The Great Reformer

Lecture in Amritsar Hazrat Mirza departed from Ludhiana on the morning of November 8, 1905 and reached Amritsar in the afternoon. He spent oneand a half days in Amritsar on the request of the Amritsar chapter of the Ahmadiyya Organization.  The Ahmadiyya Organization inAmritsar had distributed flyers announcing that Hazrat Mirza would deliver a public lecture at 8 A.M. on November 9, 1905, at Mandwa Kanhaiyalal Hall.  The flyer stated that the lecture would elucidate the virtues of Islam and support the claim of Islam as theone true religion by furnishing rational arguments and highlighting the rewards of an Islamic life and the blessings and enlightenmentthat follow. It also stated that Hazrat Mirza would provide arguments to verify his claims.  Since Amritsar was the hotbed of oppositionand there was a real danger that the opposing clerics may try to disrupt the proceedings by hooliganism, an oath was included in bold letters at the beginning of the flyer. The oath stated: “We administer an oath in the name of Allah (the tres- pass of which is a grave sin) to every Muslim andfollowers of other religions not to raise any objection or ask a question either before, during or after the speech.” This statement was necessary because the objective of the lecture was merely the propagation of Islam. It was not intended to be a forum…

Revelations regarding demise Towards the end of 1905, Hazrat Mirza repeatedly received revelations informing him that his term of life was almost at an end and that the time of his death was nigh. On November 29, 1905, he received the following revelations: On December 7, 1905, the same revelations were repeated, but the following words were added: The series of revelations regarding the approaching end of Hazrat Mirza’s life continued. The following revelation was repeated: Hazrat Mirza stated: “After reflecting on these revelations, I think that the time of my demise is very near. I had this same revelation on October 7, 1905 and it was also…

Reasons for writing The Messianic Brook (Chashma-e-Masihi) Hazrat Mirza published the book The Messianic Brook (Chashma-e- Masihi) on March 9, 1906. It was a response to the book The Fountains of Islam (Yenabeh-al-Islam) published by the Christians. The motivation for writing the book came from a letter written to Hazrat Mirza by a Muslim from the town of Bans Bareilly in the United Provinces (UP) of India. The writer opined that after reading The Fountains of Islam, he had begun to harbor doubts…

Rev. Ahmad Masih debates Maulvi Abdul Majeed Rev. Ahmad Masih, a blind clergyman associated with the SPG Mission in Delhi, was a very interesting character. He was extremely fond of debating, and because previously he had been a Muslim and had memorized the Quran, he could quote Quranic verses at will.  Sensing a weakness among the Muslim clerics of Delhi on the issue of whether Jesus is alive or dead, he began debating them onthis issue. Maulvi Abdul Majeed, a well-known cleric of Delhi took the field against him. The most remarkable aspect of this debatewas that Rev. Ahmad Masih, a Christian, espoused that Jesus had died while Maulvi Abdul Majeed, a Muslim, took the opposite view that Jesus was alive. The debate continued during the month of February 1905 and Maulvi Abdul Majeed received a crushing defeat.…

Publication of the magazine Tashhiz-Al-Azhan From March 1, 1906, a monthly Urdu magazine titled Tashhiz-Al- Azhan started publication with Hazrat Mirza’s eldest son, Mirza Mahmud Ahmad, as its editor. Publication of the magazine Talim-ul-Islam From July, 1906, the Madrassah Talim-ul-Islam (Institute for Islamic Education) started publishing its own Urdu monthly magazine titled Talim- ul-Islam. Marriage of Mirza Bashir Ahmad Mirza Bashir Ahmad, the second son of Hazrat Mirza from his second wife, was betrothed to the daughter of Maulana Ghulam Hasan Khan, sub- registrar Peshawar, and the nikah (legal marriage)…

Dr. Abdul Hakim Khan was originally from Taravari, a town in Karnal district, but he had taken up permanent residence in Patiala where he was employed as an assistant surgeon. He had been a disciple of Hazrat Mirza since his student days in the Medical College of Lahore, a period of approximately 20 years, i.e., a period even predating Hazrat Mirza’s claim of…