Did Ghulam Ahmad Claim Prophesy (Part 13)

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

وصلى الله على خاتم النبيين

On 4^th May, 1908, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian said:

بقی رہی یہ بات کہ ہم نے نبوت کا دعوی کیا ہے۔ یہ نزاع لفظی ہے۔ مکالمہ مخاطبہ کے تو یہ لوگ خود بھی قائل ہیں۔ اسی مکالمہ مخاطبہ کا نام اللہ تعالی نے دوسرے الفاظ میں نبوت رکھا ہے ورنہ اس تشریعی نبوت کا تو ہم نے بارہا بیان کیا ہے کہ ہم نےہرگز ہرگز دعوی نہیں کیا۔ قرآن سے برگشتہ اور رسول کریم صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم سے برگشتہ ہوگر نبوت کا دعوی کرنے والے کو تو ہم واجب القتل اور لعنتی کہتے ہیں۔ اس طرح کی نبوت کا، کہ گویا آنحضرت صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم کی نبوت کو منسوخ کر دے، دعوی کرنے والے کو ہم ملعون اور واجب القتل جانتے ہیں۔

“As for me claiming prophesy, this is an issue of semantics. These people themselves accept the reality of divine communication. It is this divine communication which Allah Most High has in other words named prophesy. Otherwise, I have explained repeatedly that I certainly do not claim for myself legislative prophesy. I say of those who claim prophesy independent of the Quran and the honorable Apostle – sall Allahu alaihi wasallam – that it is mandatory to kill them and that they are cursed. I consider those who claim this type of prophesy which abrogates the prophesy of the Holy Prophet – sall Allahu alaihi wasallam – to be necessary to kill and cursed.”

(Malfuzat, 1988 edition; v.5 p.610)

This statement is significant because it once again demonstrates that up until his final days in this world, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian denied he had made any claim to terminological prophesy. As he has explained here, he merely considers prophesy another name, based on the linguistic meaning of prophesy, for the kind of divine communication or inspiration that is bestowed upon followers of the Prophet Muhammad – sall Allahu alaihi wasallam – which the general body of Muslims accepts as a reality and even attribute to their saints and sages. In other words, the essential difference or dispute between Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and the so-called orthodox Ulama of the Muslims is over semantics, whereas the substance and purport of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's claim of being a recipient of divine address and communication hardly opposes the orthodox Islamic acceptance of its possibility and actual occurrence.

Now this quote has been cited by certain Mullas who are bitter opponents of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and his Ahmadiyyah movement, especially these days in the aftermath of Tahir Nasim's extrajudicial killing, as a polemical response to Ahmadis that the founder of their movement and sect considered one who claims prophesy after Prophet Muhammad – sall Allahu alaihi wasallam – to be wajib al-qatl (necessary to kill). Therefore, Ahmadis have no leg to stand on in condemning the murders of Tahir Nasim, Asad Shah, and other prophesy-claimants. As I have explained in my previous post, I certainly condemn the murder of Tahir Nasim on both religious and humanitarian grounds. Since I obviously do not believe Ghulam Ahmad was a prophet in the terminological sense, it follows that not everything he said and wrote is inerrant. Ghulam Ahmad's principle was that he adhered to the orthodox and mainstream, established position of Sunni Islam, particularly the Hanafi school of law, in these matters unless he received divine inspiration that enlightened him with a different view. It doesn't appear that Ghulam Ahmad's position that false prophesy-claimants are wajib al-qatl was based on divine inspiration, but it certainly is the majority or mainstream position of Islamic scholarship.