March

2014


Editors:
Shahid Aziz
Mustaq Ali
Contents: Page
The Call of the Messiah 1
The Evolution of Species and Islam
by Shahid Aziz 4
The First Convert at the Woking
Muslim Mission 5

The Call of the Messiah
by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad,
the Promised Messiah and Mahdi
Spiritual matters in physical form
In short, it has been established conclusively
from primary evidence that the prophet Jesus
(pbuh) is dead. The truth has been demon-
strated. In contrasting fashion, the remaining
hadith [Traditions of the Holy Prophet Muham-
mad (s)], describing the Messiahs descent, em-
body elusive and subtle metaphors and figures
of speech belonging to that class [of revelation
termed] speaking from behind the curtain

(Holy Quran,
42:51) of which thousands of examples are
found in the Word of God, and it behoves not an
honest and just man to disregard and deny
them. The Holy Prophets seeing two false
prophets in the form of two bangles was a reve-
lation of this kind; the slaughter of cows, too,
was a revelation of this kind; the death of the
wife with the longer hands before other wives
was also a revelation of this kind; the second
coming of the prophet Elias, as indicated in the
revelation of the prophet Malachi, descending at
a certain place among the cities of the Jews was
again a revelation of this kind; the sight of the
epidemic of Medina in the form of a distracted
woman was another revelation of this kind; in
the same way, the dajjal which is a group of
people who mislead and beguile was seen in
the shape of a particular man, and that, too, is a
revelation of this kind. In the revelations of the
prophets there are thousands of examples in
which spiritual matters had been seen and
made visible in physical form, or a whole group
or class of people was seen in the shape of one
person. For the whole human race, including
prophets, the Divine custom is that, in visions
and revelations, metaphor often plays a domi-
nant role. For instance, gather together three or
four hundred people and listen to their dreams.
In them, there will be mostly metaphors and
figures of speech. Someone saw a snake; an-
other, a wolf; the third, a dreadful flood; the
fourth, a garden; another person saw a fruit,
and another, a fire. All these matters will need
interpretation. The Traditions tell us that
deeds, good as well as bad, are seen in human
form in the grave. This, then, is a point of fact
that will eliminate discrepancies, resolve and
remove contradictions and bring truth and re-
ality to light. Blessed are those who ponder
over it!
The Second Coming
Now, when it has been decided after a thorough
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2
March
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erwise, to impose a literal interpretation on the
prophecy, as did the Jews, will be to deny the
very prophethood of Jesus. This is because, if
the second coming of a person had been allowed
by Divine Law, the objection put forward by the
Jews as to why Elias did not come back to this
world again as prophesied by the prophet
Malachi prior the advent of the Messiah, would
have been quite valid and correct. And if the sec-
ond coming to this world of a person who had
passed away had been
permitted and allowed
by the Law of God, then
God Most High obvi-
ously God forbid
held Jesus up to ridi-
cule and shame before
the Jews deliberately,
for He did not send
Elias into the world
before him and left the
door open for different
interpretations. The
objection of the Jews,
going by the words as they stood, would be
quite reasonable, that is to say: when it had
been laid down as a condition for the appear-
ance of the true Messiah that Elias would first
descend upon this earth for a second visit, how
could it be that the Messiah, Son of Mary made
his appearance in the absence of Elias? Now,
since the Jews received the reply from Jesus that
by the second coming of Elias was meant the
advent of John the Baptist, no reasonable and
rational person would hesitate to acknowledge
that the prophecy of the second coming of Jesus
would also be fulfilled in the same way, for such
is the Divine rule that had previously applied,
and the Laws of God certainly do not change:

.
The Quranic verdict
In the way of the second coming of Jesus son of
Mary there is yet another insurmountable bar-
rier. It is the verse ,

i.e.,
Muhammad is the Apostle of God and the Last
of the Prophets, and also the hadith

,
i.e, No prophet after me. How can it be permis-
sible as well as possible that in spite of the fact
that the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is the
investigation that Jesus is, in fact, dead, and the
fact of his death has been established from
every point of view, and when it is stated in an
authentic hadith that he lived to the good old
age of 120 years and remained on this earth for
87 years after the crucifixion event, the question
naturally arises: What, then, is the meaning of
those Traditions implying that Jesus, Son of
Mary will descend in the last age? To this ques-
tion we have just now given the reply that these
Traditions certainly
cannot be given a literal
interpretation. It is
clearly stated in the
Holy Quran that it is not
the practice of God
Most High to allow a
person to go up to
heaven in this material
body, then come back
down again to earth;
nor has it ever been the
practice of God Most
High to permit a man
who has departed this world ever to return to it
afterwards; and ever since the world began up
to this day, not a single instance of such a return
has ever been discovered or come to light. On
the other hand, an instance is found in earlier
scriptures to this effect, that the promise of a
given persons second coming had been fulfilled
in this way: that someone else came in his
power and spirit. Accordingly, the promise that
Elias would come to this earth for a second visit
had been given to the Jews, and it was written in
scripture that before Jesus advent, Elias would
certainly return to this earth, yet the promise
has not, to this day, been literally fulfilled, al-
though Jesus, the Messiah who was to came,
came to and has also departed from this world.
There is, therefore, no doubt that the promise, in
accordance with Jesus interpretation of the
prophecy, was fulfilled in a spiritual sense and
that John the Baptist [Yahya] came into the
world in the power and spirit of Elias; it was
Elias, as it were, who had come. According to
this precedent we shall have necessarily to ad-
mit that the promise of the second coming of
Jesus might be fulfilled in the same manner as
the promise of the second coming of Elias. Oth-
Sleymaniye Mosque (exterior)
March
2014
3
the Great Unseen which are evidently outside
human control have been mentioned in the
prophecies and then fulfilled? Take, for instance,
the Holy Prophets prophecy, reported by Yala and
Hakam that in the Last Age, i.e., in the time of the
Promised Messiah, people will be stopped from
going on the pilgrimage. How clearly has this
prophecy been ful-
filled at this time!
Every kingdom, on
account of the
plague, has
stopped intending
pilgrims from go-
ing to the holy city
of Makkah.* Has
such an event ever
occurred before?
And here is an-
other prophecy to
the effect that in
the time of the
Promised Mahdi
there will be a dou-
ble eclipse in the month of Ramadan. The moon
will be eclipsed on the first of its appointed nights,
and the sun in the middle of its appointed days.
What an important prophecy, which was recorded
in Dar Qutni eleven hundred years ago and pub-
lished for the worlds information! And now it has
been most clearly and manifestly fulfilled.
In the same way, it is written in Hadith that in
those days a new type of conveyance will be in-
vented. It will run hundreds of miles at a stretch
and people undertaking journeys will ride on it
day and night, while camels, in those days, will be
abandoned. What a splendid and superb prophecy
relating to the time of the Promised Messiah! Is it
within the power of man to have fabricated and
forged these prophecies and committed them to
writing hundreds of years ago?
Likewise, it is also predicted in Hadith that a
plague will break out in those days. Now, just open
Last of the Prophets, another prophet will appear
at some stage and prophetic revelation will begin
again? Do not all these factors justify the view that
for the elucidation of this hadith the apparent and
literal sense of the words will have to be given an-
other interpretation? Moreover, there is yet an-
other proof that the Promised Messiah is not the
same as the first
Messiah who has
passed away and
died, which is the
fact of their differ-
ent appearances. In
Bukhari, which is
the most authentic
and reliable book
next to the Book of
God, the appear-
ance of Jesus, Son
of Mary is de-
scribed as of red-
dish colour, like the
colour of the peo-
ple of Syria and as
painted in the pictures, with curly hair, whereas
the appearance of the Promised Messiah who is to
come to this ummah is said to be of wheatish col-
our, with straight hair. Besides this, it has also been
stated that he will be from among this ummah. The
actual words in Bukhari are

, imamukum
minkum, whereas Muslim has

, fa-
imakum minkum, so that both statements show
clearly that the coming Messiah will be a man from
among the followers of the Holy Prophet. Now if it
were argued that all these Traditions are arbitrary
matters of supposition and should, therefore, be
rejected, and that no one will come, then I would
say in reply that to hold this view is also unwar-
ranted, as these Traditions have achieved such a
highly rated chain of transmission that it is unwise
and unreasonable to brush them aside; such con-
tinued repetitions assume the colour of self-
evident truths.
The signs have come to pass
Furthermore, these Traditions contain important
prophecies relating to matters of the Great Unseen,
which have been fulfilled in our time. If these
prophecies had been mere fabrications of the hu-
man brain, how could it be possible that matters of
Sleymaniye Mosque (interior)
* The Sultan of Turkey has stopped the performance of
Hajj this year. The Punjab Government has notified that no
ship will go to Makkah during this season; hence, no pil-
grimage. The Russian Government has also forbidden going
on Hajj this year. (Akhbar-i-Aam, 4th April, 1898.)
4
March
2014

your eyes and see that
these, in fact, are the
very days, and the
plague epidemic has
been raging and accel-
erating in a virulent
form.
It was also foretold
in Hadith that a sign
would appear in the
sun in those days, and
it is well known to all
how perfectly and
wonderfully the sun has been recently eclipsed,
so that people came from Europe and America
to behold this strange sight. Are all these heav-
enly matters of the Unseen under human con-
trol?
Yet another sign was foretold that in those
days there would also rise the same star, Zul-
sanin, that had previously risen in the time of
Jesus the Messiah, and before that, in the time of
the prophet Noah. That star, too, as everyone
knows, has appeared in the sky, and the news
has been published widely in the English and
Urdu papers. Again, a hadith tells of the breaking
out of a big fire in Java in the time of the Prom-
ised Messiah. That fire, too, the fact cannot be
gainsaid, has actually taken place. Traditions
refer to an outbreak of plague in Eden. All these
things have now been fulfilled. How, then, can
such Traditions containing so many important
matters of the Unseen which have actually come
to pass in their appointed time be set aside and
rejected as false and spurious?
The Evolution of Species
and Islam
by Shahid Aziz
And when your Lord said to the angels, I am go-
ing to place a khalifa in the earth, they said: Will
you place in it such as make mischief in it and
shed blood? And we celebrate Your praise and
extol Your holiness. He said: Surely I know what
you know not. (The Holy Quran, 2:30)
This verse of the Holy Quran is used to argue
that, as Allah has created humankind, the theory
of evolution is un-
Islamic. Some even go
so far as to say that it
should be banned, and
indeed even in a liberal
country like Turkey all
sites on the web which
refer to evolution have
been banned.
In this small note, I
want to look at two
commentaries on the
Holy Quran, one Sunni
and the other Shia, to
see what they say. The Sunni commentary is by
the highly respected classical commentator
Imam Ibn Kathir. In his commentary on this
verse he asks how is it that the angels knew that
the creation proposed by Allah would create
mischief and shed blood on earth. He then an-
swers this himself and puts forward four possi-
bilities. He states:
Either they learned this by some special
means, or they would have decided it by looking
at Nature for it is stated that he shall be created
from dust or else from the meaning of the word
khalifa they would have understood that he
would stop injustice and would be one who stops
(people from) what is unlawful and what is sinful.
Otherwise, because they had seen the previous
creation placed on earth, they extrapolated from
their (actions). (Tafsir of Ibn-i Kathir [Urdu],
vol, 1, p. 105.)
Here it can be seen that the fourth reason
advanced by Imam ibn-i Kathir for the angels
asking Allah is that they had seen a previous
creation cause bloodshed and mischief on earth.
This is nothing but a part of the theory of evolu-
tion of species as it is currently understood. In-
deed, on page 106, the Imam attributes to Haz-
rat ibn-i Abbas a statement that the jinn ruled
the earth before the creation of mankind. Re-
member, jinn is a word of Arabic and means
something that cannot be seen or known.
Tafsir-i namuna is a standard Farsi commen-
tary on the Holy Quran which was translated
into Urdu by Maulana Syed Safdar Hussain Na-
jafi at the recommendation of Iranian scholars
for the Shia communities of Pakistan and India.
The Blue Mosque (interior)
March
2014
5
In it, in the commentary on the same verse and
regarding the question asked by the angels, it is
said:
Some say that Allah had told them in sum-
mary humankinds situation. Some consider that
the angels themselves understood this from the
words in the earth for they knew that man shall
be created from dust and matter, because its limi-
tation will not be able to satisfy mans nature
which craves for more; so that even if the whole
world is given to one person, even then it is possi-
ble that he will not be satisfied. If there is not suf-
ficient sense of responsibility then such condition
causes mischief and bloodshed.
Other commentators believe that the
an gels prophecy was because mankind was not
the first creation on earth. On the contrary, be-
fore them there were other creatures who
caused dispute, argument and bloodshed. The
poor record of the previous creatures led the
angels to mistrust Adam. (Op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 150
151.)
Here, an authentic Shia commentator is us-
ing classical sources to show that before
Adam was put on earth there had been
Adam-like creatures on earth. So two au-
thentic Sunni and Shia scholars state, on
the basis of old, classical sources, that some
people believe that Adam was not the first
creation on earth but that similar creatures
had existed on earth before Adam.
There is also some discussion in the Shia
commentary of what the word khalifa
means in the verse quoted above. Literally,
it means successor. This leads to another
question: Whose successor is human-
kind? The commentary says:
Some say successor of humans or of others
who lived on earth before (Adam) (p 150).
Here again is the possibility mentioned that
perhaps human-like creatures inhabited
and roamed the earth before human beings
as we know them were created and popu-
lated it.
I am not arguing in favour of the theory of
the evolution of species or against it, for
that matter. I am merely pointing out that
this is not something new. I am saying that,
even if we ignore the scientific context, the pos-
sibility of creatures which roamed in the earth
and had human-like characteristics was dis-
cussed by classical Muslim religious scholars in
a religious context to try and understand the
Holy Quran and answer some of the questions
which were raised by people about creation.
The First Convert at the
Woking Muslim Mission:
Mrs Violet Ebrahim
The first person to accept Islam at the hand of
Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din was a Mrs Violet Ebra him.
The following is his report of this conversion as
it appeared in the Ahmadiyya newspaper Badr.
Brethren, assalamu alaikum. Time is very short.
I have not yet even filed the accompanying arti-
cle which is about Woking. It is to be published
in the paper. It must be read out to Hazrat
[Maulana Nur-ud-Din] either in summary or in
its entirety.
6
March
2014

Today God made it a very blessed Friday.
Among the Englishwomen in my circle of meet-
ing here is a Mrs Ebrahim, a native of Scotland
and daughter of a colonel. I continued preaching
to her in a slow process in my own way. Today
she was present at the Friday khutba. God had
put into my mind a fine topic on the special
characteristics of the
Quran, which made a deep
impression on her. In my
letter to Hazrat [Maulana
Nur-ud-Din] yesterday,
which will be received with
this letter, I mentioned a
European woman who was
getting close to Islam.
After the khutba she
joined the prayer of her
own will and pleasure.
Praying in the manner in
which we do, she showed
herself as a Muslim. Mil-
lions of thanks to God for
this. All brethren and the
Hazrat sahib should pray
that she remains steadfast.
This should not be consid-
ered as a complete fulfil-
ment of the prophecy. God
the Most High will, shortly,
fulfil that dream of the late
Hazrat [Mirza Ghulam Ahmad]. However, by way
of a good omen I mention the following strange
thing.
This is the first European woman who said
Friday prayers behind me. Her dress today, by a
happy coincidence, was a khaki satin. Could this
not be the first of those white birds whose
wings, that is to say dress, the Hazrat [Mirza
Ghulam Ahmad] saw as khaki in his vision? The
wings of a bird are its dress as they cover its
body. Congratulations, congratulations, con-
gratulations!
Kamal-ud-Din.
(Badr, 6 March 1913, p. 5.)
This humble servant has been shown in a
vision that the rising of the sun from the West
signifies that the Western world which has been
involved of old in the darkness of disbelief and er-
ror shall be illuminated with the sun of Truth, and
those people shall have the light of Islam. I saw that
I was standing on a pulpit in the city of London and
explaining the truth of Islam in a well reasoned ad-
dress in the English language, and after this, I
caught a large number of birds that were sitting on
small trees and in colour
they were white and their
size was probably the size of
the partridge. So I inter-
preted this dream as mean-
ing that, though I may not
personally go there, yet my
writings would spread
among these people and
many righteous English men
would fall a prey to the
truth. (Izala Auham, pp.
515516.)
[The wings being
of khaki colour is not in this
published version of the
vision and must have been a
detail known by word of
mouth at that time.]
Maulana Nur-ud-Dins
reply
In the next issue of Badr, the
reply by Maulana Nur-ud-
Din is published as follows:
Hazrat Khalifat-ul-Masih says: I want to give
you good news, and it is such a congratulation that,
at least in my view, no one would have given you.
And it is that when the Holy Prophet, may peace
and the blessings of Allah be upon him, was called
to his mission the first person to accept Islam on
his hand was a woman. On your hand too, in Lon-
don, it is a woman who is the first to accept Islam.
This is tremendous good news. You must prostrate
before Allah the Most High, and I do so too. The sec-
ond happiness and congratulation I convey to you
is that the people of England worship the son of a
woman, and it is a woman that you have made a
Muslim there first of all.
Later report in the Review of Religions
In the Review of Religions of Qadian, the Ahmadiyya
monthly edited by Maulana Muhammad Ali till
March
2014
7
1914, in the issue for December 1913, there is a
report containing a letter by Violet Ebrahim. It is
as follows:
ONE MORE CONVERT AND A NOBLE APPEAL
One of the signs of the latter days which were
to see the advent of the Promised Messiah was
the rising of the sun from the
West. This sun was the sun of
Islam and we are glad to say
that the dawn has already be-
gun to break from the Western
horizon. There has begun an
awakening to Islam in the
West. The gloom which Chris-
tian misrepresentation had
spread over the West has be-
gun to disappear and people
are becoming more and more
alive to the truth of Islam.
Christianity is also waning and
preparing the way for the
spread of the Muslim faith. The
signs are very hopeful. Our
readers have already learnt of
the conversion of Lord
Headley. There are others,
both ladies and gentlemen,
who have privately informed
our Missionary, Khwaja Kamal-
ud-Din, of their acceptance of
Islam and it is hoped that like
Lord Headley they will soon
publicly announce their con-
version.
A lady that has already
announced her conversion to
Islam writes to Mrs. Khadev
Jung:
My dear sister Mrs. Khadev Jung. I was
greatly pleased at your sending your regards to
me in your letter to Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din and I
thank you for the same. He told us how inter-
ested you were in his monthly paper called
the Islamic Review and in the work he was do-
ing: really he deserves all the encouragement
we could give him. Last year when Khwaja Ka-
mal-ud-Din had recently arrived in London, my
husband met him at some meeting and invited
him in company with Mr. Zafar Ali Khan, Editor
of Zamindar, at our house. Since that day he was
our frequent visitor and he used to talk about
Islam: he used to invite us at his house on every
Friday when after praying he used to preach.
His logical arguments in favour of Islam
and his comparisons of Islam and Christianity
were most interesting and convincing. When I
was with my parents I used
to go to Church with them
every Sunday and used to
hear the preacher who failed
to rouse in me any interest
for religion, and I used to
take everything for granted
without giving any seri-
ous thought. Khwaja Kamal-
ud-Din has studied Christi-
anity and therefore he is bet-
ter able to make compari-
sons as to what is said in the
Bible on different subjects
and how Al-Koran treats the
same subject, thereby prov-
ing how superior Islam was
to Christianity. My eyes were
beginning to open in favour
of Islam and gradually I
found that I was Moslem at
heart. My heart went to Is-
lam all the more by my read-
ing every day in newspapers
about the butchery and
atrocities committed by the
Christians of Balkan on the
noble Turks whom now I
consider my brothers in
faith. I openly declared to be
Moslem. The Islamic Re-
view has done wonders. It has been my text-
book, Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din has a great talent
for writing which must be a gift from God. I can
never thank him enough for the change he had
brought in my soul; we consider him as a mem-
ber of our family; whenever he comes to London
from Woking, he stays with us.
He has made another conquest which will
have far-reaching consequences in favour of
Is lam. Lord Headley, an Irish peer and member
of the House of Lords, has accepted Islam, so
8
March
2014

Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam Lahore (UK)
The first Islamic Mission in the UK, established 1913 as the Woking Muslim Mission
Dar-us-Salaam, 15 Stanley Avenue, Wembley, UK, HA0 4JQ
Centre: 020 8903 2689 President: 020 8529 0898 Secretary: 01753 575313 E-mail: aaiiLahore@gmail.com
Websites: www.aaiil.org/uk | www.ahmadiyya.org | www.virtualmosque.co.uk
Donations: www.virtualmosque.co.uk/donations
much so that he has commenced to contribute
articles in favour of Islam in the Islamic Re-
view. We have intimate knowledge of Khwaja
Kamal-ud-Dins doings from the time he came to
London. He started the Islamic Review at his
own expense. He had about nine thousand ru-
pees when he came to London and he spent it all
in his work, publishing the Islamic Review and
distributing it broadcast. Living in London is
also expensive. But now he has no money and he
is worried as to how to continue. At present he
is circulating only a thousand copies in the
Western world whereas at least a hundred thou-
sand copies should be given out. It would be a
thousand pities and great shame for us Moslems
if his Islamic Review was to stop for lack of fi-
nancial help. I have been to the Woking mosque
with my husband and have prayed there on one
Friday. Khwaja sahib lives in the adjoining house
belonging to the Mosque, and he is living there
very poorly, almost like a hermit. Moslems of
India should rise to this occasion and you will
please convey my message to my sisters in India
for helping him in this great work. This work
should grow to gigantic proportions and should
spread through the whole world. I shall be
pleased to hear from you and I shall also keep
on writing to you. With true sisterly love.
Mrs. Khadev Jung sends this letter to
the Comrade (Delhi) for publication to-
gether with a sum of Rs. 250 as her first
installment towards the help of Khwaja
Kamal-ud-Din. She has made an appeal to
the Mussalmans of India to assist the
Khwaja in his noble work and we are glad
to learn that her appeal has been an-
swered by others. The Comrade proposes
to open a Fund in aid of Islamic Re-
view. We heartily thank those ladies and
gentlemen who have given a practical
proof of their sympathy for the noble
work which our Missionary is doing in
Europe and we hope that their example will be
followed by others. Ladies and gentlemen desir-
ing to be subscribers to the Islamic Review may
send their subscription money to Shaikh Rah-
matullah, Proprietor, English Warehouse, The
Mall Road, La hore, or to the Secretary Sadr An-
juman-i-Ahmadiyya, Qadian.
In the next issue of Badr, the reply by Mau-
lana Nur-ud-Din is published as follows:
Hazrat Khalifat-ul-Masih says: I want to give
you good news, and it is such a congratulation
that, at least in my view, no one would have
given you. And it is that when the Holy Prophet,
may peace and the blessings of Allah be upon
him, was called to his mission the first person to
accept Islam on his hand was a woman. On your
hand too, in London, it is a woman who is the
first to accept Islam. This is tremendous good
news. You must prostrate before Allah the Most
High, and I do so too. The second happiness and
congratulation I convey to you is that the people
of England worship the son of a woman, and it is
a woman that you have made a Muslim there
first of all.
(Reproduced with minor editing from the
Wok ing Muslim Mission website at http://
www.wokingmuslim.org/)
Niagara Falls (frozen)