March 2014

Editors:

Shahid Aziz

Mustaq Ali

Contents: Page

The Call of the Messiah 1

Women in Islam by Mudassar Aziz 4

م می

حالر

ن

م

ح اہلل الر

م س

ب

The Call of the Messiah

by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Promised Messiah and Mahdi

No Ascension

It is clear from all this discourse that in the dis-

cussion whether Jesus is living or dead, the

truth is on my side. Besides this proof, there are

many more arguments which establish the

death of Jesus the Christ to the degree of abso-

lute certainty: for instance, the Holy Prophet’s

saying that Jesus lived to a good old age of 120

years; and Hazrat Abu Bakr’s, reciting of the

verse before the قد خلت من قبلہ الرسل فیھا تحیون وفیھا تموتون

assembled Companions in order to drive home

the truth that all the prophets before the Holy

Prophet had died*; and the pronouncement of

God Most High in the Holy Quran قال فیھا تحیون و فیھا

that man can neither live and تموتون و منھا تخرجون

survive, nor die anywhere away from and out-

side this earth; and Jesus’ title Masih, which

means ‘one who travels much’, also points to the

fact of his death, for travelling presupposes ex-

istence on earth; otherwise, excepting the time

when, having been delivered from the Cross, he

might have travelled through different coun-

tries, there seems to be no other time when he

would have embarked upon his travels; more-

over, the period of time up to the event of Cross

comes to three years and a half only, and this

period obviously was much too small even for

the purpose of his preaching, to say nothing of

his travels in the countries; and in the same

way, the ointment known as marham-i-‘Isa,

mention of which has been made in nearly a

thousand books on medicine, proves convinc-

ingly that at the time of crucifixion Jesus was

not lifted up into heaven, but had his wounds

dressed and cured by this ointment. It is, there-

fore, patently evident that Jesus remained on

this earth and died on this earth, and during

the night of Mi‘raj (the Holy Prophet’s Ascen-

sion) also, the soul of Jesus was encountered

and witnessed among the souls of the dead.

March

2014

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* Hearing this argument, all the Companions

re mained silent, and none raised any objection to it or

said that not all the Prophets did die, and that Jesus

was alive. It was a proof of the unanimity and

consen sus of opinion of the Companions on the

point of Jesus‘ death; and if anyone, prior to this

con firmation, held a different view, it obviously

be came null and void.

Hazrat Ameer opening the 100th-year celebration

Jalsa commemorating the establishment of the

Ahmadiyya Association for the Propagation of Islam

2

March 2014

light with them, whereas the liars are called

earthly. It is a common idiom used generally in

the books of God.

The story of Jesus’ descent

But it needs to be remembered here that this

story of the descent of the Messiah occurs in

Muslim in a long Tradition reported by Nawas

bin Saman, which our opponents interpret to

mean that someone will drop from the clouds.

But this interpretation, having been disproved

and demolished by the above-mentioned argu-

ments which we have adduced from the Quran,

the Hadith and other sources, comes to nothing

and disappears; for, in the case of this interpre-

tation, a stark contradiction arises between it

and the Holy Quran and Hadith. There is, there-

fore, no other remedy but to accept that the

hadith and all the descriptions it contains have

been couched in the language of metaphor; oth-

erwise, if any literal interpretation were im-

posed upon it, all these Traditions, being mutu-

ally inconsistent and contradictory, will have to

be rejected.

But praised be God Most High that it has

been decided in this connection that the princi-

ple underlying the prophecies is that one por-

tion of them is to be treated as literal, whereas

the other portion contains metaphors and fig-

ures of speech; there is, therefore, no need for

the rejection of the hadith, but there is ample

scope for interpretation and elucidation. Since

that false belief – namely the doctrine of the

Trinity and salvation through the Cross, for the

eradication of which the Promised Messiah was

to come – arose from Damascus, there was, in

the knowledge of God, a relation between

Da mascus and the Messiah, the spiritual nature

of the Messiah having its face turned from the

very beginning towards Damascus, so that just

as the Holy Prophet saw the Dajjal (Antichrist)

in a vision making a circuit of the holy Ka‘ba like

a thief seeking an opportunity to dismantle and

destroy the Ka‘ba, in the same way, the Holy

Prophet (pbuh) saw the Promised Messiah in a

vision descending upon the Eastern minaret of

Damascus. It was, then, simply a question of a

visual representation in much the same way as

was the Dajjal’s circumambulation of the Ka‘ba.

The Holy Prophet is also reported to have said

that if Moses and Jesus had been living, they

would have submitted to and followed him.

Now, no God-fearing man can, in the face of all

the convincing arguments relating to the death

of Jesus, believe in the doctrine that he is still

alive.

Correct interpretation

Now that it has been proved that Jesus Christ is

dead, there can be no other interpretation of the

prophecy regarding the advent of the Promised

Messiah than that another man from among this

ummah [the Muslim community] will be raised

in the power and spirit of Jesus much in the

same way as John the Baptist (Yahya) had been

raised in the name of the prophet Elias. In the

acceptance of this interpretation of the proph-

ecy no difficulty or obstacle has arisen; on the

other hand, many unlikely and incredible things

have begun to seem plausibile and reasonable,

and there is no longer any need to interpret the

term nazul – نزول – as meaning that someone

will drop from the clouds, rather, still retains its

ordinary, normal sense as used when referring

to wayfarers and travellers. It should be remem-

bered that everyone who is due to come is spo-

ken of, out of regard and respect, in terms of

nazal – نزل – and a wayfarer, for that reason, is

called nazil - نزیل. Again, supposing the term

‘heaven’ appears in the tradition, even then

there is no contradiction, for all the deputies of

God are called heavenly and they bring heavenly

Hazrat Ameer displaying the stamps issued by

the British Post Office to commemorate the

centenary of the Woking Muslim Mission

March 2014

3

Damascus. Since Damascus is the very source from

there arose the doctrine of the Trinity, creature-

worship and the belief in salvation through the

Cross, it was accordingly depicted and represented

in the Holy Prophet’s revelation that the Promised

Messiah had descended near the eastern minaret

of Damascus; moreover, since the Promised Mes-

siah’s spiritual nature was directed towards de-

molishing the doctrine of the Trinity, which had

clearly originated in Damascus, it was for this rea-

son that the Promised Messiah was shown to the

Holy Prophet in a vision as if he had descended

near the eastern minaret of Damascus.* It was ex-

actly like the depiction in a vision to the Holy

Prophet of the Dajjal circumambulating the Ka‘ba,

and exactly as when it was shown to him that, after

his death, the first of his wives to die would be the

one whose hands would be the longest. By

‘longest’ hands were meant, in fact, almsgiving and

generosity.

Qadian to the east of Damascus

It is, in fact, the case that matters are frequently

disclosed to prophets and other recipients of

Di vine revelation couched wholly in metaphorical

idiom, and that the prophets convey them to peo-

ple exactly as they hear them or see them and that

doing so constitutes no fault or mistake on their

part since the revelation descends in that same

form and shape. Nor is it necessary that knowledge

of all the metaphors used in revealed and visionary

prophecies be vouchsafed to the prophet, because

particular trials and tribulations destined for a

given age through the agency of prophecies cannot

Who could say that the Dajjal will, in actual fact,

become a Muslim and make a circuit of the holy

Ka‘ba? Rather, any sensible person would under-

stand this revelation to mean that the Dajjal’s

spiritual nature was disclosed to the Holy Prophet

in a vision and that this allegorical image was dis-

played before his eyes in which the Dajjal, in the

form of a human being, was going round the Ka‘ba,

indicating that the Dajjal would be the sworn en-

emy of Islam and that his evil-intentioned eye

would ever be revolving round the Ka‘ba just as

when anyone circumambulates the House. It is ob-

vious that, just as a watchman goes round the

houses at night, a thief also does the same; but

whereas the watchman’s intention is to safeguard

the house and arrest the thieves, the intention of

the thief is to break open and burgle the house. In

the Holy Prophet’s vision, the Dajjal’s spiritual

characteristic of going round the holy Ka‘ba meant

that he was liable to hatch a plot and contrive to

deal a blow and destroy the honour of the Ka‘ba,

whereas the Promised Messiah’s circumambula-

tion of the Ka‘ba indicated that his spiritual nature

would be engaged in the protection and defence of

the House of God and in restraining and deterring

the Dajjal.

The same explanation holds well in the case of

the spot where the Holy Prophet beheld the Prom-

ised Messiah descending on the eastern minaret of

*There is, for this reason, in another hadith re ported by Ibn ‘Asakir, the term رأیت i. and according to this the Holy Prophet said that he saw, in a vision, Jesus, son of Mary descending near the eastern minaret of Damascus.

A section of the audience at the Jalsa in Lahore

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March 2014

remain in existence in the event that knowledge

of them is propagated beforehand. Furthermore,

it is also possible that particular secrets con-

tained in some prophecies are disclosed to

prophets, and yet at

the same time they

are not allowed to di-

vulge them to people.

To conclude, these

matters are certainly

not repugnant to or

inconsistent with the

d i g n i t y o f

prophethood, for per-

fect and infinite

knowledge belongs

exclusively to God

Most High. There is

also, in the descent of

the Promised Messiah,

the likelihood that he would make his appear-

ance at a place situated to the east of Damascus,

and according to geographical investigation that

is Qadian; for if a straight line be drawn from

Damascus eastward, you will find thereon a

point exactly in the eastern direction where La-

hore is, the provincial capital of the Punjab, and

Qadian is within the suburbs of Lahore, at a dis-

tance of about 70 miles from Lahore.

Women in Islam

by Mudassar Aziz (UK)

Chapter 24, verses 30 and 31 of the Holy Quran say:

"Say to the believing men that they lower their gaze and restrain their sexual passions. That is purer for them.

“Surely Allah is Aware of what they do.

“And say to the believing women that they lower their gaze and restrain their sexual pas-sions and do not display their adornment except what appears thereof. And let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms."

I am a big fan of consuming news from the online medium of Twitter, as I find that it is gen-erally the first place to get breaking news and more often than not has more accurate informa-tion than what is fed to us via traditional media,

and I am able to access a plethora of worldwide media that simply would not be accessible to me via cable news and newspapers. And I have no-ticed recently that this medium has once again

been lit up on the issue of women in Islam, and whether Islam op-pressed the female gender or not.

So I wanted to take a broad look at the vari-ous issues that some people bring up again and again as the rea-sons that Islam is an oppressor of women. Probably the most of-ten mentioned and

criticised thing is the ‘full veil’. Now it is such a big issue for some

Western countries that they have introduced laws that ban women from wearing a full veil! Men have decided that it is appropriate for them to decide what women can and cannot wear in the West! That certainly seems like a strange way of showing freedom to women.

So do women in Islam have to completely cover themselves up from head to toe in a veil? I read out verses 30 and 31 from Chapter 24 of the Holy Quran and the first thing to notice is that it gives guidance to men on how to behave. Men are told to behave modestly by lowering their gaze, and secondly the same instruction is then given to women. Now men and women are both meant to cover their heads but women are additionally told that they must also cover their bosoms for modesty.

This is the only place in the Holy Quran that I know of that talks about any sort of ‘veil’. The full body coverings that the TV and print media brandish like loaded weapons when reporting on Muslim women are not mentioned in the Holy Quran at all.

Verse 31 does, however, say “do not display your adornment except what appears thereof”. This makes it clear that you dress modestly to the extent that it is culturally normal where you live. So this shows that there is not a rule for all women to wear a full veil. It means that you dress appropriately to the culture in which you live.

As an example, what might be thought of as

Sultan Ahmet II Mosque (also known as the Blue

Mosque), Istanbul, Turkey

March 2014

5

modest in Britain might not be seen that way in India. So if you lived in India but dressed with the British mentality of modesty, then you are not following this instruction of the Holy Quran.

Following this example through then, some-one who lives in England and wears a full body covering is in fact not following the guidance given by Allah on how to behave modestly, as it is not appropriate to the culture in which they are living. In fact, wearing a full veil makes a person stick out in Britain and makes people stare; this is hardly following the guidance of being discreet and modest.

We have seen from numerous news reports that women who have worn the full covering in public have been attacked in the streets of European cities, and it is clear that Allah asks women not to dress in a way which puts them in danger, therefore a full veil is inappropriate in these countries.

Furthermore, if we look at some examples from early Islam we find that women played a very active role in the community. The Holy Prophet’s (pbuh) first wife was a successful business person, and she had, in fact, employed the Holy Prophet (pbuh) to work for her.

During times of war women tended to the injured, collected armaments like swords, ar-rows and shields from the battlefield and brought water for the soldiers. Women worked in the orchards and fields side by side with men. How would they have been able to do these things if they all had to wear a full body covering in public?

The only exceptions to what I have just men-tioned are the wives of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) who, after some times, for their own safety were told to observe a full covering. This came par-tially as a result of the time Hazrat Ayesha got lost in the desert and false and damaging ru-mours were spread about her. But even then the full covering did not exclude them from public life. Hazrat Ayesha for example still ran her own seminary and many learned men and women attended to learn from her details about the Holy Prophet’s (pbuh) life.

So on the basis of these two verses and what we know from how women lived at the time of

the Holy Prophet (pbuh) women are not obliged or ordered to wear a full body covering at all. Women, like men, are given guidance to act modestly and dress modestly and appropriately.

The Islamic view is that it is demeaning for men and woman to display themselves like a product or a piece of meat in a shop window. A person is to be recognised for their ability, their knowledge, and their achievements and not just by physical appearances.

The next thing I often hear is that men in Islam are superior to women and women must obey their men without question. Unconditional

obedience to men? Well this is an easy one to an-swer. The answer is no and that is because no person can command unconditional obedience from anyone, whether it’s a man or a women. Only the Divine Being, Allah can command un-conditional obedience from mankind.

The verse in the Holy Quran which has sparked

the above accusation is Chapter 4, verse 34, and it says;

"Men are the maintainers of women, with what Allah has made some of them to excel oth-ers and with what they spend out of their wealth. So the good women are obedient, guard-ing the unseen as Allah has guarded."

The problem with understanding verses like these is that people simply pick out a few words like ‘excel’ and ‘obedient’ and make an assump-tion on what the verse means without trying to understand what is being said or understanding how Islam treats a family structure.

When it says men are the maintainers of women, this is an instruction to men that we are obliged to make sure that whatever else we do in life, that we make sure our wives are looked after. The burden of paying the mortgage or rent and the bills are on the man not the woman. And that extends to making sure we look after our mothers and sisters and all the women of our family. Women have no responsibility to bring in money to cover these types of costs. Allah is say-ing that that is the primary duty of the man. And in fact Allah goes further to say that men are not allowed to tell their wives how to spend their money. Whether that be an allowance they are

The Blue Mosque – at night

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given or money earned from working, women are free to spend it however they wish, without influence from their husbands.

And when it says Allah has made some of them to excel others, this is not saying or even suggesting that Allah says men are better than women. Unlike in English were usually a word has one meaning, in Arabic a single word can have multiple meanings depending on how it is written and in what context it is written.

If I said “Pass me the pen” or “Pass me the stapler” in English then you understand what I mean and can pass me the correct item, as these things have a fixed meaning, but if I said “Give me that stationery” then you would need fur-ther context from me to give me the right thing as ‘stationery’ covers many items.

The word ‘excel’ in this scenario should be taken to mean an extra duty men have to bear, so we have extra duties above those which we are already responsible for, so, for example, providing emotional support to our wives or helping with look-ing after the children, etc. Now, when understood properly this verse describes modern-day life and relationships. Although men and women both go out and work, men always feel like they need to make sure they bring in enough money to cover as many of the important costs as possible. As a man, I certainly feel like I should make sure that I am able to pay my mortgage and bills or I would be letting my family down, and all the friends I have feel exactly the same. And as a loving husband I also want to make sure my wife is happy and I want to have an active in-volvement in all aspects of my child’s life, and again everyone I know feels exactly the same.

And finally, where it says “And the good women are obedient”, this means obedient to Allah and not, as so many anti-Islamists suggest, obedient to men. So this verse for me is Allah directly telling men what our duties are and what we need to do to make sure we have a con-tent and happy family.

So are men superior to women? Do women

have to unquestioningly follow the command of their husbands? Absolutely not. The last objection people make – and when I say “people”, it’s usually white men who think by pushing Western values on women they are somehow saving them – is that they claim that in the Holy Quran it states that men are allowed to beat their wives.

This once again all comes down to how one word, daraba, is interpreted by people. As I men-tioned earlier, Arabic words can have multiple meanings, and this word is a classic example of that. It can mean ‘strike’ or ‘hit’ and it can also mean ‘send away’. Now Islam makes rules to regu-late the breakdown of a marriage, just like most countries around the world, and it gives four in-structions to follow in trying to reconcile a mar-

riage that is in serious trouble.

It says that if there is a complete breakdown of matrimonial relations the first thing men should do is to separate their beds. The reason is obvious. It is to pro-tect women from being forced into having sex-ual relations with their husbands against their will. Nowadays, we call

it matrimonial rape.

Next, talk to the wife and try and sort out the differences between each other without at this stage involving others.

Then the third instruction. Now, this says the husband should daraba. And people have decided that it means ‘strike’ or ‘hit’ or ‘beat’. Now let’s go with that interpretation for a second and then read the final instruction. The fourth instruction says, if none of these measures work appoint outsiders to mediate between them. So the people who say da-raba in this instance means ‘beat’ are suggesting that the Holy Quran says “First beat your wife, and if that doesn’t work then go and get counselling”! How would counselling work if, even after beating your wife, things still do not improve? What is the man meant to say during the counselling session? “I hit her and she still does not act reasonably!”?

If we apply the other meaning of ‘send away’, the instructions become ‘separate your beds, talk to your wives, and if these measures do not sort out the problem send them away’. The modern version of this is called a trial separation. ‘And if none of

A meeting room at Topkapı Palace

March 2014

7

these measures work appoint outsiders to medi-ate between them’. So my opinion – and many others are now agreeing with this – is that Islam does not allow men to beat their wives and this was a misinterpretation of the verse.

And of course now, that that is cleared up people will inevitably say, “Well, why do the women have to leave and not the men?” Again, they make this statement because they do not understand how the family structure works in Islam.

As I mentioned before, in Islam men are given the responsibility to look after the whole family, and so often the grandparent, the parents and siblings and wives of brothers, etc., will all live in the house together, so we are told that rather then ten or twelve people all leaving the house, just the wife does for a short period of

time. Does it make sense that just one person leaves, or is it better that the wife be forced to stay with people who might resent her due to the marital issues, whilst the husband leaves?

So, this makes complete sense and is the logical thing to do, and has nothing to do with the made-up perception that Islam treats women badly and makes them leave the home.

People will probably say “Why should the way I have understood these verses be right?” Well, as I have always said, let’s look back and see how things actually were at the time of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) and after. During those days of Islam women ran businesses, they went to the Mosque, they were leaders and were in-volved in state matters. Hazrat Umar was taken to task by a women when he tried to change the law on dowry, and he accepted her argument and changed the law back. The Holy Prophet, when advising his cousin that she should not divorce her husband, was told by her that unless it was an instruction from Allah then she was within her right to do so, and he accepted that.

Hazrat Ayesha was a hugely respected

teacher who was revered by men and women who came from far away areas to get a better understanding of Islam from her. It’s thought that 40% of the knowledge of Hadith came from her.

How would she have given this knowledge if she had to stay at home and not be allowed out? Or was not allowed to talk to men? So if you look at the lives of women then, and then look at these verses, there can be no other way to inter-pret them.

So Islam does not force a woman to wear a full veil, it does not say men are superior to women, it does not say that women have to un-questioningly obey their husbands and it does not allow men to hit their wives.

But have and do Muslim men do these things? Yes they do, of course they do. Looking

at any Muslim majority country you can see that women are often treated as second-class citi-zens. And this is an issue which needs to be ur-gently addressed.

We cannot claim some sort of moral victory here just because we have clarified what the Holy Quran actually tells us. The facts are that women are mistreated and abused in countries where there is a Muslim majority.

The international community needs to help and put serious pressure on these countries to put laws in place which protect women, and the people in these countries need to be educated to understand that they are violating the word of Allah by what they are doing, and they have to stand up to the mullahs and leaders who push a false understanding of Islam on them.

But let’s have a look at women in the so- called Free World, the civilised world were women have the freedom to do as they please and are looked after by rule of law. Here are some facts about violence against girls and young women in the UK; sexual bullying and harassment are routine in schools and almost

When the call to the Friday prayer is given, street vendors just cover their wares

and shopkeepers leave their shops open and leave

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March 2014

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one in three 16–18 year-old girls say they have experienced ‘groping’ and other unwanted sex-ual touching at school in the UK (YouGov).

• One in three teenage girls in an intimate relationship has experienced sexual violence from a partner (NSPCC).

• Sending sexual images via phones or online is often coercive and linked to harass-ment, bullying and even violence. The threat comes from friends, and girls are most adversely affected (NSPCC).

• At least 750,000 children a year witness domestic violence according to the Department of Health.

• The Children’s Commissioner identified that at least 16,500 children in England were at risk of child sexual exploitation in one year alone.

Brutal gang rapes of women in India are not a scarce thing and were often overlooked. It took the brutal rape and murder of one young women last year in India before some steps were taken to try and address the issue. Despite those steps, further predatory gang rapes have and are occurring.

Coalition troops hailed the rights given to women as a key success when they took control away from the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, instilling a Western value of rights for women, but attacks on women were more frequent and more brutal in 2013 then ever in Afghanistan.

France passed a law which in part banned the wearing of a head scarf, stopping women from making the choice about what they want to wear. And those women who flout this law have been regularly attacked in the streets by people.

According to WHO, 15% of women in Japan reported physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Recent global prevalence figures indicate that 35% of women worldwide have experienced either intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.

What about in work? Surely there is more equality and women have the same opportuni-ties as men. Well, of the top 1,000 companies in

the USA, only 45 of them have a woman as their CEO – only 4.5%. And according to the TUC, women working full-time still earn almost £5,000 a year less than men, and the pay gap in some jobs is three times bigger than that.

The Chartered Management Institute said that men’s bonuses in the UK were more than double those of women. When the Office of Na-tional Statistics looked at the people receiving the highest 10% of salaries in the UK, it found that 69% of them were men. And this is all after laws had to be passed in the UK so that women could receive equal pay to men. Without these laws how bad would it be?

And despite all this bad news a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found last year that globally, women work harder than men in their jobs.

And I could go on and on. These are just a few of the hundreds of examples and statistics that I found whilst researching the numbers. So is the West a beacon of hope for women’s rights? It seems not.

I mention these things not in a ‘tit for tat, you’re no better’ kind of way, but this is to show that Islam, or any religion, is not at fault for the fact that women are treated as lesser than men, but it is men themselves and only men who are the catalyst for this, and scapegoating any relig ion or group of people will never solve the issues.

Tomb of Hazrat Ayyub al-Ansari (ra), who refused

to leave when the Muslims failed to conquer

Istanbul and was buried outside its walls