With the grace and mercy of God.
He alone is the Helper.
Son of our Gracious Sovereign and Heir to the throne of the British Empire!
In my capacity as the Head of the Ahmadiyya Community and as Successor to the Holy Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement, I bid Your Royal Highness welcome to India, on behalf of every member of the Community, and assure Your Royal Highness that the Ahmadiyya Community is absolutely and thoroughly loyal to the British Crown and, God willing, will ever remain so.
The esteem, affection and love which every member of the Ahmadiyya Community entertains for the wearer of the British Crown can be gauged only by one who holds another extremely dear but is separated from him by an impassable gulf which he can never hope to cross, and who suddenly finds the object of his hopeless longing at his side, dreary separation being converted into glad union.
Gracious Prince! you can, in some small measure, judge of the feeling of personal affection which the members of the Ahmadiyya Community entertain for Your Royal Highness from the fact that when they found that they could not look forward to the honour of a visit from Your Royal Highness to the Headquarters of the Movement and could not enjoy the happiness of a personal meeting with you, their representatives who had assembled at Quadian during the last week of December, 1921, for their annual conference and who numbered over seven thousand, resolved, at my instance, that a present similar to the one which was sent by the Holy Founder of the Movement to Your Imperial Grand-mother, our Sovereign, Her Majesty the late Queen Victoria, on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee, and which she most graciously accepted and acknowledged, should be presented to you on their behalf, on this the occasion of your visit to India. Rich and poor alike expressed their eagerness to be allowed to participate in making this present and the hearts of all present were filled with joy at the thought that though they could not expect you to visit their homes, they would be able always to remind you of their sincerity through their present.
Gracious Prince! this present is not of the things of the earth, which thieves may steal or moth and rust may corrupt, nor is it a present which may be found in the vast treasures of your Sovereign Father! Nay, this is a present so rare, that the treasuries of all earthly kings cannot produce its like, nor can it be purchased by the united wealth of the banks of the world.
August Prince! this is not a present which like the goods of this world a man is compelled to leave behind him when he departs this life; it is a present which a man can carry with him and which he can avail of both here and hereafter.
Illustrious Prince! this is not a gift the benefits of which a man carries away with him when he leaves this world, depriving his successors of them; it is a gift which serves not him alone who has it, in this life and the next, but is a rich and everlasting inheritance for his successors, and is not diminished by being divided.
Gracious Prince! this is a gift the possession of which gives strength to the heart and floods it with streams of Heavenly light. He who has it is saved from all doubt and darkness, and angels spread over him the mantle of God’s Mercy. At His command mountains remove from their places, rivers afford passage, the sick and the diseased become whole, the blind of heart are restored to sight, the spiritually dead are quickened and water becomes more intoxicating than wine.
And what is this gift? It is the guidance which God has always vouchsafed to mankind since the days of Adam, by the help of which Noah overcame his enemies, Moses caused the mighty Pharaoh to drown and rescued the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt; David tempted the beasts of the field and the birds of the air to join in his melody, and Jesus caused the Holy Ghost to descend upon him. It is the guidance which enabled Muhammad (on whom be peace and the blessings of God!), after having been driven out from his home, to vanquish his opponents and to forgive them in the hour of victory, and being a king, to live the life of the poor and to spend his life in the service of those who were of small account in the eyes of the world, but who in the sight of God were as much honoured as the mightiest of Sovereigns.
Noble Prince! before I make this present to you, I would desire to make it clear that those, on whose behalf it is being presented are no common men, nor is it presented to secure any worldly benefit. This present is being offered on behalf of a community which has proved by its conduct that it constitutes the most loyal and yet the most unselfish section of His Majesty’s subjects.
Nay, if wealth alone is not the criterion of respectability and honour, and if any worth attaches to the possession of a true and righteous heart, I can assert that this present is being made to you on behalf of the most respectable and the most honoured from among the subjects of Your Royal and Imperial Father. No doubt their pockets are not full of silver and gold, but it is not silver and gold alone by which a man is made rich: it is the word of God that enriches.
True, their names are unadorned by titles of honour, but titles bestowed by God are more worthy of honour than those conferred by man. They do not own large estates, or possess fertile tracts, but no estate can compare in its vastness with a heart that is full of faith, and no tract can be more fertile than the mind of one who is consumed by the love of God. Your Royal Highness has already received numerous presents and addresses of welcome from the great men of the country, but I truly say that those that are least in the kingdom of Heaven are greater than these great men.
Honoured Prince! this present is made to you on behalf of a community which has for over thirty years suffered various descriptions of hardships and persecutions on account of its loyalty and devotion to the crown and persons of Your Royal and Imperial ancestors, their Majesties Queen Victoria, King Edward and our present Sovereign, Your Gracious Father, in return for which it has never desired or solicited a reward.
From its very birth this community has been loyal to the Government and its members have avoided every kind of disorder and disturbance. The Holy Founder of the Movement has laid it down as one of the fundamental conditions of initiation into the movement that every member must render perfect obedience to the Government established by law and should eschew all paths leading to revolt. In obedience to this injunction the members of this community have ever kept aloof from all kinds of agitation and commotion and have also exercised a restraining influence upon a large number of other people.
Some years ago, those classes of the Muslims who were under the influence of the Ulema (i.e., theologians or priests), although they were peaceful in practice and did not obstruct the Government, did not approve of the doctrine that a Muslim could be a loyal and faithful subject of a non-Muslim Government; and as the Ahmadiyya Community was not only peaceful in practice but believed in and inculcated the doctrine that it was obligatory to obey the established Government, its activities were resented by the non-Ahmadees, who were afraid that the result of the propagation of such doctrines would be that Muslims would lose their only weapon (meaning Jehad) by which alone they imagined they could defend Islam or make any progress.
This among other causes led to the persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community by this class of people, and their Doctors went so far as to issue a decree prohibiting even ordinary social intercourse with the members of the Ahmadiyya Community and providing that whoever was guilty of even greeting a member of the community would cease to be a Muslim and would be treated as a non-Muslim.
The result was that a wave of resentment against the Ahmadiyya Community swept the whole Muslim world and every kind of persecution was employed against the members of the community. They were ousted from their homes, false cases were brought against them, they were forcibly separated from their wives and children, they were assaulted and beaten and on occasion their honour was put in jeopardy.
They bore all this with patience for the manifestation of the glory of God and the truth of Islam, and they harboured no evil in their minds against the Government which, although its religion was opposed to the religion of this community was politically a peaceful Government. They acknowledged its virtues and overlooked its faults so that a spirit of harmony should prevail in the world and the object of the advent of the Holy Prophet of Islam (peace and blessings of God be upon him) be fulfilled, viz., that peace may reign supreme on earth and the nations of the earth be gathered in one fold.
This is not all that the members of the community have suffered for their love of peace and their propagation of the doctrine of loyalty. Where their opponents were more powerful, they were subjected to terrible sufferings. For instance, two members of the Community were tortured to death in Afghanistan for the reason that in accordance with the teachings of the Holy Founder of the Movement they did not believe in the legality of religious wars.
One of these was among the foremost men of learning in Afghanistan, and was held in such high esteem that he was selected to perform the coronation ceremony of the late Ameer Habeebullah Khan. He was most cruelly stoned to death under the orders of that Ameer, for no others reason except the one above stated.
Mr. Frank A. Martin, who for several years held the post of Engineer-in-Chief to the Afghan Government, refers to this tragedy in his book entitled “Under the Absolute Amir” in the following words:
“As he (the martyr) preached that Mussulmans must regard Christians as brothers and not infidels, this would render useless the Amir’s chief weapon ‘Jehad’ (religious war) in case of English or Russian aggression. So the Amir when he heard of all this sent word to the Mulla to return and the Mulla did so, preaching the new religion as he came, and as soon as he was well within the boundaries of the country he was made prisoner and brought to Kabul. Here he was examined by the Amir, but Amir could find in the Mulla’s clever replies nothing…which would make him…worthy of death.”
“He was then sent for examination to Sardar Nasrullah Khan who is regarded as more than a Mulla in the knowledge of his religion, but the Prince could not convict the man out of his own mouth, and so a jury of twelve of the most learned Mullas was convened, and even their examination of the accused could elicit nothing on which the man might be killed, and they reported this to the Amir. But the Amir said that the man must be convicted, and so he was again sent to the Mullas who were told that they must sign a paper, saying the man was an apostate and worthy of death. Again the majority of the Mullas made affirmation that he was innocent of anything against their religion, but two of the Mullas who were friends of Sardar Nasrullah Khan and had been talked over by him gave their verdict for death, and on the finding of these two Mullas the man was condemned by the Amir and stoned to death.”
Speaking of the personality of the martyr, Mr. Martin adds that he “was a man with large and powerful following.”
Gradually this persecution began to slacken but this was only a breathing space, for, when the present political agitation began and in the address presented to the Secretary of State on behalf of the Ahmadiyya Community stress was laid on the fact that the maintenance of the British Government was a blessing for this country, resentment was again kindled against the Community, as indeed had been anticipated. In the interview I had with the Secretary of State on that occasion, I told him that opposition to our Community would increase, as the result of the position taken up by us.
This time, however, the methods of persecution were different. Our children were prevented from attending educational institutions; and at one place the dead body of an Ahmadi lady was disinterred and was thrown to the dogs, and had it not been for timely help, it would have been devoured.
Ever since this opposition has been on the increase, but the Community continued on the path of peace and order.
During the period when Martial Law was in force in the Punjab and the situation was fraught with danger, so much so that in certain cases even Government officials were compelled to leave their posts and seek safety elsewhere, the members of this Community not only themselves continued loyal, but also induced a large number of other people to do the same. At some places the rioters inflicted loss and injuries on the members of the Community, but they could not shake them from their loyalty.
A wave of renewed persecution followed and at some places a complete boycott of Ahmadees was decided upon. They were not allowed to rent houses from non-Ahmadees and even the bare necessaries of life were denied them. Shopkeepers refused to sell grain and other necessaries to them and they were not allowed to draw water from public wells. Washermen were prohibited from washing their clothes and sweepers were not permitted to sweep their houses and to attend to their sanitation.
The boycott was enforced so strictly that in some cases little children had to remain without food and water for days.
Still this Community did not renounce the way of peace and orderliness, and did not move hair’s breadth from the path of disinterested loyalty. Even at the present day it is persecuted in different ways and yet puts forth every effort which tends to strengthen the Government of His Majesty and, God willing, will continue to do so.
August Prince! this Present, then, is made to you on behalf of a Community which has demonstrated its loyalty by accepting every kind of persecution and annoyance in defence of Your Royal ancestors’ throne, and whose truth and sincerity are attested in letters of blood on the horizon.
This loyal and faithful Community has a right, then, to request Your Royal Highness to honour them by accepting their present, and to peruse it once, at least, from beginning to end and also to present it to Your Royal Father, on behalf of the Community, and to request him to spare a portion of his most valuable time for its perusal, so that God may bestow upon him spiritual empire as He has made him a king upon earth and may bless his soul as He has blessed his body.
After making this respectful request, I have the honour to present to Your Royal Highness, on behalf of the Ahmadiyya Community generally and particularly on behalf of those who have participated in it, this gift, the like of which cannot be fashioned out of silver or gold.