The Will of Hadrat Khalifatul Masi h I (ra)

Truth About the Split

The illness of Hadrat Khalifatul Masih (ra) continued to advance, till at last in February 1914 doctors advised that he should move outside the town into purer air. Khan Muhammad Ali Khan Sahib, Chief of Malerkotla, and son-in-law of the Promised Messiah (as), vacated a portion of his house for the residence of Hadrat Khalifatul Masih (ra) . He moved to this house, but his weakness continued to grow. Therefore, I also took up my quarters with him. On the 4th March at about ‘Asr time (afternoon) he called for writing materials, and wrote out a will as follows:

"The undersigned, in full possession of his senses and consciousness, writes the following testament: La Ilaha Illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah. My children are young. I have no money in my house. God is their Protector. They should not be supported out of funds for the orphans and the poor. Let a sum be advanced to them, to be repaid by those of my sons who are able, or from the proceeds of my books. My property should be constituted Waqf for the benefit of my children. My successor should be pious, popular, learned and virtuous, and should overlook the faults and shortcomings of the friends, both old and new' of Hadrat Sahib. I was a well-wisher of them all. He too should remain their well-wisher. Lectures on the Holy Qur’an and the Hadith should continue. Peace.

(Sd). Nuruddin, 4th March 1914." After he had finished writing it, he made over the Will to Maulawi Muhammad Ali who was sitting by his side, and asked him to read it out to the people present. He made Maulawi Sahib read out the Will a second time, and a third time, and then asked him whether anything had been left out. Maulawi Muhammad Ali, who at heart was contemplating the destruction of the Khilafat, and was devising means to that end, was taken aback when he read the Will, and for once everybody could see on his face signs of disappointment and resentment. These signs were not due to the fact that Hadrat Khalifatul Masih (ra) had written out the Will, but due rather to the fact that he saw in the Will the end of his endeavours. Only the awe of the Khalifa restrained him from speaking.

In spite of being opposed to the intention of the Will, he only said in reply to Hadrat Khalifatul Masih I (ra) that the Will was quite all right. Subsequent events, however, will show that in saying this Maulawi Muhammad Ali only practised a dissimulation, and let it be said that no disciple ever practised upon his master lying on his death-bed a worse dissimulation than this.

While Hadrat Khalifatul Masih I (ra) was lying ill, and there was no one to look after the Community, disputations on question of controversy waxed hot, and wherever one might have turned, the topic of conversation was found to be the same. The seriousness of the situation induced me to write out a notice to the following effect:

"So long as Hadrat Khalifatul Masih I (ra) was in sound health, there was no great harm in our discussions of controversial topics inasmuch as there was among us one who could restrain us in case we ever tended to overstep the limits or in case there was apprehension of any disorder. But now that Hadrat Khalifatul Masih I (ra) is lying seriously ill, it is not proper that we should engage in discussions which might lead to any disorder. It is, therefore, necessary that until God is pleased to restore Hadrat Khalifatul Masih (ra) to health and strength, and enable him to keep an eye over our discussions we should neither write nor otherwise discuss questions in dispute so as to save the Community from any possible trouble."

After writing it out, I sent the notice to Maulawi Muhammad Ali requesting that he also should sign it and that it might prove effective in restraining people of all shades of opinion, and thus protect the Jama‘at from division and disorder. Maulawi Muhammad Ali, however, replied that as differences in the Jama‘at were not so widely known, a public notice such as I proposed was not advisable. It would merely serve to carry information to the enemy and afford him an opportunity to laugh at our expense. It was better, he said, that the people of Qadian should assemble at a meeting where both he and I should speak and explain the need of putting an end to all discussion of controversial subjects. I wondered what Maulawi Muhammad Ali could mean by saying that differences which had arisen in the Community were not yet known to people at large, seeing that the two Izharul Haq tracts had already been printed and circulated. Still, I accepted his proposal. I did hot know at the time that it was another ruse which Maulawi Muhammad Ali played upon me. Only subsequent events led me gradually to see that Maulawi Sahib was up to every kind of strategy in order to score his end, and that his reason for declining to sign the notice was not a reluctance to let people know about the internal differences of the Community, but that it lay far elsewhere.

The people of Qadian assembled at the Masjid Nur, the mosque attached to the High School and situated near the house of Khan Muhammad Ali Khan Sahib of Malerkotla where at this time Hadrat Khalifatul Masih (ra) was lying on his sick bed.

Maulawi Muhammad Ali and myself both went to the mosque to address the meeting. Maulawi Sahib expressed the wish that I should speak first. At this I stood up to speak without taking further thought of the circumstances. I merely repeated to the public in different words the substance of the notice I have mentioned above, and tried to impress upon them the need for unity. But Maulawi Sahib, instead of dwelling upon the subject of unity, started raking up the past. He went on to rebuke the Jama‘at for their attacks upon Khwaja Sahib and his friends, and indulged in similar other recriminations. People kept sitting out of their regard for me, otherwise it was all but certain that, instead of putting down existing differences, the meeting might have led to a serious disorder in the Community. Towards the end of his speech, Maulawi Sahib also made a few remarks about unity, but his tone was throughout incisive, and tended to increase public displeasure and to aggravate the existing differences.

Meantime, the condition of Hadrat Khalifatul Masih (ra) had become worse, and everybody was afraid that a crisis was coming. Under the circumstances it was natural that their thoughts should have turned to the question, what was going to happen? I was all along engaged in addressing prayers to God and pressed others to do the same. For, at the time, the questions in dispute did not concern me. My only concern was to preserve the unity of the Community. The fear of a possible split was consuming my heart. Accordingly, 1 had talks on the subject with Ahmadis who had influence in the Community. On the whole, that section of the Community which recognised the necessity of Khilafat and believed in the Nubuwwat of the Promised Messiah (as), held the opinion that they must not accept as Khalifa anybody who differed from them on these points. They feared that otherwise the whole Movement would come to a crash. On the contrary, I had come to the conclusion that unity was the supreme need of the hour, and that unity must not be sacrificed in consideration for personalities. I began to press for this view among my friends, and to tell them that if, on the death of Hadrat Khalifatul Masih (ra) a split was imminent, then we should pledge our Bai‘at to one of Maulawi Muhammad Ali’s party, in spite of the fact that the party was small in numbers. What I urged was that if we were to pledge our Bai‘at to one of our own views, then the others were sure to stand aloof, and a split in the Community therefore was bound to arise. On the other hand, if I should pledge my Bai‘at to one of them, then one could say that nearly all my friends would follow my example and enter into his Bai‘at and save the Community from the impending split. It thus happened that on a certain day when Maulawi Sayyid Sarwar Shah Sahib, one of the most learned theologians of the Community and myself were out for a walk after the ‘Asr prayers, we remained conversing for nearly two hours about this very subject, and at last I succeeded in convincing him that we should be prepared—in case the issue should turn out to be which party the Khalifa should be elected from—to pledge our Bai‘at to one member or another of the party of Maulawi Muhammad Ali.