 1897, he joined the Ahmadiyya Movement, and a mere four years further on, he responded to an appeal by Hazrat Mirza sahib and gave up his worldly career to devote the rest of his life solely for the service of Islam. In a booklet written near the end of his life, the Maulana wrote:

“In exactly the year 1900, when I was on my way to Gurdaspur to start my law practice, with all arrangements completed… my Guide (Hazrat Mirza sahib) took me by the hand and said: You have other work to do, I want to start an English periodical for the propagation of Islam to the West, you will edit it. What great fortune that, on hearing this voice, I did not hesitate for a moment as to whether I should start this work or the work for which I had prepared myself. This periodical was issued on 1 January 1902 under the title Review of Religions. In 1909 I began the English translation of the Holy Quran. When I look back today, after half a century, I fall before God in gratitude that He gave me such long respite and enabled me to do so much work.”

Maulana Muhammad Ali settled in Qadian, the hometown of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, in the year 1900 and became heavily involved in the literary as well as administrative and other work of the Movement, and all this work led to an expansion of the Ahmadiyya Movement. Some years later Maulana Muhammad Ali faced a situation in which he again had to be a ṣiddīq, one who sacrifices everything for the sake of the truth. In 1914, six years after the death of Hazrat Mirza sahib, certain members of the Movement invented a wrong belief that every Muslim who does not believe in the claims of Hazrat Mirza sahib is a kafir, unbeliever and outside the fold of Islam. According to them, a new prophet of God had come, namely, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. In the booklet that I mentioned above, Maulana Muhammad Ali writes about these events as follows:

“In 1914 we separated from Qadian and laid the foundations of the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha‘at Islam in Lahore. The reason for this was only that we considered the creed to be wrong that all non-Ahmadis are kafir and outside the pale of Islam. This belief was also contrary to the clear and open teachings and practice of the Founder of the Movement, and it was also against the express teachings of the Quran and Hadith.”

So Maulana Muhammad Ali and a few people with him established our Anjuman in Lahore to continue the work of the propagation of Islam and of the real teachings of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.

This, then, was the second time that Maulana Muhammad Ali made a sacrifice of his life, and of his bright hopes for the future, for the sake of the truth. He, with his associates, founded an organisation, starting with no resources. This organisation was based on two cornerstone principles that are taught by Islam. One is that if a person calls himself a Muslim by professing belief in the Kalima Shahada of Islam, the same words by reciting which a non-Muslim enters into Islam, then no other Muslim has the authority to exclude him from the fold of Islam on some other pretext. In the whole Muslim world, it is only the group established by Maulana Muhammad Ali which adheres to this principle firmly and unconditionally and promotes it strongly to the Muslim world.

The other cornerstone principle on which the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement was founded is that the Holy Prophet Muhammad was the last and final prophet of all prophets, and after him Allah will not send any prophet, new or old. Other Muslims, in general, despite claiming to believe that the Holy Prophet Muhammad was the last prophet, allow scope for the return of Jesus (Hazrat Isa) to this world, who of course was a prophet. As to the allegation that Hazrat Mirza sahib claimed to be a prophet, Maulana Muhammad Ali wrote extensively and in great detail to show that he did not claim to be a prophet and that he believed, as we do, that no prophet can come after the Holy Prophet Muhammad, neither new nor old.

As I said above, Maulana Muhammad Ali proved himself to be a ṣiddīq. He was also a shahīd, because of the knowledge he possessed by his own deep learning and research. And he spread that knowledge in the world through his writings, speeches and sermons. He was also ṣāliḥ, one who in his life and actions walks on the right path. Those who knew him or worked with him have testified to the purity of his character. When he joined the Ahmadiyya Movement, Hazrat Mirza sahib himself published the following opinion about him:

“I have found him to be a most excellent man as regards religion and good behaviour in all ways. He is unassuming, modest, of a righteous nature, and pious. He is to be envied for many qualities. … It is obvious that such promising young men possessing these qualities cannot be found by searching” (Announcement dated 9 August 1899; Majmu‘a Ishtiharat, 1986 edition, vol. 3, p. 137–138, number 206).

The other two eminent scholars whom I mentioned, whose death anniversaries are close to that of Maulana Muhammad Ali, were greatly influenced by their connection with him. They sat in his company, learnt from him, and were inspired by him, and, because they went on to serve the mission he started, they will sit in his company in the next life as well. I recited above the words from a verse of the Quran:

“Those of His servants only who are possessed of knowledge fear Allah”.

This applied to all three of them. Their great knowledge only made them all the more humble and God-fearing.

Maulana Hafiz Sher Muhammad is known internationally as a missionary of Islam who served and strengthened many of our world-wide branches. His most magnificent achievement was to testify in a court case in Cape Town, South Africa, during the 1980s, to refute the allegations made against Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and his followers by the anti-Ahmadiyya religious leaders.

Professor Dr Asghar Hameed was well-known and respected for his great capability in his professional field of mathematics, but he also had extensive knowledge of Islam and our Movement. He was of a humble, unassuming and modest nature, and was also known for his honesty and straight-forwardness. He demonstrated all these qualities throughout his life, including the period from 1996 to 2002 when he was Head of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Jamaat. I had the great privilege of working with both of these intellectual giants and sincere servants of Islam and our Jamaat.

We pray that may Allah grant all these three great stalwarts of Islam the highest and noblest ranks in the Hereafter, accept their unparalleled services, and enable us to learn from them, and place us in their company — Ameen.

Website: www.aaiil.uk