At the time of Hazrat Uthman, when he was commissioned, there were some sincere ulemas in India, like Maulana Altaf Hussain Hali, Shibli Nomani, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. Do you know the birth and death dates of Maulana Altaf Hussain Hali? No, I have not read. Huh? No, I have not read. You don’t know. So I was wondering what was the attitude of the… He was a contemporary of Hazrat Masih Maud A.S. only in his childhood, I suppose, not in his life age. Do you know, Maloo Sahib, anything about it? No, Huzoor…
I know Syed Ahmed Sahib was much senior to Hazrat Masih Maud A.S. in age, but Hali belonged to a junior generation, definitely. But how much junior, I don’t know. No, Huzoor, Hali was the… Pardon? 37, 37, yes. Hali was the pupil of Ghalib, so he could not be very junior. He must have been grown up man when the Promised Messiah claimed to be the Promised Messiah. Was he a real pupil of Ghalib? Yes. To what degree, I don’t know that either. He was a young man and he has taken his poems to the… He was his guru, all right, but whether he was really a pupil, I don’t know. Yes, Daab was the pupil of Zauq and Hali was the pupil of Ghalib.
I don’t know much about that. Yes, he has mentioned himself in Tazkirah, the Hali, and so I was wondering… Well, he generally understood that he was a pupil, but what sort of pupil he was and how long he remained a pupil, to what degree, that is still to be settled. Anyhow, his age does not make much difference. He was a very sincere, one of the ulama in Muslim’s world. When did Ghalib die, by the way? Pardon? When did Ghalib die? Ghalib died in late 60s, 1860s. 1863. 63?
Yes. To be exact, I see. Yes. So then your argument is correct, right? Yes. If he died in 63 and Hali was a pupil of his, then he must have reached an age of majority and adulthood, when Hazrat Masih-e-Muhammad S.A.W. made his claim. But Hali is not known to have made his appearance in this religious controversy anywhere, not even remotely. So either he remained within the world of his poetry and did not take notice of it, or maybe he was too right-minded to interfere in affairs of which he had no knowledge. So he just adopted the correct attitude of lack of knowledge.
And the other person which I had in mind was Ibn-e-Umar. What was his attitude towards the Promised Messiah? Again, he was not hostile at all. Neither of the two were hostile. Also, Sayyid Maulana Azad was not hostile. In fact, at times, through oblique remarks, he supported Ahmadiyyat in some ways. He was not hostile at all. These great figures, which were semi-religious, semi-political intelligentsia of Islam of that day, they were fair-minded people, generally speaking. They were not mullahs anyway. So you don’t have anything of mullahism among them.
May I be permitted to relate something which I heard from Ali bin Qadir and Mirza Ali Shahnawaz Sahib? Yes, please. I’ve been told that Shibli Normani was a very close friend to Sayyid Abdul Qadir Gihari. Yes, yes. The grandfather of Ali Sahib. No, father. Father of Ali Sahib. That’s right. Professor Abdul Qadir, you mean? Yes, that’s right, yes. And he was a friend of Shibli Normani. Once he wrote him a letter and asked him that, how is it possible that you have been able to write such great books about Islam, like the Khatam al-Nabiyyin, Sirat al-Khatam al-Nabiyyin, and you would not have been able to recognize the Imam of the time.
Yes. So he wrote him back in a postcard or in a letter and said that, how do you know that I have not been able to recognize him, but is it necessary that I should proclaim like you have done? Is it necessary? So that letter was kept by Professor Sahib and then he handed over to the community that it is a private letter. It should not be published in his lifetime, but later on this subject matter… This is a very important thing, yes. I am glad you mentioned it. Maulvi Sahib, you should know about these old documents.
Where are they preserved? He has them with him, in the Quranic archives. And the rest I do not know. He has kept them in this room. Sir, this is Sheikh Mohammed Ismail Sahib, the water-man. Yes, he must also know. He was with Hafiz Muqtada in Jhankhuri. He himself is a well-known personality. He told me that Sheikh Ismail Sahib, the water-man, at the time of the incident of Jan-Sul-Ghinein in 1894, he came to Punjab. Who came? At that time. Who is a witness to this?
In your presence? Yes. And he was from the same area, from Panipat. And he knows the water-man very well. You know, one always receives this impression that these great personalities of the Muslim world of that age, if they were obviously contemporaries of the Promised Messiah, and had very clearly known what was happening, if they even had the slightest suspicion that a false prophet had appeared and he was a source of danger to the world of Islam, they must have opened their lips or written something about it and warned the people. So their complete silence shows that within their hearts they were either convinced of the truth or at least they were neutral. They did not have the courage to positively say what is wrong.
So I think most probably they were sympathetic. And this evidence which Mawlid Dost Mohsin has just produced, that shows that the second alternative is the correct one. I have a little sentence. When Ali bin Qadir was recently here… But I am coming to that document. He deposited it with the community. And with the word that it should not be published during his lifetime because it would be embarrassing for him. It was a private correspondence. So after his death it may be published. So if that is so, it should be somewhere in your library, under your… I will try to do that. I have put the title in the history of the mosque.
If you are a religious scholar, you will remember it. Correct. That is fine. But this documentary proof is necessary. So you find out. Ali bin Abdul Qadir or Hanif Sahib. Do more research. And some of his letters, that could be very important. Because he was a great scholarly figure who was highly respected for his knowledge, depth of his knowledge among his contemporaries. Professor Abdul Qadir Sahib. So he must have been in correspondence with these people. And there may be some evidence hidden in his letters here and there which should be of use to you. Al-Fazl al-Awadi’s statement, Al-Fazl al-Awadi. He once said, I am a true follower of the Founder of Jamaat-e-Jamaat. He said, a dead Jamaat like us, can be a messiah for Muslims.
So I want to go to Qadian. And I want to go there. So this is Al-Fazl al-Awadi’s statement. Al-Fazl al-Awadi’s. Ibn-e-Arabi. He was weak. He did not have strength in his thoughts. There is a very interesting report about Mahwiz Sehrar’s approach to Nehru. With the help of Murana Azad. This incident was reported by an old congressite who reached a ripe old age and who lived in Karachi. And he reported this matter to his family friends. And we have, I don’t know whether he is still alive or not, but this is a report which is very authentic and reliable. He was very close once to Murana Azad and used to live with him and got attached to him. You know like fans sometimes come to the close vicinity and begin to live around an important figure.
So that is how his relations were with Murana Azad. He would be present mostly with him. So he said, he told an Ahmadi, that once in my presence a delegation of Mahwiz Sehrar approached Murana Azad who wanted his intercession with Nehru. And they told him that Nehru holds you in such high esteem. And he also knows that we are serving the cause of Congress. So all we want to be repaid in exchange is this, that he should condemn Ahmadiyyat and tell everybody that he is a false prophet, he doesn’t mean anything and so on and so forth. So he openly should side with us from the religious point of view as well. So Murana Azad told them, that look here, I know this will be a very futile effort on your part to convince Nehru. I know his views.
And he is not going to succumb to your pressurization. So it’s useless, don’t meet him, I don’t think any good can come out of it. But they insisted. He said, all right, I’ll arrange a meeting with you. So he arranged a meeting with Nehru. At that time he was not a Prime Minister, he was talking of earlier days. And when the delegation returned to report the matter to Murana Azad, they were very much crestfallen people, you know, almost disappointed. And Murana Azad laughed and said, what happened, tell me. He said, something very strange happened. He cornered us in a way that we could not answer him and our case was destroyed. He said, what happened? He said, look here, he is a patriotic person.
So when we told him that Ulama Ahmad has made this claim and he has created such dissension in the orders of Islam and things and this and that. So he kept listening very quietly and then said, look here, was he an Indian really? He said, yes, he was an Indian. He said, do you believe in an Arab prophet? He said, yes, we believe in Arab prophet. So where is your patriotism? You believe in an Arab prophet and deny an Indian prophet? I can’t understand it. He said, how stupid you are. Allah has given you a prophet from your own people. You deny. That was very clever of you.
So just to add the last sentence about Shibli no money, when the Ali bin Qadir was here, I think this was reported to me by Mirza Abdur Rahim Beg. He himself heard it from that old congressite. So you better write to him to provide you with a written statement on this. So when the Ali bin Qadir was here, I asked him the same thing about Shibli no money and he said, yes, I heard from my father the same thing what you are saying. So it was confirmed by him. So may I relate one story which I heard from Hafiz Muqtada Ahmad Shah Jahan. Yes, please, go ahead. About Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. Yes, please.
Hafiz Sahib told me in my mother’s presence and my father’s that when Sir Syed Ahmad was seriously ill and he had a few friends very close to him. One was our Ahmadi Yaqoob, Ahmadi Irfani Sahib. Yaqoob Ali Sahib Irfani, Sheikh Yaqoob. And one Maulvi Zakaullah. Maulvi Zakaullah? Yes, who has wrote a tariq, Islam Zakaullah. Yes, yes, quite right. And the other name, third name I forgot. I do not know who it was, but I think he belonged to some in northern India. And these three friends were with Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. And Sir Syed said, look, I want you to make three of you as witness. That there had been three which I could not complete in this life. And two were related to the college of Aligarh.
And the last one he said that after I finished these two things I was hoping and longing to go to Qadian and spend the rest of my life. And this thing, Yaqoob Irfani Sahib told Qibla Hafiz Sahib. And he also wrote a letter when the third one died and the Zakaullah was still alive. Zakaullah was what? Yes, yes, yes. No, no. It was still alive, you are right. One was still alive and the other was dead. Yaqoob Ali Irfani Sahib said that there is a time now we should disclose this matter. Because if other will die, one of us will die, then there will be no other witness.
So he published or he said the same thing in his time. And in exactly the same what I heard from the Hafiz Sahib this story. So I believe before this… And no denial came from Zakaullah? No, no denial came from Zakaullah. And Zakaullah kept quiet. And it was deduced by the Hafiz Sahib that the Sir Syed Ahmad Khan died as an Ahmadi. And he had also related also Abul Kalam Azad in the same way that he was very friendly. Well, he might have ended up in this attitude. Previously this was not his attitude. He wanted to remain neutral vis-à-vis the religious debates, religious controversies.
All he was interested in was for the Muslim… Uplift. No, the Muslim people to retain their religious character as a people as well as make the best of benefits from the Western civilization and culture and scientific achievements. And he wanted to remove the barrier between the two. And this is what he proclaimed. You can retain your Muslim personality as well as gain from the modern advancements. That segregation was the most fatal thing to the Muslims of that age. Hindus were making progress in every direction.
And the Muslims thought that it was their religious duty to boycott everything that was British, everything that was Western. And they thought that was a compromise on religious values. So they preached among the Muslims, the scholars, to keep completely divorced from the realities of the modern life. Sir Syed Ahmed did the greatest service to the cause of the Muslim world in this respect. He is a pioneer in that regard. He not only got educated himself. I mean his parents made him educated in the modern terms. But also he worked for this university, enlightenment and breaking of this taboo generally speaking.
So he became a very controversial personality to begin with. And that controversy gradually pushed him towards an attitude which is the Ahmadi attitude. Because the Muslim clergy of that age went after his throat. And they said you are doing a disservice to Islam. You are bringing a compromise between the modern values and the Islamic values. You are a refutist, you are an escapist and so on and so forth. In fact they said he was a kafir and pakka kafir and launched campaign after campaign against him. So that must have imbibed him to the so-called classical versions of Islam. But they were not classical, they were medieval versions of Islam.
So I can believe him ending up ultimately into the haven of Qadian. At least mentally if not physically. I do believe also because after the Promised Messiah has written a book Parambrakad Dua. He did not write anything and did not answer. While at criticism the criticism is quite bitter. Yet he did not respond, did not mind it in fact. I was very surprised with the same fact. When I noticed the total absence of a strong bitter reaction from Sayyid Ahmad Sahib. That means he must have acquiesced and he must have accepted this.
