All that I know about Ataat is that when the obedience to Allah and Prophets is on one hand and obedience to the ruler on the other, you forget about the ruler and obey the Prophet and Allah. This has been very clearly mentioned. So Ulil Amr stands higher than husbands or other relatives whom you should obey normally.
I mean, I refer to the verse of the Holy Quran Allah Ta’ala categorically tells you that you should obey Allah, His Prophet and your ruler, the established government or the established sovereign. And then it says, If you disagree on something, then refer the matter to God and to the Holy Prophet and where the Ulil Amr disagrees with Prophet or with Allah, you must not obey him but obey the Prophet and Allah. So it is so clear that whenever two orders contradict each other, one from Allah and one from Ulil Amr, you are free there to reject the orders of the authority. Another question comes, to what extent? Where it is obligatory to reject and where it is only a choice with you to reject. They are two different situations.
Now in the beginning of Islam, the Muslims could not raise the cry of Allahu Akbar. The slogan of Allahu Akbar could not be raised audibly for the other people. And because there was oppression and people would not permit that. Now here is a situation where there was a contradiction between two orders. The order of the elders of Mecca and the order of Allah. But Huzoor-e-Akram never defied that to the extent or exhorted his people to defy that to the extent that you should go and walk into the street and say Allahu Akbar, it doesn’t make any difference. But when it was said, they were forced to say, no no, to say, to desist from declaring La ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah, then they were told positively to disobey that order. So despite the fact that they were not bound by Allah to obey even in the first instance.
But in the first instance, the order was of such a nature that it was not necessary for every Muslim to declare Allahu Akbar in loud terms. They said Allahu Akbar, they could say Allahu Akbar even quietly. But to denounce the Kalima, La ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah, is quite a different thing. So there they were not permitted to do that. Whatever the extent of torture or threat from the opposition was, they were not permitted.
So this is exactly why I told the Jamaat to desist from saying Azaan if they are ordered not to say that. Not because we accept that right. Any Ahmadi has a right to say Azaan and he may start doing it. But we don’t forego the right. But as A.S. at one stage desisted from saying Allahu Akbar loudly, so if we do that there is no harm. But I told all Ahmadis in Pakistan that even if you are slaughtered to the last man and child, you must not denounce the Kalima La ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah because this is the Sunnah. So there are places where you have the right to disobey. Whether that right is to be exerted or not, that is your choice.
But there are places where you have a right to disobey and it is not your choice. You have to use that right. That distinction has to be made by the Imam or the Khalifa of the time, which order belongs to which category.
