The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat is just over a hundred years old. Where was it 1,400 years ago?

It existed in the true followers of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw). The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat is not a new sect but a community that spiritually joins the Muslims of the last days with the first Muslims.

Fourteen hundred years ago the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat existed in the form of the Muslims who faithfully followed the Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw). What bears this name today is nothing other than the Islam of that first age.

The name only serves to identify the community. Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (as), the Promised Messiah, did not call his followers a sect but a Jamaat, that is, a community. Others call it a sect, but a sect it is not. Many people overlook this difference.

The Holy Qur’an itself says that this would happen. In Surah Al-Jumu‘ah it first speaks of the people among whom the Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw) was raised, whom he taught and purified. Then the second verse speaks of others who have not yet joined them. These are the people of a later age.

Many centuries lie between these two groups. Whoever truly represents the Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw) in the last days builds a bridge across that time. He leads his followers spiritually to the first Muslims, so that both become like one single people. His followers are then in truth followers of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw).

That is why the age of the name decides nothing. The name is young, the faith is the same. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat has not begun anything new, but has brought the original back to life.