It was in the final years of the caliphate of Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad that a pious Ahmadi preacher in Mauritius, Hazrat Munir Ahmad Azim, began to make the extraordinary claim that Allah (swt) raised him as His Elect of this era, to invite people to God and to strengthen Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya by sharing Divine revelations and spiritual verities being vouchsafed to him, with the assistance of Rooh-il-Quddus. It is also a matter of historic record and Divine destiny that the fourth Caliph thought highly of the noble qualities and preaching attainments of the future Divine Elect when he was still working as a missionary ambassador of the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya into the various communities and nations of the Indian Ocean region. Yet, when the saintly figure was reported to have made the claims of being a recipient of Divine revelations, under misleading circumstances, he was expelled from the Nizam-e-Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya, and social boycott was administratively enforced on those who preferred faith above the world.
Even after expulsion from, and social boycott by, the system of the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya in the final week of December 2000, Hazrat Munir A. Azim took spiritual patience, and officially began accepting Bai'at only on 19 April 2003, with the demise of the caliph Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad. 14 years have passed since the events of 19 April 2003. The mainstream Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya continues under the leadership of the fifth caliph, whereas Hazrat Imam Muhyiuddin Al Khalifatullah Al Mahdi (aba) continues to preach the larger message of Oneness of God under a Divine mandate, clearly communicating to the people that he is an Elect of God in this era, the fifteenth century of Islam. By the grace of Allah (swt), there are increasing signs of his divine message finding resonance in various nations, in India, in Madagascar, in Comoros, and other Indian Ocean states, Subhaan Allah, Allah-u-Akbar!
‘Khilafat’: Elects
of men, and the Elects of God
It
is instructive to study and deeply reflect upon the great guidance of the Promised Massih (as) on the
course of action to be initiated with regard to the continuity of Jamaat
functions in the times after him. Devout Ahmadis are to
remain united under an elected leader till the time “when
someone inspired by God with the Holy Spirit is raised by Him” .
The
Promised Massih (as) wrote in his testamentary will, AL
WASSIYAT:
Let
the righteous persons of the Jama‘at who have pure souls accept Bai‘at in my
name[1]. (Such persons will be
selected by consensus of the believers. Hence if forty believers agree that a
person is competent to accept Bai‘at in my name, he will be entitled to accept
Bai‘at….)
God
Almighty desires to draw all those who live in various habitations of the
world, be it Europe or Asia, and who have virtuous nature, to the Unity of God
and unite His servants under one Faith. This indeed is the purpose of God for
which I have been sent to the world. You, too, therefore should pursue this end,
but with kindness, moral probity and fervent prayers. And
till that time when someone inspired by God with the Holy Spirit is raised by
Him, all of you should work in harmony with
one another….'
For almost a century, the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya continued with the tradition of electing and appointing a caliph to the seat of 'Khilafat' left behind by a caliph who died in office. The election procedure, whatever limited contestations may have been there, worked fine till the fourth caliph's time as there were no one proclaiming a Divine mandate based on being a recipient of revelations. Hence, the Promised Messiah (as)-given advise on following a man who speaks with the help of 'Rooh-il-Qudus' did not arise in the Jamaat till then. However, with the death and departure of the fourth Caliph on 2003 April 19, devout Ahmadis in Mauritius assembled around Hazrat Munir Ahmad Azim, the recipient of Divine revelations as well as several, Divinely-bestowed, sublime spiritual titles such as ‘Hazrat’, ‘Amirul Mu’mineen’, ‘Qamaran Munira’, etc.
First Bai’at in the HAND OF ALLAH (represented by the Messenger of Allah Munir A. Azim (aba)): In Quatre-Bornes (Mauritius), House of the Ummul Mu'mineen Sadr Saheba Fazli Amena on 19 April 2003, the day on which the 4th Khalifatul-Massih Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad died in London (UK). It was on the second storey of the house, on Saturday 19 April 2003; after Maghrib-Esha prayers in congregation (Reference Book/ Magazine on the Life of the Messenger of Allah: The Light-Giving Moon, 2016).
19 April 2003: A Muslim Student in an Indian Campus
When grand historic events happen, perhaps it is natural and all too human for ordinary folks like us to wonder: Where were you? Where was I? In this article, I seek to explore this question in my own way in relation to the extraordinary spiritual events of 19 April 2003. When Ahmadis in the United Kingdom, in Mauritius, and the rest of the world were contemplating the future of the Jamaat after the demise of the reigning caliph, in faraway India, on that very topic of succession to the leadership of the Ahmadiyya community, common Ahmadis have had their share of conversations in their own everyday life settings. So was the case in my own life as an Ahmadi Muslim student in India at that point of time. Hence, the rest of the Article is an exposition on a memorable conversation and discussion this humble writer happened to have on that very important day, with my bunch of friends at a university campus in Bangalore, India. Perhaps even more importantly for me personally, it so happened that very many years later, I came to recognize the higher truth of those conversations in my own life, a point we shall return later.
The University Ambience
The Law school was a liberal space, secular in its ethos, tolerant of diverging traditions and accommodative of students of different faiths and communities, cosmopolitan in its outlook and urbane in its culture. Students were from all parts of the country, mostly of course from elite families and richer classes, children and heirs of influential bureaucrats, lawyers and businessmen. Yet, the elite national educational institution was not an island impervious to the whims and fluxes of the times, including the creeping identity consciousness in India. After all, with the deep fractures that lie beneath the veneer of civility and culture, our societies confront a range of complex issues and humongous challenges in our times. Like in most other elite institutions in India, Muslims are grossly underrepresented in the major law schools, despite their notable presence in the overall population. Only a handful of students on campus were Muslims: out of 400 students, only four of us were Muslims! This creates its own inter-personal dynamics in the world of students and young adults in colleges and universities. For instance, amidst a sea of Hindu students, in people's perception, a Muslim student is generally transformed into becoming the custodian and standard bearer of his religion and its cultural ethos.
Debates on Islam with Hindu Friends
As the times were politically tumultuous, with catastrophic events such as the September 11 bombings and the subsequent American ‘war on terror’ hogging global media attention and the horror of the killing of thousands of Muslims in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat against a backdrop of large scale anti-Muslim communal mobilization in India, media coverage of terrorism and extremism often produced images of the Muslim as the ‘other’ in debates polarized between ‘us’ versus ‘them’. Islam was frequently depicted as a religion that inspired obscurantism, extremism, terrorism, and a cult of death promoting suicide bombings and wholesale destruction (God Forbid).
19
April 2003: The
Day in My Life
One has vivid recollections of that Day in one’s life as an unusual Birthday. It so happened that two of my bosom friends- Mr. Narayan Sharma and Mr. Rajesh Kumar (Batch mates at the University; also fellow Hostel residents) decided that we go out of Campus that Saturday evening to have dinner together as that day happened to be my birthday. While one does not usually have a tradition of marking JanamDin at home, ironically, one’s memory returns to that evening for the normal, simple, joyous, open- hearted conversations we have had that night over and after dinner in the backdrop of the birthday.
All
of us in the family has had deep affection for, and connection with, the Jamaat
of the Promised Massih (as) and the death of its elected head appeared like the
loss of one’s own family member. The news about the death of the fourth caliph came as a shock, though one knew that the caliph was already at an
advanced age and was not keeping well. Sometimes, our moments of joy are so
fleeting and transient: from remembering a birth, we moved quickly to mark a
death, all in fleeting time! (Fouse’ own untimely demise at the age of
31, in November 2007, is still an aching memory for one’s heart and when he
died, the Khalifatul Massih V remembered
his attachment/connection with the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya, including with the fourth caliph).
‘Ahmadiyya Khilafat’
in Transition
My sorrow
at the demise of the fourth caliph was shared in the company of my friends at the
university hostel. Almost two years of life together in the campus hostel
has made them familiar with my temperament, intellectual interests, spiritual
inclinations and religious practices. The non-Muslim friends often witnessed
quietly their fellow student regularly offering Namaz; going every week for Jumuah Namaz to the Ahmadi Mosque in the city; fasting in the month of Ramadan; engaging in silent ruminations on the Holy Qur'an and other spiritual writings. Though they came from very different backgrounds, cultural contexts and distinct political orientation, our
views and opinions on all issues that appealed to our respective sensibilities
evolved through sustained conversations over time. In any case, their
perceptions about Muslims and Islam as a religion seem to have positively
moderated, perhaps in solidarity with a Muslim friend; perhaps, in large
measure to what they have come to observe, discover, learn and understand about
the unique and intrinsic vitality of the sublime teachings that under-gird the
profound faith of the Muslims in their everyday lives. As such, the friends developed a healthy respect for what one had told them about Islam, as
they became increasingly familiar with the outlook of Islam as explained by the
Promised Massih (as) in his writings. They also became familiar with the
Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya in Islam and understood the institutional framework of
community leadership among the Ahmadis, known as the Ahmadiyya Khilafat.
'Khilafat': An
Alternative Conception
In
the backdrop of the death of the fourth incumbent and the creation of a vacancy
at the top position of ‘Khalifatul Massih’, the non-Muslim friends were curious about the
future of Ahmadiyya leadership and its electoral process. Mr. Rajesh Kumar, one of the
friends was a Dalit-Hindu in social origin, with a political orientation that
is Left-leaning and Marxist in its concern for social justice and equality. He
admired Islam for its deep teachings on universal brotherhood and human
solidarity across races and tribes. He conceded that the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya preached
Islam very persuasively. Yet, he found an intriguing structural
problem: 'Ahmadiyya Khilafat' is a family enterprise of the Mirza clan
at the top of the order, with the first family of the Jamaat occupying and
monopolizing leadership through the century since its inception. (Inset: with
Rajesh at the Law School, a photo from 2003).
From a purely rational and material conception of organizational dynamics, if a community institution like the Ahmadiyya Khilafat is closely controlled by a family (elite class) and its continuity is ensured through the privileging of its own family lineage, then, it says its own story about the real place and position of the masses/ common folks within it. All such arrangements smacks of nepotism and worse, unfairly compromises on foundational principles of true deliberation and real consensus building through informed consultation- processes that are at the heart of Islamic administration. Since Islam theorizes that no one can judge the faith of others, all claims of pious first, family over leadership is simply a matter of perception. If the Jamaat leadership is closed to 'ordinary' folks and the community is not really allowed to look beyond the first family to lead it even in a new century, then, the theoretical tribute to equality of all peoples and races amounts to nothing but an empty gesture, signifying nothing in reality...
Our friend further asked the Ahmadi student [this humble self]:
'You (Ahmadis) claim that African peoples have embraced your Jamaat whole-heartedly and that there are thousands of Ahmadis across the African continent. Why not appoint the new Khalifa from among the African Ahmadis? If you appoint a progeny of the “slaves’’ in Africa to the highest seat of power
within your Association, then, you can claim that you have truly respected Islamic teachings
in this regard.'
Under the Islamic spiritual and normative tradition, there is no scope for family feelings, nor any special claims to leadership; no infallibility claims are admissible when it comes to any office. Likewise, in the responsibility of choosing a religious leader, men should not privilege 'family' in a narrow way: under the religious doctrine and the Law, there is no distinction between claimants and claimants except on the ground of piety and righteousness: race, kinship, nationality, geographical origin do not, and should not, simply matter! Hence, the Muslim student, notwithstanding his being a member of the Ahmadiyya community, readily conceded that facts cannot be denied and agreed that there is a manifest legitimacy issue in the continued absence of non-family member (including an African Ahmadi) at the leadership of the Nizam-e-Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya as Khalifatul Massih even after a century of 'Majlis Shura' process.
When we were in this discussion, it was 9.30-10.00 pm, India Standard Time. And in Mauritius, it must have been 8.00-8.30 pm. Unknown to us at that time, yet almost at the same time that we were discussing the Khilafat Transition question in far away India, Allah (swt) unveiled His plan to appoint a son of Africa in Mauritius to the sublime office of Muhyi-ud-Din in the Jamaat of the Promised Massih (as), Alhamdulillah, Summa Alhamdulillah.
In retrospect, one reflects with a large dose of humility and gratification that Allah (swt) wants us to use our minds to appreciate hidden reality and to recognize His signs, be it in nature, and in our own selves and surroundings, and especially when a pious man communicates the extraordinary blessing of Divine bounty, grace and mercy to the people. Indeed, 'belief in the Unseen' is a trait of true believers. Even without being recipients of Divine revelations, ordinary people like us can accede to the essential truth of Divine Will entailed in sending down a chosen messenger amongst us. When we deploy our God-gifted faculty of reasoning, and keep an open mind and heart to recognize the descent of His manifestation in our times, we reach the right conclusions, Insha Allah, Aameen.
Hence, it is also interesting to note that many, many years after the Law School [hostel] night discussion, it so happened that bearing witness to the profound truth of
that rational/academic discussion about the nature, structure and future of
Ahmadiyya Khilafat, Allah (swt) brought about circumstances in one's life in
India to know about the Divine Manifestation in Africa, and by the sheer grace
and blessings of Allah (swt), one could go on to recognize and accept the
spiritual claims associated with the advent of the Khalifatullah Al Mahdi Hazrat Munir
Ahmad Azim (aba) of Mauritius. In October 2010, seven years after the 2003 April 19 events, for the first time, I came to hear about and then, went on to recognize the spiritual claims of Hazrat Munir A. Azim (aba) as the true Khalifatul Massih and Khalifatullah Al Mahdi of this era. Moreover, earlier this year- almost 14 years after the events/discussions of 19 April 2003-, this humble writer could also personally meet with Hazrat Saheb (aba) during a recently-concluded, soul-enriching, spiritually-uplifting India-visit, Subhaan Allah, Alhamdulillah, Allah-u-Akbar!