Do We Keep People in the Dark?

Truth About the Split

The twelfth item in Maulawi Muhammad Ali’s narrative of the dissensions is that I have prohibited my followers from having anything to do with members of the other section; that I have prohibited them from eating at the same table with them, from mixing with them in social intercourse, and from reading any book or tract published by them. Thus my followers have been kept ignorant of the arguments which are being given in refutation of such of my beliefs as are contrary to the views of the Promised Messiah (as). This last link in Maulawi Muhammad Ali’s account of the events which led up to the split in the Community is as feeble and flimsy as any of his other statements. I have never forbidden any of my followers from making friends with any members of the seceding party, or from eating at the same table with them, or from reading their literature. The whole charge is a libel fabricated by Maulawi Muhammad Ali. In fact on the contrary, I find that when in the year 1915, at the death of Maulawi Abdul Hayi, son of Hadrat Khalifatul Masih I (ra) , Maulawi Muhammad

Ali paid a visit to Qadian in company with some of his friends, I took the opportunity to invite him to my house, and sent Maulawi Sher Ali to escort him to my place, but Maulawi Muhammad Ali was pleased to decline the invitation. Similarly, when earlier in the same year, I had an occasion to pay a visit to Lahore for some medical consultation, some of my friends sent invitation to Maulawi Muhammad Ali and some of his friends. But they declined the invitation. On another occasion, Shaikh Rahmatullah, one of the partisans of Maulawi Muhammad Ali, paid a visit to Qadian and proceeded directly to the Maqbarah-e- Bahishti. Somebody brought the news to me, whereupon I sent somebody to escort him to my house, and also went personally to meet him. I requested him to stop at Qadian, but he declined the request on the plea of urgent work. In a like manner, members of my party make it a point to mix with members of the other party, wherever such meetings are possible. But there are people who are prone to pick quarrels and are intent upon mischief. Their sole object is to deceive others, and they always wait for an opportunity to create trouble. These are the men who sow the seeds of disbelief and dissension. From such people my followers, of course, make it a point to keep away; nor do I myself approve of such association. But, nevertheless, so far as I can remember, I have never as yet issued any pronouncement on this subject. Apart, however, from these considerations, may not one ask of Maulawi Muhammad Ali, what right has he to bring the present charge against me, seeing that he himself declined to accept my invitation? He himself stands charged with departing from the example of the Holy Prophet (sa) in declining my invitation. After that it was no longer my duty to accept his invitation. To accept his invitation, under the circumstances, would have been dishonourable, and believers ought never to compromise their honour.

I sought long not to cut off relations with this opposite party, and to see them return to the fold of truth. But Maulawi Muhammad Ali, from the beginning, saw his advantage in dissension and strife. It was because of this that he departed from Qadian, and founded a new Anjuman of his own, and published various slanders against me. After that, what right has he to expect that I should continue to be friendly with him? In the first place, by their denial of the Khilafat and by their attempt to create a breach in the Community, Maulawi Muhammad Ali and his associates—who were at the bottom of these dissensions—made themselves liable in the eye of the Shariah to have all intercourse with them suspended, and to be left severely alone by the Community. But, nevertheless, when as a kind of special concession, I sought to keep up relations with them, they plainly declined to respond to my overtures, and refused to accept our repeated invitations. And now they have the grace to lay the same charge at our door! Maulawi Muhammad Ali and his associates sometimes point to a certain article by Qazi Zahuruddin Akmal in support of this charge. This article was written after the return of Khwaja Kamaluddin from England, and it contained an exhortation to the Community to beware of him. But my accusers ought to remember that, in the first place, the article was not written by me; it expressed the view of one individual member of my following. In the second place, the article contained an exhortation to Ahmadis generally relating to a leading disturber. It did not speak of the mutual relations of the two sides, or of their leading members. This was apparent from the fact that the writer himself called at their headquarters, in order to see Maulawi Muhammad Ali, but the latter paid no attention to him, and failed to show him the ordinary civility due to a visitor.

If the article was intended by the author to have any general application, then their was no reason why he himself should have gone to meet Maulawi Muhammad Ali. The fact is that the charge is merely an excuse fabricated with a view to justifying their own aloofness from me and my Jama‘at. A careful inquiry will show how my Jama‘at have all along shown more readiness to mix with his adherents than they have shown to mix with mine. On the occasion of their annual gathering a good few of my followers invariably go and attend, but none of his adherents have ever attended our annual gatherings except on the last occasion when some of their members attended in response to a special invitation. Moreover, whenever any one of our members has happened to go among them, everything has been done to show him disrespect and contempt. For instance, only a few days ago I received a letter from one of my friends Miyań Abdul Aziz, a P. W. D. overseer, which said that he had gone to those people but they did not allow him to stop with them. In short, they have now increased so much in their animosity to my Jama‘at and have gone so deep in duplicity that any one of my friends who goes to mix with them runs the risk of hurting his self-respect. At present, their general attitude towards my adherents is one of indifference, save towards such people whom they expect to win over to their views or from whom they hope to derive some advantage.

As regards a study of their books, it may confidently be asserted that there will be found more members of my party who have studied their books than members of Maulawi Muhammad Ali’s party who have cared to make themselves acquainted with our books.

And lastly, I wish to state that while I have been busy writing this part of my reply there has been yet another opportunity to disprove and expose the utter groundlessness of the charge made by Maulawi Muhammad Ali that I have kept my followers in the dark by prohibiting them from hearing the arguments of his party. This happened as follows. Our annual gathering for the year 1918, which on account of my indisposition could not be held as usual in December 1918, was held in March 1919. On this occasion, I sent a special invitation to members of the other section. In response, some 30 selected members of Maulawi Sahib’s party attended our meetings. They requested me for permission to speak at one of our meetings. Seeing that they were our guests, I acceded to the request, and asked them to appoint one of their number who might explain their views to those assembled, and speak for such time as they granted to one of our members to speak at one of their meetings. To this, they replied that among their number there was none who could speak on the occasion. They, therefore, asked that Sayyid Mudassar Shah might be permitted to speak on their behalf. They also requested that the time allotted to the speaker should be longer than that which was allowed in their meetings to our representative. I acceded to both these requests. Accordingly, after a speech by Maulawi Hafiz Raushan Ali on the subject of the prophethood of the Promised Messiah (as), Sayyid Mudassar Shah was granted one hour in which he explained to the audience, consisting of some 6,000 Ahmadis assembled from all parts of the country, the views of the rival section. After he had finished, his arguments were refuted by Mir Muhammad Ishaq. The arrangement removed once for all the complaint of the rival party that Ahmadis were prevented from hearing the arguments of their side. Praise be to God, the address of the rival party only served to strengthen the conviction of Ahmadis in their beliefs and to expose the weakness and error of the rival views. Mir Muhammad Ishaq’s speech, in fact, served as another illustration of the truth in the Holy Qur’an: When truth comes falsehood vanishes.

I have now refuted one after another all those items in Maulawi Muhammad Ali’s account which needed refutation. I am confident that whoever goes through my refutation with an impartial mind will be fully convinced that Maulawi Muhammad Ali in his book The Split has indulged in a whole series of misstatements, that in his account of the dissensions he has on not less than twenty-four occasions, taken recourse to intentional prevarications entirely oblivious of the awe and fear of God. People who live far away from the headquarters of the Movement, who are not in direct touch with its affairs, who have not been eyewitnesses cannot realise the gravity of those prevarications. Nevertheless, the strong evidences here produced should enable them to arrive at a just appraisement of the truth. And as in the proverb—a few grains from the pot are sufficient to show what the rest of the contents are like—the many prevarications and misstatements noticed above cannot but serve as index of the nature of the person who had recourse to them. Matters for which I have furnished documentary evidence require no further proof. As for matters, for which written evidence is not forthcoming and which must therefore rest upon oral evidence, I challenge Maulawi Muhammad Ali, in case he regards any of them to be false, to say on oath that they are so and that I have deliberately so stated them. But I am certain that Maulawi Muhammad Ali will never adopt this method of testing the truth. He looks upon oaths and prayer trials—as methods of settling the truth—with scorn and scoffing, even though they are fully recognised as methods of evidence by Islam, and constitute one of the signs of its truth. The truth is, he is troubled with a bad conscience and is afraid that such a trial would lead to his undoing.

And our last words are "Glory to Allah, the lord of the worlds".