From: shahid@vast.unsw.edu.au (Shahid Masud (Supr. Rigby))
Subject: Iqbal And Qadyanis
Organization: Universtity of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 02:57:29 GMT

Dear Readers,

Assalamoalaikum,

I have  a feeling that somehow  we tend to ignore an
important aspect of Iqbal's life----Iqbal as a student of Philosophy and
Islam. I intend to present an article which focuses on these aspects of
Iqbal's life. Moreover the article  will also show the damage caused
by British rule, not in terms of material, but which challenges the
very existence of Muslims in India.

Allama Iqbal expressed his  views on "Qadianis and Orthodox Muslims" in
a paper published in 1934. This provoked Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru to
write some articles on the Qadiani movement(showing the  Hindu interest)
in "The Modern Review" Calcutta. It was in reply to these articles of
Pandit that Iqbal wrote a detailed rejoinder; which was later published
by  Anjuman-i-Khuddam-ud-Din, Lahore, as a booklet under the title:
"Islam and Ahmadism". 

Given below is the original article by Iqbal. I hope it will be of
benefit to all fellow  Muslims from Pakistan and India.

Mein Jo SarBaSajdah Huwa Kabhi to Zameen seiy aaney Lagi Sadaa,
Tera dil tau heiy Sanam Aashna tujhey kiya Miley Ga Namaaz mein.

Khuda Hafiz,
Shahid Masud
------------------------------------------------------------------------

		    QADYANIS AND ORTHODOX MUSLIMS
                    ============================

                   (Dr. Sir Mohammad Iqbal, 1934)

The issue created by the controversy between the Qadianis and the
orthodox Muslims is extremely important. The Indian Muslims have only
recently begun to realise its importance. I intended to address an open
letter to the British people explaining  the social and political
implications of the issue. But unfortunately my health prevented me from
doing so. I am however,  glad to say a few  words for the present on the
matter, which, to my mind, affects the entire collective life of the
Indian Muslims. It must, however, be pointed out at the outset that I
have no intention to enter into any theological argument. Nor do I mean
to undertake a psychological analysis of the mind of the founder of the
Qadiani moverment; the former will not interest those for whom this
statement is meant and the time for the latter has not yet arrived in
India. My point of view is that of a student of general history and
comparative religion. 

India is a  land of many religious communities, and Islam is a religious
community in a much deeper sense than these communitiess whose structure
is determined partly by the religious and partly by the race idea.

Islam repudiates the race idea altogether and founds itself on the
religious idea alone. Since Islam bases itself on the religious idea
alone, a basis which is wholly spiritual and consequently far more
ethereal than blood relationship, Muslim society is naturally much more
sensitive to forces which it considers harmful to its integrity. Any
religious society historically arising from the bosom of Islam, which
claims a new prophethood for its basis, and declares all Muslims who do
not recognise the truth of its alleged revelation as Kafirs, must,
therefore, be  regarded by every Muslim as a serious danger to the
solidarity of Islam. This must recessarily  be so; since the integrity
of Muslim society is secured by the Idea of the Finality of Prophethood
alone. 

This idea of Finality  is perhaps the most original idea in the cultural
history of mankind: its true significance can be understood only by
those who carefully study the history of pre-Islamic Magian culture in
Western and Middle Asia. The concept of Magian culture, according to
modern research,  includes cultures associated with Zoroastrianism,
Judaism, Jewish Christianity, Chaldean and Sabean religions. To these
creed-communities the idea of the continuity of prophethood was
essential, and consequently they lived in a state of constant
expectation. It is probable that the Magian man psychologically enjoyed
this state of expectation. The modern man is spiritually far more
emancipated than the Magian man. The result of the Magian attitude was
the disintegration of old communities and the constant formation of new
ones by all sorts of religious adventurers. In the modern world of
Islam, ambitious and ignorant Mullaism, taking advantage of the modern
Press, has shamelessly attempted to hurl the old pre-Islamic Magian
outlook in  the face of the twentieth century. It is obvious that
Islam which claims to weld all the various communities of the world into
one single community cannot reconcile itself to a movement which
threatens its present solidarity and holds the promise of further rifts
in human society.

Of the two forms which the modern revival of pre-Islamic Magianism has
assumed, Bahaism appears to me to be far more honest than Qadianism; for
the former openly departs from Islam, whereas the latter apparently
retains some of the more important externals of Islam with an inwardness
wholly inimical to the spirit and aspirations of Islam. Its idea of a
jealous God with an inexhaustible store of earth-quakes and plagues for
its opponents; its conception of the prophet as a soothsayer; its idea
of the  continuity of the spirit of Messiah, are so absolutely Jewish
that the movement can easily be regarded as a return to early Judaism.
The idea of the continuity of the spirit of Messiah belongs more  to
Jewish mysticism than to positive Judaism.
Professor Buber who has given an account of the movement initiated by 
the Polish Messiah Baalshem tells us that
"it was thought that the spirit of the Messiah descended upon
the earth through  the prophets and even through a long line of holy men
stretching into the present time-the Zaddiks"(Sadiqs). Heretical
movements in  Muslim Iran under the pressure of pre-Islamic Magian ideas
invented the pressure of pre-Islamic Magian ideas invented the words
buruz, hulul, zill, to cover this idea of a perpetual reincarnation. It
was necessary to invent new expressions for a Magian idea in order to
make it less shocking to Muslim conscience. Even the phrase "promised
Mssiah" is not a product of Muslim religious consciousness. It is a
bastard expression and has its origin in the pre-Islamic Magian outlook.

We do not find it in early Islamic religious and historical literature.
This remarkable fact is revealed by Professor Wensinck's "Concordance of
the traditions of the Holy Prophet", which covers no less than eleven
collections of the traditions and three of the earliest historical
documents of Islam. One can very well understand the reason why early
Muslims never used this expression. The expression did not appeal to
them probably because they thought that it implied a false conception of
the historical process. The Magian mind regarded  time as a circular
movement; the glory of elucidation, the true nature of the historical
process as a perpetually creative movement was reserved for the great
Muslim thinker and historian, Ibn Khaldun.

The intensity of feeling which the Indian Muslim have manifested in
opposition  to the Qadiani movement is, therefore, perfectly
intelligible to the student of modern sociology. The average Muslim who
was the other day described as "Mulla Ridden" by a writer in "The Civil
And Military Gazette" is inspired in his opposition to the movement more
by his instinct of self-preservation than by a fuller grasp of the
meaning of the idea of Finality in his faith. The so called
"enlightened" Muslim has seldom made an attempt to understand the real
cultural significance of the idea of Finality in Islam, and a process of
slow and impercetivle westernisation has further deprived him even of
the instinct of self-preservation. Some of these so-called enlightened
Muslims have gone to the extent of preaching "tolerance"  to their
brethern-in-faith. I can easily excuse Sir Herbert Emerson for preaching
toleration to Muslims; for a modern European who is born and brought up
in an entirely different culture does not, and perhaps cannot, develop
the insight which makes it possible for one to understand an issue
vital to the very structure of a community with an  entirely different
cultural outlook.

In India circumstances are much more peculiar. This country of religious
communities, where the future of each community rests entirely upon its
solidarity, is ruled by a Western people who cannot but adopt a policy
of non-interference in religion.

This liberal and indispensible policy in a country like India has led to
most unfortunate results. In  so far as Islam is concerned, it is no
exaggeration to say that the solidarity of the Muslim community in
India under the British is far less safe than the solidarity of the
Jewish community was in the days of Jesus under the Romans. Any
religious adventurer in India can set up any  claim  and carve out a new
community for his own exploitation. This liberal State  of ours does not
care a fig for the integrity of a parent community, provided the
adventurer assures it of his loyalty and his followers are regular in
the payment of taxes due to the State. The meaning of this policy for
Islam was quite accurately seen by our great poet Akbar who in his usual
humorous strain says:

 O friend!  pray for the glory of the Briton's name:
 Say, "I am God" sans  chain, sans  cross, sans shame.

I very much  appreciate the orthodox Hindus' demand for protection
against religious reformers in the new constitution. Indeed, the demand
ought to have been first made by the Muslims who, unlike Hindus,
entirely eliminate the race idea from their social  structure. The
Government must seriously consider the present situation and try, if
possible, to understand the mentality of the average Muslim in regard
to this issue which he regards as absolutely vital to the integrity of
his community. After all, if the integrity of a community is threatened,
the only course open to that community is to defend itself against the
forces of disintegration. 

   And what are the ways  of self defence?

Controversial writings and refutations of the claim of the man who is
regarded by the parent  community as a religious adventurer. Is it then
fair to preach toleration to the parent community whose integrity is
threatened and to allow the rebellious group to carry on its propaganda
with impunity,  even when the propaganda is highly abusive?

If a group, rebellious from the point of view of the parent community,
happens to be of some special service to Government, the latter are at
liberty to reward their services as best as they can. Other communities
will not grudge it.   But it is too much
to expect that a  community should calmly ignore the forces which tend
seriously to affect its collective life. Collective life is as sensitive
to the danger of dissolution as individual life. It is hardly necessary
to add in this connection that the mutual theological bickerings of
Muslim sects do not affect vital principles on which all these sects
agree with all their differences in spite of their mutual acuusations of
heresy.

There  is one further point which demands Government's special
consideration. The encouragement in India of  religious adventurers, on
the ground of modern liberalism, tends to make people more and more
indifferent to religion and will eventually completely eliminate the
important factor of religion from the life of Indian communities. The
Indian mind is  likely to be nothing less than the form of atheistic
materialism which has appeard in Russia. 

But the religious issue is not the only issue which is at present
agitating the minds of the Punjab Muslims. There are other quarrels of
a political nature which, according to my reading, Sir Herbert  Emerson
hinted in his speech at the Anjuman's anniversary. These are, no doubt,
of a purely pilitical nature, but they affect the unity of Punjab
Muslims as seriously as the religious issue. While thanking the
Government for their anxiety to see the Punjab Muslims united, I venture
to suggest a  little  self examination to the Government themselves. Who
is responsible, I ask, for the distinction of rural and urban Muslims-a
distinction which has cut up the Muslim community into two groups and
the rural group into several  subgroups constantly at war with one
another?

Sir Herbert Emerson deplores the lack of proper leadership among the
Punjab Muslims. But I wish Sir Herbert Emerson realised that the
rural-urban distinction created by the Government and maintained by them
through ambitious political adventurers, whose eyes are fixed on their
own personal interests and not on the unity of Islam in the Punjab, has
already made the community incapable of producing a real leader. It
appears to me that this device probable originated in a desire rather to
make it impossible for real leadership to grow. Sir Herbert Emerson
deplores the lack of leadership in Muslims; I deplore the continuation
by the Government of a  system which has crushed out all hope of a real
leader appearing in the province.

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