The Moslem Sunrise, January 1924
Qadian
His Holiness, Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II[ra] is busy confronting and confuting the Shuddhi Movement which is collapsing owing to the untiring efforts of the Ahmadi missionaries. Already, its great stronghold has been recaptured and the Malkanas who had been tricked into the arms of the Shuddhi agents have been disillusioned and so reclaimed. A steady outflow of Ahmadi workers is on the field and has struck terror into the hearts of the enemies of the truth who dare not venture into an open exchange of ideas on the comparative merits of Hinduism and Islam. This is all good news and we heartily thank our selfless workers for the great victory achieved through their efforts.
Our thanks are mostly due to His Holiness, Hazrat Khalifatul Masih for his timely organizing the Ahmadi workers and expeditiously sending them to the scene of apostasy, and thus quickly undoing the machinations of the wily enemy, who, under the veil of communal amity, was taking undue advantage of Muslim’s unwariness. God be praised above all.
Bokhara
We are glad to learn that Brother Maulvi Muhammad Amin Khan, who had undertaken a perilous and hazardous journey through the Bamian into Bokhara for the purpose of establishing an Ahmadiyya Mission into that unknown land and organize the Ahmadis there, has returned safe and sound. His experiences and hairbreadth escapes make thrilling reading. How many times was he on the point of being shot to death and then escaped as it were miraculously from the hands of his captors adds a new chapter to the missionary history of Ahmadiyyat which is not unacquainted with death.
Our hearts go out to him full of thanks, and we believe that the thirty others who are called by the holy leader to follow his example even unto death, should its need be felt, will emulate the noble example set by our revered brother Muhammad Amin Khan. May God nerve them to the task to which they are called. To every man, death comes soon or late; what can be better than this, that a man dies in the cause of truth and righteousness, for thus alone can he immortalize himself. Yet not for the sake of immortality, but to please Allah. That is Islam.
London
Brother Nayyar has had a heroic task before him. Night and day, in spite of indifferent health, he has been devoting himself to the sacred work of carrying the message of truth to an indifferent world. People are tired of religion and everything associated with it, and this has been due to the lifeless teachings of Christianity, which have demoralized all spiritual zest in the peoples of Europe. But our brother is made of an undaunted, heroic mould. He is sticking on to his job in spite of many discouragements.
We thank him as our brothers SMU Shah BA, Chaudhary MB Janjua BA of Охоn (Bar-at-Law), Dr Suleiman, Maulvi Chirag Din, Shaikh Zaffar Haq Khan, and Shaikh Aziz-ud-Din, who have been liberally helping him with their valuable time and assistance.
Mauritius
Brothers Maulvi Hafiz Ghulam Muhammad BA and Maulvi Obeidullah Sahib have very successfully yet very unostentatiously been doing their evangelical work in Mauritius. The local Anjuman-e-Ahmadiyya has been incorporated by the local government of H.E. Sir Hasketh Bell KCMG under proclamation No. 21 Government Gazette No. F3 of 8 September 1923, under the ordinance No. 22 of 18F4. It was registered on 5 April 1923 in Reg. B 109 No. 4336. The mosque has been built but the hauz [reservoir] has not been completed yet. The whole work was carried out under the supervision of Maulvi Ghulam Muhammad Sahib, who was actively assisted by the president, Mr M Sadarally. The masjid, which has so well been made architecturally, has been executed through the plan of Brother Ahmad Ibraheem Atchia, alias Major. The words La ilaha illalla ho Mohammadur Rasoolullah and Darressalaam have been beautifully designed and skillfully inscribed.
Brother Hafiz Obeidullah Sahib is preaching the mission with all his ability and working hard hour by hour.
We are informed that our very energetic brother, Malik Muhammad Hussain (Bar-at-Law) of Kenya, intends to pay a visit to our Ahmadi brethren and missionaries in Mauritius. We wish him Godspeed.
We thank our brother, HK Naudeer, who has been kind enough to supply us with the above items of news.
Chicago
Since the departure of Dr Sadiq, more than 300 converts have joined the ranks of Islam. A society has been founded for the active promotion of real Islamic brotherhood among the new converts. It will be known as Ikhwan [Brothers] and the members shall meet together during the week or fortnightly alternately at the house of each other so as to know each other well. For the first time in their lives, they will see something like [an Islamic fraternity] and what it stands for. Christianity has crushed this spirit out of its body politic, yet it is this spirit of brotherhood that every religious leader came to establish. It is totally absent in Christian countries, which shows that Christianity’s days of usefulness are over.
St. Louis
Brother Shaikh Ahmad Din is carrying on very vigorous propaganda [tabligh] under his sphere of influence. It was due to his efforts that more than 25 or 30 new members were added to our list of new converts during the period under report.
Gold Coast
The Eid-ul-Adha festival of Islam came this year on 25 July 1923. The service was led by Maulvi Fazlur Rehman Hakeem, Ahmadi Muslim Missionary of Saltpond. Though the Maulvi was very weak in health, he did not spare himself on the occasion. The Khutba (sermon) that followed the prayer lasted for about two hours, and the Maulvi explained the object of the festival to an audience of about 300 men and women. He said that this Eid is celebrated to commemorate the great sacrifice of Abraham[as], when he, the father of Prophets, peace be on them all, in obedience to the divine command, prepared himself to sacrifice his firstborn, the only son, Ishmael[as], and thus laid the foundation of Islam, i.e., total resignation and complete obedience to the will of God. The Maulvi exhorted the audience to the killing of the fat ram of low and mean desires and the love of worldly things and thus becoming Muslim in the true sense of the word. He also related the painful story of the great Ahmadi martyr, Syed Abdul Latif. In spite of great temptation, he stuck to his faith and would not renounce the Promised Messiah[as], and in the end, had to suffer martyrdom by being stoned to death.
That was Islam and that is what is required of us. The sermon ended with a prayer for the glory of Islam all over the world.
BE Keelson,
Secretary Gold Coast Ahmadiyya Mission.
Berlin
Cable news to hand declares that “remarkable scenes were witnessed at the laying of the foundation stone of a Mosque in the suburb of Charlottenburg for the furtherance of Muhammadanism [i.e., Islam] in Germany. Mubarak Ali, the representative of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam, in laying the stone, made a speech in English. He said that the object of the movement was to propagate the pure religion of Islam throughout the world. The attendance included Egyptians, Persians, Indians, and representative of the Prussian government.”
We give here the address Brother Mubarak Ali read on the occasion:
“Since the days of the crusades, a misconception about Islam has prevailed among the Western peoples. The mass of people has such queer ideas of Islam as to lead them to abhor instead of respecting this noble faith, which enjoins the worship of one true God and the brotherhood of man, a faith that is characterized by its simplicity and grandeur at the same time, a faith that appeals to the head as well as the heart, a faith that has no priesthood and in which every man is his own priest and is brought into direct connection with God without any intermediaries. To the Muslim, the preaching of his own religion is one of his most important duties. In this age, he can perform this duty more easily than in any other age on account of easy communication and religious tolerance granted by nearly all the states of Europe. The East and the West have come into closer contact than ever before and it is very necessary that they should understand each other better. The Ahmadiyya Community which is propagating Islam in various parts of the earth, is going to take up the work of placing the true picture of Islam before the eyes of Europe. Berlin, being not only the centre of Germany but of Europe, has been selected for this purpose.
“The great war ended five years ago, but the world is yet far from peace, and there can be no peace in the world unless there is a change in the hearts of men. Christianity has been tried in Europe; now let Islam have a trial. We hope that Islam, which comes from the same root as salam which means peace, will prove to be a message of peace for Europe and the world. And we hope that Germany, the birthplace of Protestantism, will also be the centre for the new message of peace in Europe.
“For the above purpose and to provide a place of worship for the Muslims in Berlin, the Ahmadiyya Movement is building this mosque. It will have, besides a prayer hall upstairs, family apartments for the imam, the muezzin, and other workers for Islam on the lower floors. There will be rooms for the Ahmadi students; spare rooms, if any, will be open to other students. The site for the mosque was purchased for about £200 and the principal part of the building, which will now be completed, is estimated at £2,500. The remaining part will be completed afterwards. The entire sum to be spent at present, viz., £2,500 for building and £500 for furnishing, has already been subscribed by the women members of the Ahmadiyya Community. Many women have even parted with their jewels and ornaments for this purpose. This is a unique event not only in the history of Islam but of other religions so far as I know – that of women only paying the entire cost of building a place of worship thousands of miles from their homes. Ahmadi ladies not only of India, but of Ceylon, Mauritius, West Africa, England, and America have contributed their quotas.
“Islam is often accused of teaching that women have no soul. This mosque will be a monument to prove that Muslim women have souls and that they not only care for their own souls but for the souls of brothers and sisters thousands of miles away.
“This mosque will be open to all Muslims irrespective of their place of birth, or school of thought – whether they be Indians, Arabs, Persians, Turks, Egyptians, Tartars, or Bokharans; or whether they are Sunnis or Shias, or of any other denomination.
“Believing that Islam will gain rather than lose by a comparative study of it with other religions, we have in contemplation, according to the behests of the founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement, to start an institution for the comparative study of all religions. In this institution, besides Muslims, representatives of other religions will be invited to give out the doctrines of their respective faiths so that impartial inquirers can find it easy to study, compare, and form their own judgements.”
(Transcribed and edited by Al Hakam from the original, published in The Moslem Sunrise, January 1924)