Life and Mission

Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Promised Messiah(as), hailed from Qadian. He was born on Friday, February 13, 1835 (corresponding to 14 Shawwal, 1250 A.H.). Qadian, at that time, was a small village, 11 miles to the east of Batala, a township 18 miles from Amritsar and about 70 miles from Lahore. His father, Mirza Ghulam Murtaza, was a well-to-do landlord of Qadian and was generally known as Ra’is of Qadian (the chief of Qadian). Hazrat Ahmad’s birth was a twin birth, his twin sister died shortly afterwards.

The family was one of the most respectable Persian families settled in the land, and his ancestor, Mirza Hadi Beg, traced his ancestry to Barlas, an uncle of Emperor Taimur.

Hazrat Ahmad(as) was born in an age of darkness when generally little thought was given to learning, so much so that if a person received a letter, it remained unread for weeks and months together. It was no wonder that many aristocratic families remained illiterate.

But with Hazrat Ahmad(as), it was a different story. He was under the Divine protection since his birth. His father developed a strong desire that his son should be properly educated and, therefore, when he was of a tender age, a teacher, Fazl Ilahi, was appointed to teach him the Holy Quran. Thus began his life-long association with the Holy Quran. Fazl Ahmad was the second teacher that Hazrat Ahmad(as) got at the age of 10. He taught him Persian and other subjects. When Hazrat Ahmad(as) was 17 or 18, Gul ‘Ali Shah was appointed to teach him grammar and Mantiq (logic). Hazrat Ahmad(as)’s father, himself an experienced physician, instructed him in the rudiments of medicine.

When Hazrat Ahmad(as) was about 29, he, in deference to the wishes of his father, proceeded to Sialkot in 1864 to take up an appointment in the court of the Deputy Commissioner. There, his piety came to be universally recognized and although he was still a young man, he was held in high esteem by Muslims and Hindus alike. He was of a retiring nature and spent most of his time in study.

Rev. Butler was a Christian missionary stationed at Sialkot and had frequent religious discussions with him. When leaving Sialkot, Rev. Butler paid a farewell visit to Hazrat Ahmad(as). On enquiry, the missionary told the Deputy Commissioner that he had come to the court only to see Hazrat Ahmad(as). This was the regard that was entertained for him at an early age by the people of other faiths.

Hazrat Ahmad(as) remained for four years in Sialkot with utmost reluctance. One day, he received the command of his father to return and he forthwith tendered his resignation and returned home. He began to look after the legal cases connected with his father’s estate. But his mind was engaged elsewhere. His sense of filial obedience, however, persuaded him to carry out his father’s command, but he felt no interest in these errands. People, who saw him in those days, would recount how, at times, it happened that when he returned home after having lost a legal case, there would be a flush of happiness on his face and people would think that the law-suit had been decided in his favour, till an enquiry would reveal facts to the contrary. Giving a description in his own words, Hazrat Ahmad(as) says:

I was 34 or 35 years of age when my father died. In a dream, I had been warned that his death was approaching. I was then in Lahore and hastened to Qadian. He was suffering from dysentery but I had no apprehension whatsoever that he would die the day after my arrival. In fact, there had been some change for the better in his condition and he could even sit for long hours. The following day, we were all with him at noon when he kindly suggested that I should go and have some rest, for it was the month of June and the heat was intense. I retired into an upper room and a servant began to knead my feet. Presently I fell into a light slumber and then came to me the revelation: “We call to witness the heaven where all decrees originate, and We call to witness that misfortune which will fall today after sunset.”

I was given to understand that this revelation was by way of commiseration on behalf of God Almighty, as my father would unfortunately die that very day after sunset. Holy is Allah! How glorious is the Great God that He commiserates on the death of a person who died sorrowing over his wasted life! Most people would be surprised at this interpretation of mine that God Almighty commiserated with me. It should, however, be remembered that when God, glorified be His name, treats someone mercifully, He deals with him like a friend. We read in the traditions that on certain occasions God Almighty laughed. This also is a similar kind of expression.

To sum up, when I received this revelation, which presaged the death of my father, the thought passed through my mind, because I was only a human, that some of the means of income which were linked to my father would now be closed and we might be confronted with all sorts of difficulties. Thereupon I received another revelation: “Is not Allah sufficient for His servant?”

This revelation conveyed great comfort and satisfaction to me and it firmly fixed itself in my heart like an iron nail. I swear by God Almighty in Whose hand is my life that He has fulfilled this comforting revelation in a manner that was beyond my imagination. He has provided for me as no father could have provided for anyone. I have been the recipient of His continuous bounties, which I find impossible to deny.

My father died the same day after sunset. This was the first day on which I experienced a sign of Divine mercy through revelation concerning which I cannot imagine that it would ever cease to have effect during my lifetime. I had the words of the revelation carved on a semiprecious stone and set it in a ring, which I have with me securely. Nearly 40 years of my life passed under the care of my father, and with his departure from this life, I began to receive Divine revelations continuously and abundantly.1

About the mission that was entrusted to him by the Almighty, Hazrat Ahmad(as) used these prophetic words:

Hearken, all ye people. This is a prophecy of Him Who created heaven and earth. He will spread this Community of His in all countries and will make it supreme over all, through reason and arguments. The days are coming, indeed they are near, when this will be the only religion which will be held in honour. God will bestow extraordinary blessings on this religion and Community. He will frustrate everyone who seeks to destroy it. This supremacy will last till the Judgment Day…

Remember, no one will descend from heaven. All our opponents who are alive today will die and no one will see Jesus, son of Mary, descending from heaven. Then their next generation will pass away and no one of them will see this spectacle. Then the generation next after that will pass away without seeing the son of Mary descending from heaven. Then God will make them anxious that though the time of the supremacy of the Cross had passed away and the world had undergone great changes, yet the son of Mary had not descended from heaven. Then the wise people will suddenly discard this belief. The third century after today will not yet have come to a close when those who hold this belief, whether Muslims or Christians, will lose all hope and will give up this belief in disgust. There will then be only one religion that will prevail in the world and only one leader. I have come only to sow the seed which has been sown by my hand. Now it will sprout and grow and flourish and no one can arrest its growth.2

Had my claim been put forward on my own, you would have been free to reject me, but if God’s Holy Prophet bears witness for me in his prophecies and God manifests His signs in my support, then do not wrong yourselves by rejecting me. Say not that you are Muslims and have no need of accepting any Messiah.

I tell you truly that he who accepts me accepts Him who had prophesied about me thirteen hundred years in advance, and had indicated the time of my appearance, and had specified my function; and he who rejects me rejects Him who had commanded that I should be accepted.3

He who accepts me accepts afresh all the Prophets(as) and their miracles, and he who does not accept me will lose his earlier faith also, for he possesses only tales and no personal experience. I reflect the image of God. He who comes to me and accepts me will see afresh the God concerning Whom other people have only tales to tell. I believe in the God Whom those who deny me do not recognize. I state truly that what they believe in are the idols of their imagination and not God. That is why those idols cannot help them, cannot give them any strength, cannot bring about a pure transformation in them, and cannot show them any supporting signs.4

When the Imam of the age appears in the world, a thousand lights accompany him, and there is joy in heaven and the good qualities of people are stimulated through the spread of spirituality and illumination. He who possesses the capacity of receiving revelation begins to receive revelation, and he who has the capacity to reflect upon matters of the faith experiences an increase in power of reflection and understanding, and he whose heart is drawn towards worship begins to find pleasure in worship and religious exercises, and he who carries on discussions with the followers of other faiths is bestowed the power of reasoning and carrying conviction through relevant proofs. All this results from the spread of spirituality which descends from heaven with the Imam of the age and activates every eager heart. This is a Divine Law which is expounded in the Holy Quran and the true Ahadith and the working of which is observable through personal experience. The age of the Promised Messiah has this special characteristic that in the ancient scriptures and Ahadith it is recorded that at the time of his advent, this spread of spirituality will reach a degree in which women will also receive revelation, and minor children will be able to prophesy, and the common people will speak with the power of the Holy Spirit. All this will be a manifestation of the spirituality of the Promised Messiah.5

In the long history of human affairs, no one has ever wielded his pen so forcefully, so powerfully and so relentlessly in defence of his faith as the spiritual son of the Holy Prophet Muhammad(sa) that is Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Promised Messiah(as). He unlocked fathomless treasures of knowledge, the treasures that had lain hidden for centuries. The Promised Messiah(as) went about distributing the wealth of knowledge freely, generously and abundantly.

Millions of words flowed from his pen, his writings occupy thousands of pages bound in ninety-one books. Hundreds of posters, leaflets, tracts and handbills issued by him went to nail the lie or to challenge the enemies of Islam.

The Promised Messiah(as), the illustrious spiritual son of Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, is the one who employed his pen with a thrust of a sword or rapier. Prayer is an instrument common to all the prophets, but the distinction of wielding the pen belonged to the great spiritual son of the Holy Prophet(sa). The Promised Messiah(as) attributes all this power and eloquence to his mentor and master, and he drank deep from his fountain of knowledge. His medium of expression was Urdu, Arabic and Persian, although because of his meagre education, he could not claim perfection in either. Urdu was the proud language of Delhi and Lucknow and the Promised Messiah(as) hailed from a place like Qadian, which, at that time, was only a village lying far-flung from the ramparts of Urdu civilization and culture. Yet the Promised Messiah(as) produced a style of his own and enriched the Urdu literature so abundantly that it amazed the proud scholars of Delhi.

The Promised Messiah(as)’s pen produced magic, it cast a spell, exercised a fascination and hypnotized the readers in a way that no writer could ever claim. His cold logic, his power of reasoning, his marshalling of arguments, his method of induction and deduction, his dynamic style and forceful expression left his friends and foes dumbfounded and speechless. His love for God, his immersion in the Holy Quran and devotion to the Holy Prophet(sa), these magnetic points, were unparalleled and matchless. His love for Islam prompted him to unleash an unceasing flow of powerful writings that set all leaders of diverse faiths on the defensive. God had blessed him with a special gift of knowledge. The knowledge, and the power to communicate the knowledge, were his divine gifts. The miracle of the language, whether of Urdu or Arabic, with which he was blessed, remained unchallenged.

The Promised Messiah(as) was endowed with the special gift of understanding of the Holy Quran. He asserted, and he established this assertion with unmatched logic, that the Holy Quran is an infinite source of knowledge, infinite in meaning and infinite in its nature and properties. The Promised Messiah(as) brought a new glory, a new lustre to the Holy Quran, discovering numerous graces and excellences that had lain hidden for centuries.

The Promised Messiah(as) demonstrated with arguments that the Holy Quran is replete with prophecies about our time, some fulfilled and some still to be fulfilled. The Holy Quran never makes an assertion unless it provides a convincing proof for that assertion. Any doubt or difficulty arising in one’s mind about the Holy Quran can easily be settled by the Quran itself. The Promised Messiah(as) methodically brought out distinctive features and characteristics which make the Holy Quran a superior Holy Book compared to the holy books of other religions. The Promised Messiah(as) demonstrated the multi-sidedness of the Holy Quran by explaining how the text can be interpreted in a number of ways. It has many layers of meaning. He claimed that the Holy Quran imparts knowledge about the natural phenomena, essential and necessary for the spiritual advancement of mankind. He gave us the principles of the interpretation of the Holy Quran whereby one can guard against errors. The Promised Messiah(as) discovered that the Holy Quran contains a systematic account of the stages of spiritual advancement and he enumerated the stages which a human being is capable of attaining. He proved that the Holy Book has a perfect sequence. The verses of each chapter are related in a rational link.

The Promised Messiah(as) established that Surah al-Fatihah (the first chapter of the Holy Quran) is the synopsis of the Holy Quran, and is in a way a prologue to the Holy Quran, the rest being the text and the explanation. Lastly, he discovered how the meanings of various parts and verses of the Holy Quran and their interpretation are interlinked and have relevance to present-day needs.

When the Promised Messiah(as) announced his mission of reforming society, he was attacked for his alleged lack of knowledge and learning. He was described as a Munshi (clerk), a half-educated and semi-literate scholar. It was stated that he had no knowledge of Arabic or the necessary qualifications to pronounce judgment on matters of higher learning. A wall of prejudice was raised against him. When this criticism spread far and wide, God granted him a special knowledge of Arabic. God endowed him with the knowledge of forty thousand roots of the Arabic language in a single night. He was granted this miraculous competence and was divinely commanded to write books in Arabic. His first attempt in Arabic prose was a chapter he appended to his book, A’ina-e-Kamalat-e-Islam. This chapter contained an open challenge to anyone who could find faults in his God-given command of Arabic. The number of books that he wrote in Arabic continued to pile up till it crossed the figure of twenty. The Promised Messiah(as) asked his critics to produce something similar or better, but nobody had the courage to accept his challenge. He then offered a reward beginning with Rs. 1,000, which went on rising to Rs. 10,000, but, despite the rewards he offered, none could produce something as good in beauty, eloquence and power as those of the Promised Messiah(as)’s books. Some of his Arabic books remain a challenge uptill now. Even the Arabs were invited to join the challenge but they also failed. Some of the Maulavis then alleged that the works of the Promised Messiah(as) were written by an Arab secretly employed by him for the job. To rebut this allegation, he was commanded by God to deliver the Sermon on the ‘Idul-Adha on April 11, 1900, in the Arabic language. In obedience to the divine command, the Promised Messiah(as) delivered a lengthy sermon in Arabic. The sermon, later published under the title of Khutbah Ilhamiyyah, revealed things couched in chaste Arabic of the highest order, which impressed Arabs and non-Arabs alike.

The writing of books was not the only occupation of the Promised Messiah(as). He issued leaflets, replied to letters, delivered speeches and granted interviews to hundreds of thousands of seekers of truth. According to one estimate, in seven years from the beginning of the acceptance of bai‘at, he received 90,000 letters6 which he individually attended to and responded to. The writing of thirty to forty letters a day is not an easy job for a man who is required to make speeches, hold debates and is engaged in writing books. Often he would give medicines to patients and he would never show any annoyance if he was disturbed. The Promised Messiah(as) had no secretaries or assistants and on top of these intellectual occupations, he would play host to all those who visited him, as Islam inculcates most cordial hospitality. At that time in Qadian, there were no boarding houses or hotels where a visitor could find boarding and lodging, nor were there any provision stores. Therefore, the Promised Messiah(as) had to look after his guests taking care of every minute detail to ensure all manner of food and comfort. On one occasion, on account of overcrowding, he gave his own bed to make a guest comfortable.

All this would be happening in spite of the fact that he had to personally read the calligraphic copy of the book he would be writing, vet the galley proofs and supervise the printing of the books and their distribution. In the beginning, the Promised Messiah(as) often had to travel by horse-driven cart/carriage to Batala and Amritsar, as he had no helper. The Promised Messiah(as) used to mail all the leaflets to his opponents often under registered cover to ensure they got the flyers in time. He had no cashflow but God in His great Majesty would meet all his needs. Gradually, his admirers, devotees and disciples would come from all corners of India and even from foreign lands and would be ready to do his bidding. This was not strange for people who had seen and met the Promised Messiah(as). Even the children of his disciples, who had not even seen him, bear the same depth of devotion and love.

I inherited this boundless love and devotion from my father and mother, both devout Ahmadis. My father, Hafiz Syed Shafi‘ Ahmad, better known among Ahmadis as Muhaqqiq Dehlvi, a Companion of the Promised Messiah(as) (nephew of Hazrat Nusrat Jahan, wife of the Promised Messiah(as)).

This introduction has been written with the prime object of awakening and kindling a thirst to read the originals of the Sultanul-Qalam (the champion of the pen). Each book is unique and is a gem. The present volume introduces the reader to discover the hidden treasures of Islam. I humbly request the reader to pray for me, and for my hereafter and to remind the coming generations of the days of trials of 1953, 1974 and 1984 with which God, in His great Wisdom, honoured us and saw us through successfully with His great mercy. We are proud witnesses of those Divine signs and blessings that were bestowed on this Community. The Promised Messiah(as) beautifully delineated in Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya, volume 5, page 117, Ruhani Khaza’in volume 21, page 147, the magnitude of his vast work in his words: “The treasures that laid buried for more than a thousand years; are now being distributed by me to the one who is ready to accept them.”

The Promised Messiah(as), over a period of 25 years, unlocked these spiritual treasures single-handedly. Here, it is worthwhile to quote a reference from the Siratul-Mahdi by Hazrat Mirza Bashir Ahmad(ra), volume 2, page 417, edition of 1927, published by Nazarat Isha‘at Qadian.

Hazrat Maulavi Sher ‘Ali states that the Promised Messiah(as) once observed that the members of our Jama‘at should read our books at least three times, and the one who does not study our books, I have doubt about his faith.

This observation is a pointed reminder to undertake such a study. This book, An Introduction to Hidden Treasures of Islam, comes handy to begin this noble mission for Ahmadi Muslims to dive into this matchless ocean.

It has been edited and compiled on the basis of the first set of 23 volumes of the Promised Messiah(as)’s writings painstakingly collected and compiled by Hazrat Maulana Jalal-ud-Din Shams(ra) and started publishing from 1957. An outstanding stalwart of Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II, Second Successor of the Promised Messiah, may Allah be pleased with him, Hazrat Maulana Jalal-ud-Din Shams(ra) wielded his pen as an erudite scholar. The amount of research and scholarship that he displayed in preserving the sanctity of the original text of the writings of his master is simply remarkable.

In a note to this gigantic work, Hazrat Maulana Jalal-ud-Din Shams(ra) writes: “Printing errors, whether of the print or of calligraphy, whether out of a lapse or minor slip, is not surprising. Therefore, we adopted a process that books of the Promised Messiah(as) in whatever form or shape printed under his direct supervision were left untouched. It is, therefore, not thought necessary to correct or to undertake even the correction of a printing or a calligraphic error, whether result of a lapse or slip lest through this innocent process we may open a door of tampering with the original text, this simply was not acceptable.

This note conveys the utmost care exercised by Hazrat Maulana Jalal-ud-Din Shams(ra) in preserving the purity of the text. This is a simple acknowledgment of the debt that we owe to this great scholar for passing on to us the “Hidden Treasures of Islam” bequeathed to us by the great son of the Holy Prophet(sa), Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, the Promised Messiah and Mahdi(as).

I was prompted to undertake this work with the hope and expectation that my humble effort in assembling a sampling of this great “treasure” for coming generations of non-Urdu knowing readers may be a source of prayers for me and a small solace for my hereafter.

Syed Hasanat Ahmad
Toronto, Canada
February 20, 2010