With the permission of our beloved Huzoor, I would like to present the question of Zanubia Ahmed bint Sheikh Mubashar Ahmed Sahib of Lahore to Huzoor. A few days ago, while meeting Huzoor, she requested that Huzoor record the answer to her question in a video. Zanubia Ahmed is about 4-5 years old. She has asked Huzoor, when will you come to Pakistan? We all miss you a lot. Her question was not like this. When she was meeting Huzoor, her mother told her that when she watches the video, she says, why don’t you answer my question?
I told her that if she asks a question, I will record it in a video. She wrote this question and gave it to Huzoor. The answer to this question is that this migration is according to the will of Allah. In the beginning, many Ahmadis in Pakistan were not able to understand this. But as time goes by, it is becoming clear that this migration was not a coincidence. Rather, it was a clear and definite destiny of Allah. Because of this, revolutionary paths for the advancement of Ahmadiyyat have opened up. And it was not even possible for us to imagine how much goodness was hidden in the veil of this pain.
New paths have opened up for Ahmadiyyat in Africa, Europe, America, Canada, and other countries in the world, for example, in the South Pacific. And now, by the grace of Allah, in Eastern Europe and Russia, and the way Allah has enabled us to serve the Holy Qur’an in an extraordinary way, even if I had stayed in Pakistan for 50 years, I would not have been able to come here. Mr. Hashim Saeed has just come back from Russia, and he has brought some very interesting news from there. Our contacts are also being established here, and I am not exaggerating in saying that this was the will of Allah. Apart from this, Allah has brought me here first, and after that, there has been a flood of immigrants. If I had not been here, I would have been afraid that they would not be taken care of, and many of them would have been lost.
But it is a special favour of Allah that, since Europe is nearby, and America and Canada are also nearby, by the grace of Allah, we have been able to keep an eye on these people, and we have been able to keep an eye on their upbringing. And the communities have been able to develop in an extraordinary way, and have been able to establish themselves in these communities. These are also things that were not possible through human thinking. Another very important thing is that, since Pakistan is the centre of Khilafat, the tendency of the Ahmadis has always been, to go to Pakistan and settle there.
Whereas, in the Eastern world, there was a lot of development in the Western world, and non-Ahmadis used to run from there, and settle in these areas. And Ahmadis used to run from outside and go there, because as a result of the attraction of Khilafat, just like a nail pulls the iron, similarly, the centre of the Ahmadiyya Jama’at, used to attract Ahmadis from all over the world. And there were very few people who used to go outside from there. And as a result of that, we were facing a great loss in the history of Tabligh. In Europe and the Western world, a large number of Pakistan’s educated Ahmadis were needed.
Without them, the Jama’at couldn’t have been established here, and there wouldn’t have been a large number of people. Then, economically, it was necessary, that a large number of people should go to developed countries, and through their earnings, the Tabligh requirements should be fulfilled in the world. Now, from this aspect, God has bestowed such extraordinary blessings, that last time I announced in a sermon, that in terms of income, only the income of the German Jama’at, was greater than the income of Pakistan. This is not an ordinary incident, it is a very big thing. This is the same Germany, which was previously relying on foreign aid.
When I came here in 1978, despite the fact that some people had come here because of the 1974 evacuation, but there was no relation between Germany at that time and Germany today. The people who came here were relatively small. And they were scattered, there was no unity, there was no order, and Germany was not yet capable of helping foreigners. And now, only through the extra money of the German Jama’at, Tabligh is being done in many countries, and it is getting a lot of help in the publication of the Qur’an.
So, I would like to explain to this girl, that all of this is not a matter of a person’s choice, it is not the result of a small decision, but rather, it is a decision of God, and when, in the sight of God, this topic will reach its perfect level, and God will decide that the time has come for it to return, then God willing, it will return at that time. That is why I do not know as much as that girl knows, when this incident will take place. But I am certain that God willing, this incident will definitely take place. In brief, I will tell you now in English what I have already spoken in Urdu.
The question was asked by a very small girl who came from Pakistan along with her parents to meet me only a few days ago. The name of this girl is Zanubia. She is the daughter of Sheikh Mubasher Ahmad Sahib of Lahore. Her mother told me that whenever she saw me on video, she used to ask her why did he not answer my question. So I told her that now you have the opportunity, you ask me a question, and I will have it asked in a question-answer session, and Inshallah, that question will be answered and recorded.
So I have been explaining. Now the question she asked was, when would you return to Pakistan? The answer which I gave was that what has happened has happened under a grand design by our Allah, which in the beginning appeared to be very bitter to swallow. This action of God was not fully understood by Ahmadis, and they were in extreme pain, and they thought particularly in Pakistan that something has happened which is very bad and very detrimental to the cause of Ahmadiyyat.
But later on, things began to develop and unfold in a manner that we were more and more convinced that this decision was essential for the growth of Ahmadiyyat, for the rapid progress of Ahmadiyyat, not only in one country, but all over the world. And also this was essential for other very important works which might have remained unattended for years and years to come if I had not come out, and if I had not been able to come into direct contact with the outside world as intensively and extensively as I did after my migration from Pakistan.
For instance, the translation of the Holy Quran into other languages. As you are well aware, we have already translated the Holy Quran in full in 50 languages. And before the Jalsa this year, more than 40 languages, the Quran in more than 40 translations of 40 languages would have been printed and ready for distribution. Already 36 have been completed. So the remaining are a few weeks, I mean, within a few weeks, Inshallah, you will see the work to be completed. And in other languages, the work is progressing. And in some cases, the translation has been made, but it has not been revised.
In some other cases, it has been revised, but is not ready for composition and so on and so forth. It’s a very important task and very responsible task. And sometimes we have to be sure that no mistake is left in this very important responsibility of this important work of translation. So that we have to sometimes repeatedly have it revised and then revised and then revised and checked by various scholars. Yet with the grace of Allah, we are about to finish this work within the next year to more than 60 languages of the world. And within the next few years, we will have completed a century in the full translation of the Holy Quran.
As far as excerpts from the Quran are concerned, we have already published the Holy Quran excerpts from the Holy Quran, that is passages from the Holy Quran to the size of more than one full para. It’s about a para and a half selections of the verses of the Holy Quran in 118 languages of the world. Now compare this task which has been completed in the last 5-6 years, 5 years to the work which was done by the entire Muslim community of the whole world in the last 1400 years.
According to the statistics, they could not translate the Quran in more than 60 languages. And most of those languages were those where already there were large communities of Muslims. Most of the translations are of a nature as in most places they are un-understandable. The style is so old and rustic and the translation is attempted to be literal in a sense that it loses meaning. So the Holy Quran as translated by the Ahmadiyya community has many other advantages over the previous world but just in sheer in comparison of sheer volume and numbers imagine what Ahmadiyyat has been able to do in last 5 years the other Muslims have not been able to do in last 1400 years.
Now also there is another area of grave concern that is tradition. The sayings of Prophet Muhammad you will be surprised to learn that they were translated in very few languages of the world. And we have set a target that we shall also have selections of the sayings translated and published in 118 languages. Already I think we have reached the target of about 100. Abasi sahib, are you here? No. Anyone from the department? What was the final report? 104 or something? But I will get the figures tomorrow so we can announce them tomorrow.
But I remember it is around 100 languages already in which Hadith has been translated. And the selection has been made by me, myself in every case with the help of some Ahmadiyya scholars. So that I had a very special design in my mind. Knowing the requirements of the modern age knowing the questions raised in the mind of the modern people and knowing the attack on Islam by various isms and ideologies I tried to select verses of the Holy Quran and traditions of the Holy Prophet in a manner that anyone who would ponder over these things would find answers to his questions to whichever department they may belong.
And as such some scholars have sent me you know such high appreciation in this respect that I was surprised that they could already find a design behind it. And also we have done the same work or started the work regarding the writings of and excerpts from there. Hashim Saeed Sahib who went to Russia recently he submitted his report yesterday to me which I found time to this morning to read in detail. And there I was so pleased to learn that while he was travelling by plane to Moscow there was a lady who had been the teacher of Russian languages for the last 25 years.
And because he had spread out these booklets on the next vacancy for people to take notice she became interested she started reading the selected verses of the Holy Quran or perhaps the original Russian Quran and afterwards she turned to him and said, look here I am a professor of Russian language and for the last 25 years I have been teaching Russian language. I know translation, other translations etc. But I assure you it is such a fascinating translation. It is so excellent that it has no equal in the world. And I am absolutely fascinated and profoundly influenced by this.
And then she started reading excerpts from Hazrat Naseem-ul-Islam’s writings and said, what a man, what a teaching. You know she was a Jewess and being a Jewess this was his impression after reading the translation of the Holy Quran by eminent scholars. So the work which has been done, all this work and much more was the work of the last 5 years of my living in migration and living in exile. So this is a design and blessings of Allah. So whenever Allah considers this design to have reached a certain phase which he knows best then my time for return would come and then nobody would be able to stop me.
