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Transcript of The Light English edition (Feb 13 issue)
February 2013
Editors:
Shahid Aziz
Mustaq Ali
Contents: Page Call of the Messiah 1
The Promised Messiah 3
The Creator in Judaism, Christianity and Islam by Dr Mir Faizal 4
70 or 72? by Maulana Abdul Haq Vidyarthi 7
Jesus Was a Muslim by Prof. Robert F. Shedinger 8
حیم حمن الر بسم ہللا الر
Call of the Messiah (Continued from the previous issue)
Relation between prayer and its acceptance
Between prayer and its acceptance there is a
relation which has come down from ever since
man came to be created. When the will of the
Most High God
feels inclined to do
a thing, His prac-
tice is that a sin-
cere and loyal slave
of His engages him-
self in prayer with
utmost restless-
ness and disquie-
tude of the mind,
and employs all his
power and atten-
tion to accomplish
the fulfillment of
this affair. Then the
supplications of
that man who has lost himself in devotion to
the Most High God stimulate and draw from
heaven Divine favour and grace, and He creates
new conditions such as will bring about and
accomplish that object. Although this prayer is
executed apparently through human hands, yet
the reality of the matter is that the man is so
much lost in God, and at the time of prayer
crawls into Divine presence with such a step of
annihilation that the hand at that time is not his
hand, but it is in reality the hand of God. This is
what we call the prayer by which the Most High
God is recognized and known and a clue is ob-
tained to the existence of that Supreme Being
Who is hidden and concealed behind thou-
sands of veils. For the people who pray, the high
heaven comes nearer to the earth, and new
causes, their prayer having been answered, are
brought into being for the resolution of their
difficulties and the knowledge of them is
vouchsafed beforehand; and the least of it is
that belief in the acceptance of prayer is fixed in
the mind from the Unseen like an iron nail. The
truth is that if there had been no prayer, no hu-
man being, in the matter of God-realization,
could have been able to
get to the stage of cer-
tainty. It is through prayer
that Divine revelation is
conferred upon us and we
can hold communion with
the Most High God. When
a man, in the process of
offering prayer with all
sincerity of the heart, love
and loyalty, gets into the
stage of complete annihi-
lation, then the Living
God, Who is hidden from
the human eye, manifests
Himself upon him. Prayer
February
2013
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A Lahori-Ahmadi’s faith is greater than any obstacle!
Tiananmen Square, 1989
2
February 2013
is needed not only for
the purpose that we
may be able to achieve
our worldly objects, but
no human being can
find the True and Great
God, from Whom many
human hearts have
fallen far apart, without
the manifestation of
those signs which come
into display and appear
after prayer. The igno-
rant person thinks that
prayer is an absurd and
foolish thing, but he
knows not that it is only
through prayer that the
Supreme Being mani-
fests Himself upon
seekers after Him, and
puts into their minds
His revelation “I am the
All-Powerful”. Everyone
who thirsts for God-
realization should re-
member that, in this life, for a seeker after spiri-
tual light, prayer is the only means which in-
duces belief in the existence of God and dispels
all doubts and misgivings; for a man who has
achieved his object without prayer knows not
how and where from he has got them; and one
who strains every nerve on plan and device, and
remains indifferent to prayer cannot feel that it
is, of a truth, God's hand which has deposited
those objects in his pocket. And this is the rea-
son that a man who, by means of prayer, re-
ceives through Divine revelation the glad tidings
of success, advances forward in the knowledge
and love of God when the foretold thing actually
comes to pass, and looks upon the acceptance of
prayer as a great sign in his favour, and likewise
having been filled with belief from time to time,
he abstains from and shuns sensual passions
and sins of all kinds to such an extent that only
the soul, as it were, is left of him. But the man
who sees not through prayer the gracious and
benevolent signs of the Most High God remains
deprived of the great wealth of
God-realization, in spite of the
riches and property and other
means of opulence that he may
have acquired during his life-
time, nor do his successes pro-
duce any good effect upon his
mind, and he on the other hand,
increases in vanity and conceit
as his wealth and prosperity
multiply; and even if he may
have some faith in the Most High
God, that faith is so lifeless and
defunct that it cannot deter him
from sensual passions, neither
bestow upon him real and true
purity.
Predestination
It should be remembered that
although everything has been
foreordained, still predestina-
tion has not destroyed knowl-
edge and the sciences; and in
spite of believing in the doctrine
of predestination, just as every
one has to admit, as the result of scientific ex-
periment, that drugs have undoubtedly peculiar
properties hidden in them, and if a medicine
should be administered according to the nature
of the disease it will certainly do good to the
patient by the mercy and grace of the Host High
God; in the same way, every holy man, through
experiment and experience, has to acknowledge
that prayer has a link and relation with accep-
tance. We may or may not be able to impress
this secret reasonably upon other people’s
minds, but the experience of hundreds of thou-
sands of righteous men as well as our own per-
sonal experience has disclosed to us this hidden
reality, that our offering of prayer has a mag-
netic force which attracts and draws the mercy
and grace of the Most High God towards itself.
Of the Divine service, too, the soul and sub-
stance is the prayer which has been taught us in
the Opening Chapter of the Holy Quran. When
we say “Guide us on the right path”, we wish, by
means of this prayer, to draw and pull towards
In 1896, Roentgen made the first X-ray
photo. Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (as),
residing in Qadian, which did not even have
electricity, had an amazing grasp of scientific
developments round the world and referred
to the “photographing of bones” when
discussing whether photography is Islamic
or not in one of the books he wrote
in the early 1900s.
February 2013
3
us with extraordinary power to bear its brunt, and
make us rather to take delight therein, and enlarge
our mind.
It is, therefore, clear from both these ways that
Divine help and triumph come, as a matter of
truth, from heaven in answer to a humble prayer.
The Promised Messiah by Ebrahim Muhamed
(December 2012)
Scholars, Philosophers, Poets, everywhere abound Too many questions – answers rarely found
In our Pride will we ever say? That indeed we have lost the way?
Promised by the Praised One A reflection of that dazzling Sun
Appears, a Slave of Ahmad, His Holy Book to teach Enlivening groping souls his ‘breath’ does reach
Sun and Moon in Holy Nights all doubt dispel About the One Muhammad did foretell
Who, in lonely recesses of the night Pleads before Him Mankind’s pitiable plight
Heavenly pen like Grand General’s scimitar Skilfully wielded by Slave of Mustapha
Dispelling doubts and darkness all around Faith, lost in Pleiades, on Earth once more found
Antichrist, with deadly arguments, in defeat do fall Enemy bugles a scuttling retreat do call
Ignorance, Prejudice, Falsehood – demons in his way
With pledged pens, like David’s decreed stones, did slay
us the light which descends from the Most High
God and illuminates human hearts with love and
belief.
Prayer, a magnetic force
Some people say in haste that they forbid not the
offering of prayer, but the meaning of prayer is
merely worship and adoration whereon recom-
pense or reward is determined. It is regrettable
indeed that these people think not that every wor-
ship in which spiritual realization is not created by
God, and every merit or reward for which, in some
time to come, hope is cherished merely on imagi-
nation, are all vain and void of foundation. Real
worship and real merit are those whose rays of
light and blessings are experienced and felt in this
world also. The signs of the acceptance of our wor-
ship are that, just during the time of prayer, we
should see with our mind’s eye that a lenitive light
has descended from the Most High God and de-
stroyed the poisonous matter in our mind; and
that it has fallen upon us like a flame, and filled us
immediately with the pure state of the expansion
of the mind, belief, love and delight; and if it should
not come to pass, then worship and prayer are no
better than a mere custom or ceremony. Every
prayer, even though it be for the resolution of our
mundane affairs and difficulties, bounds back and
returns to our state of faith and knowledge of the
Most High God; that is to say, it bestows upon us, in
the first instance, advancement and progress in the
matter of faith and knowledge of God, and confer-
ring upon us pure satisfaction and solace, real de-
light and expansion of the mind, proceeds to cast
its effect upon our worldly vanities and detestable
things, and removes our sorrow and grief in what-
soever way it deems proper. It is thus obviously
clear from all this discussion that prayer can be
called a prayer only when it has an attractive force
as a matter of fact, and draws down from heaven a
light which may dispel all our bewilderment and
disquietude, and open and expand our mind, and
give us peace and contentment. The All-Wise God,
forsooth, after prayers, sends down His succour
and success in two ways: either (1) He may take
away and remove the calamity under which we are
about to be crushed to death, or (2) He may endow
4
February 2013
The Holy Book now everywhere on every tongue Praises of the Lord from East to West now sung Light and Learning distant horizons do grace Fruits of wisdom weeds of ignorance replace
Sweet, saintly revelations – crystal-clear! The Messiah, Thank you Lord, is here!
The Concept of the Creator
in Islam, Judaism
and Christianity
by Dr Mir Faizal
Introduction
In this article I shall treat Islam and Judaism to-
gether as they have the same views and use the
same language to express those views, on most
of what I have to say. I have seen a lot of debate
between Christians and Muslims/Jews. Even
though there are differences between them,
what I will like to point out
is that there is no differ-
ence in the metaphysical
conception of one Creator,
but a difference in the lan-
guage used to express this
conception. Hence, the pur-
pose of my letter is to
translate Christian theology
in Muslim/Jewish language
and Muslim/Jews’ objec-
tions into Christian lan-
guage and hopefully both
Muslims/Jews and Chris-
tians will see that there is no difference between
them in metaphysics.
Key
Before I do that, here is a small key for
transla tion.
Concept Sunni Muslims / Jews Christians
Creator of the God God the creation of heaven Father and earth
The revelation of Word of God The Son the Creator as of God uncreated Word of God
A Spirit proceeding Holy Spirit Spirit of from the Creator God
Everything from No term exists God the same essence as the Creator
The reality of Spiritual essence of Spiritual Word of the Quran/Torah essence of Creator Christ
The creation of Text of Quran/Torah Flesh of the Creator Christ carrying his Word
Now let me explain what it means. Sunni
Muslims, Jews and Christians believe that there
is one Creator of heavens and earth who creates
and speaks. His word is not his creation and pre-
dates it as it is from His essence. However, His
Word, even though being from his essence, is
different from him. Whereas Christians call the
Creator as God the Father, Muslims and Jews call
Him as God. Muslims and Jews call the Word of
the Creator as the Word of God and Christians
also call it the Son of God. Christians call the
group of Creator, His Word and His Spirit as the
God. Sunni Muslims/Jews do not have a word for
it but accept these con-
cepts. Again, the flesh of
Christ in Christianity is ac-
cepted as the creation of
God, and only His spiritual
essence is believed to be
the uncreated Word of God.
Thus, all confusion occurs
because of the different use
of the word God. For Mus-
lims/Jews God means the
God the Father. They have
no word for the group of
God the Father, His Word
and His Spirit, which Christians call God. How-
ever, these concepts do exist in their theology.
Now because of the different use of language,
misconceptions are created. Here are the com-
mon misconceptions.
Misunderstanding 1: Modalism
Here is the first confusion that occurs. When
Christians say Christ is God, what Muslims/Jews
understand is that they are saying Christ is God
the Father. This is because they use the word
God to mean God the Father. This is not what
February 2013
5
modern Christians’ theology says at all. In fact,
to say that God the Father is the same person as
Christ is called modalism. This is rejected by
Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox theology. In
fact, all Christians are trying to say that Christ is
of the same essence as God the Father because
he is his uncreated Word. This is misunderstood
by Muslims/Jews to mean Christ is God the
Fa ther due to the different use of the word ‘God’.
So, when Muslims/Jews want to talk to
Chris tians they must translate their question
from “Is Christ God?” to “Is Christ God the
Fa ther?” and they will get a ‘no’ from all Chris-
tians. Similarly, when Christians want to express
their theology to Muslims/Jews they should
translate their statement “Christ is God” to
“Spiritual essence of Christ is the uncreated
Word of God”, and they will find that Muslims/
Jews will not find this objectionable. So, it is
clear, due to a different use of the word ‘God’, a
lot of confusion takes place.
Misunderstanding 2: Adoptionism
Another naive misunderstanding is stated as
follows: “Muslims/Jews believe that God has no
son and Christians believe God has a son.” This
occurs due to a misunderstanding of Christian
theology as well as Muslim/Jewish theology.
According to Christianity, Christ is not a made
Son of the God and everyone else a made Son of
the God, the word ‘Son of God’ being a general
term, and what is special about Christ is that he
is not created Son of God but his uncreated Son.
What it actually means is that whereas every-
thing is the creation of the Father, Christ is the
uncreated Word of the Father. The body of Christ
is fully human and it is only his spiritual essence
that is the Word of the Father. To say that body
of Christ became of the same essence of God at a
certain point is called adoptionism and is again
rejected by modern Christian theology.
Misunderstanding 3: Tritheism
Another misconception is that in Christianity,
God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy
Spirit exist separately. This is again wrong, be-
cause according to modern Christianity, even
though the Word and Spirit of God have existed
before time, they come from the Father, Who is
the prime source behind the existence. What is
being said is that they exist before time as time
is a creation of the Father. So, His Word or Spirit
predates His creation. However, all of them come
from the Father before His creation. Most Sunni
Muslims have the same belief regarding the
Word of God.
Source of confusion
The source of confusion is that Muslims/Jews
and Christians use different words to describe
same concepts. So what Muslims/Jews call God,
Christians call God the Father. What Christians
call God, Sunni Muslims/Jews have no word for
it, even though they accept the concepts. An-
other source of confusion is confused Christians
who do not understand their own theology and
thus badly explain it to Muslims/Jews, and this
cases a lot of confusion. This is because Christi-
anity is a very complex theology and many naive
Christians are too eager to preach before they
properly learn the theology themselves.
Muslim objections
What Quran objects most strongly to is
Mo dalism, i.e., ‘Christ is God (the Father)’, and
Tritheism. It also objects to Adoptionism. How-
ever, Quran does not object to the metaphysics
of Christ being the Word of God. It may be ar-
gued that Quran also objects to the language
used to express Christian theology. But it ac-
cepts Christ being the Word of God without en-
tering into the debate of created or uncreated.
Thus, even though it is right to say that Chris-
6
February 2013
tians use different language to Muslims, yet it is
wrong to say that they have different
metaphys ics. In fact, in Quran, chapter 4, verse
171 states:
“O People of the Book! Commit no excesses in
your religion, and do not say anything about God
except the truth. Jesus the son of Mary was only
an apostle of God, and His Word which He
be stowed on Mary, and a spirit proceeding from
Him.”
To make this verse sound more familiar to
Christians, if I use the key for translation and
translate ‘God’ to ‘God the Father’ then this
verse becomes:
“O People of the Book! Commit no excesses in
your religion, and do not say any thing about the
Father except the truth. Jesus the son of Mary was
only an apostle of the Father, and the Word of the
Father which He bestowed on Mary, and a Spirit
proceeding from the Fa ther.”
This is exactly what Christians believe, i.e.,
Christ is the Word of the Father conceived by the
Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father. So, all
Quran is doing is using different words to
ex press the same theology. It may be noted that
even though there is no rejection of the idea that
Christ is the Word of God, Quran does object to
some terms used to express this theology, which
form the next part of the verse and few other
verses. But what is
important to realise is
that these differences
are linguistic and not
theologi cal.
Jewish objections
The criticism from
Judaism is a little
more direct as Jews
reject Jesus com-
pletely. In fact, one of
the principles of mod-
ern Jewish faith is to
wait for the Messiah
and so believe that
the Messiah has not yet come. So, most tradi-
tional Jewish thinkers do not even consider pre-
sent day mainstream Christianity as a monotheist
faith. However, this is again because they misunder-
stand Christian theology to imply that Christ is God
the Father. However, it must be clear by now that
this is due to the different use of the word ‘God’ by
Jews and Christians. Thus, even though this central
difference between Jews and Christians about Jesus
being the Messiah will probably remain, it is impor-
tant to realise that they both have the same concept
of the Creator.
Real differences and similarities
There are real differences between Islam/Judaism and Christianity. For example, according to Sunni Islam the Word of God is scripture of God. However, according to many Sufi Muslims the reality of the scripture is the heart of the prophet. Thus, accord-ing to them the spiritual essence of Jesus is the Word of God. However, this is also true for all other prophets of God. Hence, in Islam the idea of Jesus being the Word of God is accepted, but the idea of him being the unique and only Word of God is re-jected. Another source of difference is that even though Quran does not object to the central theol-ogy of Christianity, it does object to the language used to express this theology. However, the impor-tant thing to understand is that all these three monotheistic faiths believe in the same concept of one Creator. This Creator is called as God by Mus-lims/Jews and God the Father by Christians. What Christians call God, Sunni Muslims/Jewish do not
have a word for it. Thus, there is no dif-ference in all these monotheistic faiths with regard to the con-cept of the Creator, but the language used to describe Him.
Clarification
I have used Sunni
Is lam where other
sects differ from it, for
example, whereas
Sunni Muslims accept
Word of God being
from his essence and
thus uncreated, many Muslim sects, like the Shia
Muslims, do not hold this view.
Iguaza Waterfalls, Brazil
February 2013
7
70 or 72 Followers of Jesus in the Gospels?
by Maulana Abdul Haq Vidyarthi
(We give below an edited extract from articles Maulana Abdul Haq Vidyarthi wrote in Paigham Sulh, replying to various allegations made against one of our books by a highly experienced and prominent Christian missionary of the Indian subcontinent, whose name was also Abdul Haq. One of the objections of the Christian critic was that a statement by Haz-rat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in a book referring to “72 emissaries of Jesus” was incorrect since the num-ber given in the Gospels is 70. He claimed that no Ahmadi could show the figure 72 anywhere. We quote below from the Maulana’s reply in Pai-gham Sulh of 26 August and 2 September 1964.)
In reply, we admit that in Luke 10:1 seventy fol-lowers are indeed mentioned. But learned peo-ple know that in Divine scriptures the numbers seventy and seventy-two stand for a large num-ber. In English this is known as ‘round figures’, and these merely mean a large number. This was not such a serious matter that you should have accused a respectable Imam of a commu-nity of exaggeration and fabrication. However, God intended that you should be utterly van-quished in your combat with His champion (i.e., Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad), and therefore He caused you to issue the challenge that the num-ber of these followers was 70 and not 72.
The mention of 72 instead of 70 from the pen of the Promised Messiah is a miracle. Hazrat Mirza sahib did not know Greek, nor was he well-versed in English. In the Urdu and English translations of the Gospels, designated as au-thentic, the number of these preachers is given as 70. And in the Greek text published by the Church of England, their number is also ἑβδομήκοντα (hebdomēkonta) or seventy, but in the margin it is noted that in some Greek manu-scripts the number is ἑβδομήκοντα δύο (heb-domēkonta duo) or seventy-two.
It was God, the Knower of the unseen, Who
caused the Imam of the time to write these words, because he was taught by the Holy Spirit. The Christian missionary Abdul Haq did not know it despite studying and teaching the Gos- pels all his life, and this humble writer (Maulana) Abdul Haq would never have known it if he had not consulted that Greek text to reply to the missionary’s objection about the number 72. My faith in the Promised Messiah has in-creased. Certainly it was God Who caused Haz rat Mirza sahib to write these words, and today we can even show this self-styled Chris-
tian ‘conqueror of Qadian’ the word seventy-two, not in the margin, but in the main text it-self. The top-most Christian clergyman of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent accuses Hazrat Mirza sahib of fabrication. Nor-mally one would expect that a Christian mission-ary who has been study-
ing and teaching the Gospels for over half a cen-tury, taking part in religious debates, and is the head of their theo logical college, is bound to be knowledgeable, indeed extremely learned, in the Gospels. On the other hand there is Hazrat Mirza sahib, who had definitely studied the Gospels, but he did not have the opportunity or the re-sources available to the Christian missionary for this study. It is certainly not an ordinary thing that such a prominent Christian theologian chal-lenges the Imam of the age about a reference in the Gospels.
The challenge of the reverend, made after Hazrat Mirza sahib’s death, is to every Ahmadi, not only those of the present time but the mil-lions to come till the end of the world, that they shall not be able to meet his demand. As against this bold challenge, there is the promise of Allah to the Imam of the time as follows: La nabqi la-ka min al-mukhziyat dhikri, meaning, “We shall not leave behind you anything which can humili-ate you”, so that anyone trying to disgrace him will face disgrace himself.
It is perfectly true that in the Gospels pub-lished till the time of the Imam of the age, in Urdu, Persian, Arabic and English, which were called the Authorised Versions, the number of
Monument Valley, USA
8
February 2013
disciples is given as 70 and not 72. However, when this Christian missionary issued what he firmly believed was an unassailable challenge, and accused Hazrat Mirza sahib of fabrication, then God, the Defender of the honour of His own Imam, manifested a miracle. A humble servant of the Imam set out to look through the Greek texts of the Gospels, and discovered the refer-ence to 72 in the marginal notes of the Greek edition of this same authorised version, saying that in some manuscripts the number is given as 72. But after this, I received a Greek edition of the Gospels published in the U.S.A., in which not in the margin but in the main text the number of these followers is stated to be 72.
This is a miracle of the Imam of the age. I received this edition only two weeks ago, ex-actly at the time of need when I had to reply to this allegation. Although the Imam of the age did
not know languages such as Greek and Sanskrit,
but the Imam of the age is after all the Imam of the
age. He is the Imam appointed by God, and it is not
possible for the theologians of the world, be they
eastern or western, to find faults with him.
(See: http://www.abdulhaq.info/english 1.)
Jesus Was a Muslim by Sheikhyermami
(July 12, 2012)
The head of the religion department at Lu-ther College in Iowa recently argued that Je-sus Christ, the central figure of Christianity, was in fact, a Muslim.
“Was Jesus a Muslim?” asks Prof. Robert F. Shedinger in the beginning of a book he pub-lished this year entitled Was Jesus a Muslim? ”I will answer with a very qualified yes.”
One could get the impression the only quali-fication to be a professor these days is a crack pipe. Or “high cheekbones”….
In a recent interview Shedinger also de-fended his controversial thesis explaining that a
Muslim undergraduate student had sent him on academic odyssey that culminated with him asking himself “Was Jesus a Muslim?”
“Even as a Christian I have to answer yes to that,” said Shedinger, who is the head of the religion department at Luther College in Iowa.
Shedinger also argued that Islam is a better fit for Jesus since it is not a religion but a “social justice movement.”
“I had to rethink what Islam is…. I came to the conclusion that it was a social justice movement and I think that’s who Jesus was in the first century so I conclude Jesus is more like a Muslim,” he said.
A few dollars from Sowdi Barbaria might have helped him to reach that ‘conclusion’.
The vast majority of scholars, historians, Mus-lims, and Christians date the birth of Islam to 622 AD when the Prophet Muhammad claimed to have received visions that were eventually compiled into the Koran. Jesus, on the other hand, is believed to have existed more than 600 years earlier, at around 0 BC.
A spokesman for Luther College, a small liberal arts school affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, told Campus Reform on Wednesday that the administration stands fully behind Shedinger’s scholarship.
“The administration is very very comfortable with the proposal, with the book, and with what his statements about this situation are,” said Jerry Johnson, the school’s Director of Public Informa-tion. ”[T]he ground he is breaking with this book is not anything exactly earthshaking.”
Johnson added that Shedinger’s thesis had not stirred up on any controversy or opposition on campus where “the members or our religion de-partment are very respecting and have great re-spect for each other’s work.”
Campus Reform was unable to contact Prof. Shedinger in time for publication.
(Source: http://sheikyermami.com/2012/07/12/jesus-was-a-muslim-because-he-was-all-about-social-justice/ – slightly edited.)
Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha‘at 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: [email protected]
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