The Light (English) October 2013

7/27/2019 The Light (English) October 2013

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Editors:

Shahid Aziz

Mustaq Ali

Contents: Page

The Call of the Messiah 1

The Names of World Religions

byHazratMaulana

Abdul Haq Vidyarthi 3

Call of the Messiah

byHazratMirza Ghulam Ahmad,

the Promised Messiah and Mahdi

The Promised MessiahIn Islam, too, people imbued with Jewish habits

and qualities have also adopted this course and,

persisting obstinately in their misunderstanding

and error, have in every age

persecuted and oppressed

the holy men of God. Just see

how, turning their back upon

and forsaking Imam Hussain

(God be pleased with him),

thousands of ignorant people

went over to Yazid, joining

forces with him, and tor-

mented the innocent Imam

by their deeds and their

words, and did not rest until

they had finally encompassed

his death. In the same way,

they have always molested

and maltreated the Imams,

the righteous persons and

the mujaddids (inspired re-formers) of this ummah, call-

ing them unbelievers and infidels. Thousands

of truthful persons have suffered sorely at their

cruel hands, and not only have they been con-

temptuously labelled kafirs, but no effort has

been spared even to bring about their death or

disgrace, with the result that now our time has

come and it is our turn. In the thirteenth cen-

tury [of the Muslim era] these same peoplewent about from place to place preaching that,

in the fourteenth century, Imam Mahdi or the

Promised Messiah, or at least a great mujaddid

would make his appearance and yet when that

Mujaddid made his appearance at the head of

the fourteenth century, and not only did the

word of God confer on him the title of the

Promised Messiah, but the evils and abomina-

tions of the age, too, gave the same decree that

he should be named the Promised Messiah, he

was, sadly, accused of falsehood and cruellypersecuted, and the utmost effort was exerted

in the way of devious and devilish plots to en-

compass his death or disgrace; and if it had not

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been for the rule of the British Empire in this

land of India they would have torn him apart

and finished him off a long time ago.

The fourteenth century

Now it was but patently evident that this age

was a time of dangerous wickedness in terms of

faith and belief and that

the beliefs of hundreds of

thousands, having been

distorted and diverted

away from Divine Unity,

had turned towards crea-

ture-worship, which con-

sisted for the most part

great emphasis havingbeen laid upon it in this:

that in support of the

Church doctrine of Atone-

ment so much use was

made of pen and tongue

that even if you were to

rummage through and

ransack all the records of

human history, you would

not be able to find, in any

age, such zeal in support

of falsehood. Moreover,

when the writings of the

advocates of the doctrine of Atonement had

reached their highest point of scurrilousness

and spite, and virulent and aggressive attacks

had been launched against the Islamic doctrine

of Divine Unity, against the honour, chastity and

truthfulness of the Holy Prophet of Arabia and

against the status of the Holy Quran as the Word

of God, so that the number of books, pamphletsand newspapers containing these vicious at-

tacks had reached the prodigious figure of sev-

enty million, and when all this had come to pass

before the end of the 13th century, was it not,

then, necessary for God Most High, who had said , Surely we have revealedthe Reminder, and surely we are its Guard-

ian (15:9), to set some heavenly process in mo-

tion at the head of the fourteenth century in or-

der to resist and repel these unfounded attacks?

If it is true that every Mujaddid should comeempowered to deal with the evils of his age,

then it is also true that the Mujaddid of the four-

teenth century will have been properly

equipped to deal a deadly blow to the evil of the

Cross, for it is this evil that has had such a dan-

gerous effect upon millions of human minds,and it is this same evil that should be called the

greatest of all the evils of the present age. Now

when it has been estab-

lished and proved that the

mission of the Mujaddid of

the fourteenth century is

to smash the abomination

of the Cross and repel the

attacks of its upholders the

question naturally arises,

What should be the nameof the mujaddid whose

duty it is to break into

pieces the religion of the

Cross, to guide us to the

path of real deliverance

and to scatter to the winds

the false doctrine of salva-

tion by the Cross? Is it not

true that the appellation

Promised Messiah has been

conferred upon this Mu-

jaddid by the Holy

Prophet? When it is but obvious from the sad

state of affairs of the present age that the name

of the Mujaddid of the fourteenth century

should be the Promised Messiah, or in other

words, that the Promised Messiah would be the

mujaddidof a century in which there is so much

noise and uproar about evil of the Cross, why,

then shake the head and deny it? At any rate,

when the abomination of Cross reached its cli-max, and we saw with our own eyes that hun-

dreds of thousands of books had been published

in support of the doctrine of deliverance

through the Cross, pouring falsehood and hatred

on the religion of Islam, and that a man stood up

at the head of this wicked century, and claimed

that he had been raised for weeding out and

eradicating these evils, was, then, such a claim

out of place and inappropriate? Was it not nec-

essary that, at the time of these dangerous evils,

the God Most High, Who would not bear and

tolerate indignity for Islam, should establish an


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Islam, the name should be the same as well. Un-

doubtedly, the religion brought by the Holy

Prophet Muhammad is the whole and perfect Is-

lam, yet the religions before it must be compo-

nents and parts of this whole. The verses quotedabove are conclusive, and in the Quran the religion

of every prophet and his followers is called Islam.

Even the religion of the disciples of Jesus is de-

scribed in their own words as:

And bear witness (O Lord) that we are Mus-

lims. (5:111)

Muslims accept this fact which has been ex-

plained by the Holy

Quran. But are other

religions of the

world prepared to

accept it? It would

be an act of coercion

if we force them to

acknowledge this

fact, unless we can

make them admit it

on the basis of their

own religions. In

that case, their own

faith and sense will

be the compelling

factor. They will have no choice but to accept the

verdict of the creed and faith which they believe to

be from God.

Correction of a mistaken idea aboutnames

Shakespeare has written:

Whats in a name?; that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.

It is also said that if a good name is given to a bad

thing, it would still remain bad. Nonetheless, a

good name does go some way to show the good-

ness of a thing. A good name is regarded with

approval and a bad one with disapproval . Some-

times a good name is bought for millions, and one

having a bad name suffers more than one who is

actually bad.

It is a fact that no religion other than that of

the followers of the Holy Prophet Muhammad is

known as Muslim. The ancient religion of India is

Hindu dharma; the Iranian is called Zoroastrian orParsee; the predominant religion of China and

order of His own, and send some heavenly balm

for the healing of this wounded and stabbed sys-

tem? Is it a matter for surprise that the mercy of

God Most High demanded that He should, in such a

period of dishonour and debility, take care of andprotect Islam? Will there be any more dangerous

time for which you will keep yourselves waiting?

Depriving this fourteenth century of the advent of

a Mujaddid, will you be looking for some other un-

known century? Is it the way of God-fearing and

piety that, notwithstanding the fact that fourteen

years have also passed

from this century, and

the evils of the Cross

have entrenched them-

selves strongly, you

should cling to the view

that the man who was to

come has not come as

yet, and the unfortunate

fourteenth century has

remained devoid of even

an ordinary Mujaddid,

and that the one who

came was no other than

the Antichrist, theDajjal? Is it faithfulness

and honesty to harbour such thoughts that the

fourteenth century has passed without a Mujaddid,

and the double eclipse of the month of fasting

(Ramadan) witnessed not the appearance of the

Mahdi, and the time of the evils of the Cross saw

not the advent of the Promised Messiah; that is to

say, all the three great prophecies of the Holy

Prophet (peace and the blessings of God be upon

him) turned out to be false (God forbid)?

The Names of World Religions

byMaulana Abdul Haq Vidyarthi

Surely the religion with Allah is Islam.(The Holy

Quran, 3:18)

He (God) has named you Muslims.(22:78)

There are countless religions in the world, and ac-

cordingly there are countless names of religions.

However, if every true religion is of Divine origin,as is the principle laid down by the Holy Quran and


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Japan is Buddhism; and a great religion of the

world is known as Christianity. Every religion

claims that only itis the true religion, and that

there is none other whose foundation was laid

by God Himself. The reason for this is the differ-ence in the beliefs and concepts of the various

religions. The principles of the religions are so

different, one from another, that it is almost im-

possible to consider them as having the same

source, even though this may be true. Our dis-

cussion here, however, only concerns the names

of the religions.

The Hindu religion

The religion of India has been known as Hindu.

It is claimed that despite being ruled by foreignreligions for centuries the Hindu nation, its cul-

ture and religion still survive. The question may

be asked: What is Hindu culture and society? If

it is the caste system, the separate dharma and

duties for the four castes, the worship of idols,

saints and millions of gods, and

the making of sacrifices to attain

their pleasure, then these beliefs

have been receiving great shocks

in the past century, and have

been rejected by educated Hin-

dus.

The question is: What is the

name of this religion? The Arya

Samaj says, and rightly so, that

their name Hindu is not found

anywhere in the Vedas or the

authentic shastras. They say that

the word Hindu really means a

slave and a thief, and that it is

really a term of abuse applied tothem by their enemies or the

Persians, which has been ac-

cepted by them due to a submissive and servile

mentality. Swami Dayanand, founder of the Arya

Samaj, has furiously condemned the name

Hindu, and urged that it should be dropped in

favour of the termArya.

In response to this, the traditional Hindus

rectified their name by calling themselves

Sanatan Dharmi. Now Sanatan means old and

ancient, and it is obvious that this name can

only be given to a religion when it has been in

existence for a long time. It cannot be the name

when the religion came into being, and more-

over, this name is not to be found in the Vedas,

just as the name Hindu is not found therein.

As to the name Arya, it is obvious that it isthe name of a nation, not that of a faith. Included

among the Arya people are the English, Ger-

mans, Dutch, Scandinavians, etc. Most impor-

tantly, the term Arya Dharma is nowhere to be

found in the Vedas. According to reliable lexi-

cons, Arya means owner or master, or the

progeny of an owner or master (see Nirukt). So,

even according to its linguistic meaning, Arya

cannot be the name of a religion. It can be ap-

plied to a ruling nation, indicative of its position,

but not to a dharma or religion. If the nameHindu must be given up because it does not oc-

cur in the Vedas, the nameArya suffers from the

same disadvantage.

It is argued, however, that the name Arya is

preferable because it refers to a noble, ruling

nation. But those who have

read the Vedas know that

Arya most definitely does not

mean righteous, noble and

God-fearing, as there are

scores of mantras in which

the Rishis prayed to be safe

from Aryas in the same way as

they prayed to be safe from

Dasyus, which signifies rob-

bers and malicious men. For

example, it says in the Rig

Veda:

O brave Indra! kill both the

enemies Dasa and Arya, as the

wood is chopped with thesharp axe. (Mandal6, Sukt

33, Mantra 3)

O You who are praised by many! May the

Arya or Dasa who dares us to war be thoroughly

crushed by us, may we kill these enemies in war

with Your help. (Mandal10, Sukt38, Mantra 3)

O Lord of the brave! may we kill these ene-

mies, Aryas and Dasa. (Mandal6, Sukt6, Mantra

6)

Even a little consideration of these mantras

shows that the Rishis of the Vedas looked uponthe Aryas as their enemies like the Dasa robbers.


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If the meaning of Arya had been noble and

righteous men, how could the Vedas teach

prayers for their destruction? In the light of

these two facts, firstly, that the Vedas give no

name for the religion or dharma of these people,and secondly, that neither of the words Hindu

and Arya means good and religious people, the

only conclusion that can be drawn is that Hindu

was the name of a people living by the river

Sindu (Indus), and a certain race was known as

Arya. With neither of these names is the word

dharma (religion) used in the Vedas.

The Jewish religion

It is clear that the basis of the

Jewish faith is the law ofMoses, but the Jews have been

named after Judah, one of the

twelve sons of Jacob. Jewis

not a divinely-revealed name,

but is a family name con-

nected with Jacob, and they

are generally called Israelites.

No law was revealed to Jacob,

and therefore Israelite is a

family name, not the name of

a faith. So there is no name for

this religion which God may

have given to it in the Bible or

ordered to be used for it.

Buddhism

Buddhism is also a religion,

but it does not say anywhere

in the teachings of Buddha

that his followers should be called Buddhists or

that the name of their religion is Buddhism. Thereason is that even before the Gautama Buddha

there had been many men who were given the

name Buddha. These have been mentioned by

Buddha himself. If the followers of the previous

Buddhas were not called Buddhists, there can be

no authority for applying this title to the follow-

ers of the Gautama. This too is a fictitious name.

So it is a fact, which cannot be denied, that

the Israelites are called after Jacob, who was

given the name Israel by God, the followers of

Buddha are called Buddhists, the adherents of

Zoroaster, the prophet of Persia, are named after

him, and the Hindus are named after their land

and country.

The followers of Christ

The strangest riddle is that of the name given to

the followers of Christ. In the first place, the

name given to a religion stays the same in any

language or country, except for some slight

change in one or two letters due to the different

rules of various languages. So Hindu, Buddhist,

etc., are substantially the same in any language,

whether English, Persian, etc. However, the

name of the followers of Christ is different in

almost every country. There

are scores of names such as

Christian, Mas, s, Jesuist,Nazarite which they apply to

themselves. Their real name is

a mystery. The personal name

of the Messiah was Yasu. The

name Christwas added long

after the events of the cruci-

fixion. Matthew records that

an angel appeared to Joseph,

the husband of Mary, saying:

She shall bring forth a son,

and thou shalt call his name

Jesus. (Matthew, 1:1821)

Luke, however, records that

the angel went to Mary, and

said to her: Thou shalt call

his name Jesus.

According to Matthew, it is the

father who would give the

nameJesus to his son, and according to Luke it is

the mother who would do so. In any case, it was

not God Who gave him this name or ordered

that this name be given to him. Even disregard-

ing the conflicting accounts, it is clear that his

personal name, as related by the angel, was

Jesus. Therefore this faith should have been

named after Jesus. But instead, followers of this

religion are known by various other names such

as Christian.

The names Christand Messiah

The word Christdoes not belong to the native

tongue of Jesus. It is from the Greek word

Christos, which is said to be synonymous with


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Messiah. It is obvious that

the followers of Jesus must

have referred to the name

of their mentor, when nec-

essary. But they couldnever have been known as

Christians after his name

because the word Christ

was not used during his

lifetime. His name was

Yushu, pronounced in He-

brew and Aramaic as Yo-

shua. There had been

many people before Jesus

who bore this name. For

instance, the military com-mander appointed by

Moses was given the name

Joshua, son of Nun. He was

accorded this name be-

cause of his conquest of

Canaan, meaning liberator,

whose wisdom and spiri-

tual strength combined to

raise the Israelites from a demoralised slave

people to a triumphant and victorious one.

Likewise Jesus was given the name Messiah

by God. But never could he dare proclaim it be-

cause of the intense opposition of the Jews and

the weakness of his own followers. So when one

of them plucked up the courage to call him the

Messiah at a secret gathering, Jesus told him to

keep it concealed and hidden. And this hap-

pened in the last year of his mission:

Now it happened that as he was praying

alone, the disciples were with him; and he asked

them: Who do the people say that I am? Andthey answered, John the Baptist; but others say,

Elijah; and others, that one of the old prophets

has risen. And he said to them, But who do you

say that I am? And Peter answered, The Mes-

siah of God. But he charged and commanded

them to tell this to no one. (Luke, 19:1822)

It was only Peter who called Jesus the Mes-

siah, about whom Jesus himself said: Get be-

hind me, Satan, you are a hindrance to

me. (Matthew, 16:23) Considering that Jesus

himself feared trouble if he was called the Mes-

siah, and urged that it should be kept a secret,

how could it be possible

that his followers could be

called Mas(followers of

the Messiah) during his

life? Hence, during his lifethey called one another

brother, believer, chosen

one, disciple, friend, poor

one, etc. What they were

notcalled was Christian or

Mas. God had given him

the name Yushu, and that

was what his parents had

named him. He had himself

strictly forbidden the title

Messiah to be used abouthim. It says in the Encyclo-

paedia Biblica:

According to the same

(Lukes) Gospel, he does

not himself lay claim to the

name Christ till later (9:20),

and even then wishes it to

be kept secret, and further

that, according to the same author (Acts 11:26),

the name Christian did not arise till a consider-

able time after his death.

It is also acknowledged that the name Christ

was proposed at the time when the Christians were

mixing with pagan people, and it is most probable

that this name originally was applied to Christians

by the pagans. It cannot be from the Jews because

they are awaiting the Messiah till today. That event

is recorded in Acts as follows:

For a whole year, they met with the church,

and taught a large company of people; and in An-

tioch the disciples were for the first time calledChristians. (Acts 11:26)

In the translations of the Gospels into eastern

languages, the word Christians here has been ren-

dered as Mas. It is a wonder of the scholarship of

the translators that they rendered Masas Chris-

tian or rendered Christian as Mas. No proper

noun is ever translated into another language. If

Christian is a proper noun, why was it translated as

Mas?And if the original name is Mas, derived

from Messiah, why was it translated as Christian?

The incident at Antioch allegedly happened 43

years after Jesus. Even if it did happen, no historian


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used this name till 150 CE, so this name is not to

be found in the writings of Clement of Rome,

Barnabas, Hermas, etc. It is found later in the

writings of Justin Martyr, etc. If the decision at

Antioch was a collective one, why was it notacted upon till 150 CE, and why did the

Christians of the East continue calling them-

selves nasr?

To sum up, according to the Gospels Jesus

kept his claim of Messiahship concealed till his

crucifixion, and strictly prohibited this title to be

used for him in public. For 43 years after him, it

occurred to no one that his followers should

have a name. In fact, till 150 CE no writer called

this faith and people Christian. The claim about

the name Christian being first used in Antioch isa hypothesis, merely on the basis that, as there

was now a non-Jewish following of Jesus, they

must have been given a name, and that name

can only be Christian. Obviously this hypothesis

does not amount to certainty, and the fact that

Eastern Christians have always called them-

selves nasr shows it to be completely

mistaken.

Birthplace of Jesus

According to the Gospels, Nazareth of Galilee

was the home town of Joseph and Mary. Jesus

lived there before his baptism (Matthew, 4:13,

21:11; Mark, 1:9; Luke, 1:26, 2:4, 39, 51 and

4:16; John, 1:46; Acts, 10:38). It is also written

that this was why Christians were called nasr

(Nazarites). It is then curious that in this birth-

place of Christianity no one became Christian

for 300 years, and it remained a purely Jewish

town. During the Crusades, its name was used to

rouse Christians to ight the Muslims, and itacquired a signiicance. But it is doubtful

whether this is the same Nazareth where Jesus

was born, or whether it was another town to the

south of the present Nazareth in the valley of

mount Kafsia.

Was there in fact a town called Nazareth

which ever existed? Two references from the

Gospels themselves raise doubts about it. Mat-

thew, 2:23 says:

And he [Joseph, along with Mary and Jesus]went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that

what was spoken by the prophets might be ful-

filled, He shall be called a Nazarene.

This reference is utterly wrong. In no book

did the prophets say that the coming one will be

called a Nazarene. The references to the book ofJudges and to 1 Samuel 1:11 which are cited in

this respect actually mention people making a

vow not to shave the heads of their children.

And all John 1:46 says is:

Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

Why Nazareth is given as the home town of

Jesus is impossible to answer. The account in

Matthew that Joseph, the father of Jesus, went to

live in Nazareth for fear of the king, does not

make that place the home town of Jesus. Then

there is the point that Joseph and Mary jour-

neyed to Bethlehem from Nazareth in order that

Jesus should be born there in accordance with a

prophecy of the prophets. This too is wrong be-

cause according to Luke (2:15) they went there

to be recorded in the census. History has shown

that this census was held either eight years be-

fore the birth of Jesus or six years afterwards.How could they have gone there six years before


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the census in order to be recorded in it?

Why are his followers calledChristians?

In Christian writings, Jesus is generally referred

to as Jesus Christ, as if the name Jesus takes

precedence over the name Christor Messiah. It

has been explained earlier that the name given

to him by his parents, or by the angel, was only

Yushu. That name is the basis of the Christian

religion. By descent, he belonged to the Jewish

race. His parents did not possess wealth and

riches or fame. In his youth he worked in his

parents house as a carpenter (najjr). Thus it

appears from Matthew 13:54 that when he went

to his native land, people said: Is this not thecarpenters son? In other words, in his home

town he was known as the son of Joseph the

carpenter. This is borne out by Luke 4:22, but

the words of Mark 6:3 are as follows:

Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary

and brother of James and Joses and Judas and

Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?

So according to this, Jesus himself was a car-

penter. In Hebrew the words naar( being the

letter d) and nasar(s being the letter sn) are

synonymous, and the word nsharmeans to saw

wood. Therefore, by Jesus of Nazareth (Nasra)

is meant Jesus the carpenter (najr). From the

Acts we learn that the Jews used to refer to this

new religion as najarn, or the faith of car-

penters (Acts, 24:5). The ancient historian

Tertullian has also supported this, and written

that the Jews used to curse this name three

times daily in their prayers.

When Jesus grew up, became a teacher,

started preaching, and attracted disciples, hefaced intense opposition from the people, so

much so that his followers were terrified to ut-

ter his name. On taking his name, they were

beaten and persecuted. Not only could they not

call him Messiah, but even taking his own name

Jesus was forbidden. The hatred and opposition

was not only against his office and position, but

his personal name as well. This is what we learn

from the four Gospels, Acts of the Apostles and

the Epistles. Sending his disciples to preach hismessage, he gave the following instructions:

I send you out as sheep in the midst of

wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as

doves. Beware of men; for they will deliver you

up to councils, and flog you in their synagogues,

and you will be dragged before governors and

kings for my sake you will be hated by all formy names sake. (Matthew, 10:1622; see also

24:9; Mark, 13:13; Luke, 21:12)

After Jesus, the oppression of his followers

continued. Let alone calling themselves Chris-tians, they could not even take the name of their

teacher:

So they called them and charged them not

to speak or teach at all in the name of

Jesus. (Acts, 4:18; see also Acts, 5:40;

2 Corinthians, 11:2425; 1 Peter, 4:16; Revela-

tion, 2:1013)

In conclusion, the name of the religion of

Jesus was neither nasr, nor Christian, nor yetMas. Just as the name najarnwas given to

this faith contemptuously by its Jewish oppo-nents, similarly Christian was a name proposed

by the heathens. As the Encyclopaedia Biblica

says:

In fact, it is probable enough that the name

came from the heathens themselves in the first

instance. With such a view of its origin, Acts

11:26 fits in very well. (p. 753)

The Light (English) October 2013

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