Contribution to Islamic Thought

by Maulana Muhammad Ali

The contribution made by the Ahmadiyya Movement Lahore to Islamic thought is as important as its contribution to constructive work; in fact, that work has sprung from these ideas. It will be seen that all those matters in which the Ahmadiyya Movement has given a new direction to Muslim thought are closely connected with Islam’s advance in the world. They have nothing in common with the sectarian differences of the Muslims: they are vital to the existence and advancement of Islam, as they are meant to wipe off certain blemishes which had been ascribed to Islam, and they reveal that beauty of the Muslim religion which made it so attractive at first and which alone can make it attractive again. It should be further remembered that religion was made perfect in Islam and the Holy Prophet Muhammad is the last Prophet. Therefore any contribution to Islamic thought can only be a revival of the great truths taught by Islam, an interpretation of the Holy Quran or what the Holy Prophet said. It is as such that the Ahmadiyya Movement has given prominence to many important religious truths. I refer here to a few of them.

1. Liberal attitude towards other religions

In the first place, the Ahmadiyya Movement clarifies the view of the religion of Islam towards other religions. It emphasises the original broad and liberal outlook of Islam which in the course of time has entirely been lost sight of. Through misunderstanding and misrepresentations Islam has come to be looked upon as if it did not tolerate other religions, while as a matter of fact it is extremely liberal in its outlook towards them. It has laid down as one of its basic principles that prophets appeared among every nation of the world:

"And there is not a people but a warner has gone among them."

(The Quran, 35:24).

It goes a step further and lays down that a true Muslim must believe in all these prophets:

"(Muslims) believe in that which has been revealed to thee (O Prophet Muhammad) and that which was revealed before thee"

(Ibid., 2:3).

This truth is reiterated on numerous occasions and belief in every prophet of the world is made essential. It also enjoins the Muslims to be guardians of the holy places of other religions:

"And if Allah did not repel some people by others, then cloisters and churches and synagogues, and mosques in which Allah’s name is much remembered, would have been pulled down"

(Ibid., 22:40).

The protection of monk’s cloisters and churches and synagogues along with that of mosques was therefore one of the avowed objects of Islamic wars. Such a broad outlook of religion is not met with elsewhere. The Ahmadiyya Movement has done immense service to the cause of Islam and to the cause of religion in general by stressing this point.

3. Making Quran supreme source of Islam

As a corollary to the great truth stated above, the Ahmadiyya Movement has fought against the false notions of Jihad attributed to Islam. It is generally thought that Islam inculcates the use of sword for converting people to Islam. That is sheer misrepresentation. The basic principle of Islam is that:

"There is no compulsion in religion"

(The Quran, 2:256).

And war was expressly allowed only in self-defence:

"Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but be not aggressive. Surely Allah loves not the aggressors"

(Ibid., 2:290).

Islam attained to supremacy by the irresistible spiritual force which it possessed. The Ahmadiyya Movement comes as the harbinger of the good news that the spiritual force of Islam which brought about its predominance in the world at its rise is inexhaustible and that even today it can effect by spiritual force what it effected at first. And it is itself a witness of that spiritual force, for wherever it has raised aloft the banner of Islam, people have bowed before it.

3. Making Quran supreme source of Islam

The Ahmadiyya Movement has also set in order the house of Islam. Islam at its origin meant allegiance to the word of God first of all, but at the present day the Holy Book is relegated to the background, and the Muslims seek for guidance first of all from books of law which were compiled more than one hundred years after the Holy Prophet. These books have their own value but things have been set topsyturvy in the house of Islam by placing such books above the Holy Quran in seeking religious guidance.

The Holy Quran was revealed to answer the needs of people of all times and the door to understanding its import and to deduce laws from it to answer new needs was never shut upon Muslims. But today Muslims speak of Islam not in the terms of the Holy Quran but in terms of Hanafi, Shafi’i, Maliki and Hambali laws. That is practically transferring allegiance from the Word of God to man-made laws or to seat men on the throne of Divinity. In another quarter, Hadith or sayings of the Holy Prophet are given authority above the Holy Quran, whereas it is a well-known fact that Holy Quran has been handed to us intact but not so the Hadith. The true order of things was the Quran first, the Hadith after that, and then Fiqah. "Back to the Quran" is the clarion call of the Ahmadiyya Movement; back to the pure Islam of the Holy Prophet and his companions; back to the free use of reason and to free interpretation of the Holy Book in the light of new conditions which have been brought about in the world; back to the freedom which our learned and great forefathers enjoyed. In going back to these things lies the real advancement of Islam; these are not so many steps backward but steps forward, for they take the Muslims back from darkness and mental slavery into which they have fallen, to the light and freedom which is their birthright as Muslims.

4. Refuting the doctrine of abrogation in the Quran

While thus bringing the Holy Quran into the forefront in the Muslim’s life, the Ahmadiyya Movement has further done away will all ideas derogatory to the dignity of the Holy Quran. Thus it has exposed the error of the doctrine of naskh. On the basis of certain Hadith reports none of which can be traced to the Holy Prophet, and which in fact contradict each other, it was thought that there are certain verses in the Holy Quran which cannot be reconciled with others and which therefore have been abrogated by those others, and there are certain verses which must be accepted as part of the Holy Quran though they are not met with therein. The allegation that certain verses cannot be reconciled with others amounts virtually to the admission that there are discrepancies in the Holy Book, an idea denounced by the Holy Quran in plain words:

"Will they not then mediate on the Quran? And if it were from any other than Allah, they would have found in it many a discrepancy" (The Quran, 4:82).

Rejecting the doctrine of abrogation, the Ahmadiyya Movement stands for a complete Quran, in which nothing is abrogated and from which nothing has been left out.