Mirza Ghulam Ahmad: The Mehdi Messiah of Qadian
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GRISWOLD, H.D. - "Mirza Ghulam Ahmad: The Mehdi Messiah of Qadian." Lodiana, India, American Tract Society. 1902.
Much of this article relates to the apocryphal Ahmadiyya claim that Christ did not die on the cross but came to Kashmir and died in Srinagar. The collection of Griswold Papers at Cornell University does not include this article and it is not mentioned in the catalogues of the American Bible Society, British Library, Library of Congress, New York Public Library or OCLC. It is mentioned in the "Ahmadiya Bibliography" in H.A. Walter's The Ahmadiya Movement (Calcutta: Association Press/Oxford University Press, 1918). Walters indicates that Griswold was personally acquainted with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and cites quotations from conversations with Ahmad at Qadian. He notes in the Preface that Dr. Griswold, who was Secretary of the Council of American Presbyterian Missions in India, and Rev. Thakur Dass, had in their pamphlets answered from the Christian viewpoint the claim of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to be the "Promised Messiah" who has come "in the spirit and power" of Christ.
review by James Hurley, New Jersey, USA
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MIRZA GHULAM AHMAD. THE MAHDI MESSIAH OF QADIAN.
In the Village Of Qadian, Gurdaspur District, Punjab, there lives an old man about Sixty four years of age, venerable in appearance, Magnetic in personality, and active in intellect. This is the Mirza Ghulam Ahmed, Chief of the village of Qadian, and hence popularly known as the "Qadiani" founder of the Ahmadiyah Sect: a new Sect in Islam named after himself. His family is of Moghal descent, having emigrated from Samarkand, Turkistan, in the reign of Babar. Following the example of his father Mirza Ghulam Murtaza Khan, who was an hakim or Yunani Physician, he himself professes to be expert in medicine, (witness his plague pamphlets). He claims to be enthusiastically loyal to the British Government, and he cites as proof of the loyalty of his family the services rendered to Government by his father and elder brother(or Cousin) during the mutiny of 1857, on account of which the letter (sic) received honourable mention in Sir Lepel Griffin's book, "The Punjab Chiefs"(Vol II.PP.49—50, new edition by Massy). Religious enthusiasm, if not ambition, seems to run in the family. Mirza Imam–ud–Din[1] a first cousin of Mirza Ghulam Ahmed, became the Guru of the chuhra or sweeper community and claims to be the successor of Lal Beg. In like manner, Mirza Ghulam Ahmed himself glories in being the founder of a new Sect, end claims to be the present day successor and representative of Jesus Christ. So much for the man. We now cone to his claims.
The Mirza Sahib claims to be at once the promised Mahdi and the promised Messiah. This is against the ordinary Mohammedan belief that these will be not one person, but two seperate (sic) persons. That is, the Mahdi will be a descendant of Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad and mother of Hussain, and the Messiah will be the Lord Jesus Christ at his second coming. Both the Mahdi and the Messiah will be men of blood, who together will fight against the Kafirs until they are over come. Such is the orthodox view. From this description of the premised Mahdi one might conclude a priori that many Soi disant Mahdis would be likely to appear in the course of the history of Islam, and, as a matter of fact, several have appeared, the Sudanese Mahdi being the most notable.
He and his successor were wild fanatics, who wought to fulfil to the letter the expectation of a bloody-witness the fanatical heroism of the letter on the field of Omdurman. But so far as I am aware, among Mohammedans, with the exception of Biha Ullah the successor of the Ban (sic) and one or two mad man, the mirza sahib alone has had the boldness to claim to be the promised Messiah. Through his claim to be at once the promised Mahdi and the promised Messiah the Mirza Sahib desires, it would seem, to focus all the Messianic expectations of Islam upon his own person. Thus in two respects the Qadiani doctrine of the Mahdi is heretical as tried by the standard of Muslim orthodoxy. First, the promised Mahdi and the promised Messiah are to be one person - not two - and that person has already come and lives at Qadian. Secondly, the Mahdi is to be a man of peace, not a man of blood, The Lord Jesus Christ was a man of peace, and so the Mirza Sahib - in his assumed character as the "Masil–i–Masih" or the analogue and representative of Christ for this generation, must also be a man of peace. Of the two ideas, the idea of the Messiah and the idea of the Mahdi, the former is determinative and the later subordinate and so when they are fused together and applied to one person, the idea of the Mahdi will add nothing to the idea of the Messiah, except, perhaps to emphasize the notion of spirtual warfare. This then is the theory which underlies the Mirza Sahib’s polemic against the doctrines of a bloody Mahdi and the kindred doctrine of Jihad. As he says: "To believe in me as the promised Messiah and Mehdi is to disbelieve in the popular doctrine of jihad" (Memorial to Sir William Mackworth Young, March 5th,1898).
But the Mirze 5ahib's most important claim is that he is The Promised Messiah. By this he does not mean that he is the very person of Jesus Christ reincarnsted in India, for he does not accept the doctrine of Transmigration. His meaning simply this that just as, according to the interpretation of Jesus, John the Baptist was the Elijah which was to come (Matt: XI 14.), because he came "in the spirit and power of Elijah" (Luke i, 17), so he, the Mirza Sahib, is the Messiah which is to come, because he was come in the "spirit and power" of Christ. The grounds of his claim to be the promised Messiah may be summarised under three heads, namely Critical, prophetic and historical.
Critical Ground
First, then, the critical ground. Briefly stated, it is this that on the basis of all the evidences available, the Mirza Sahib concludes that Jesus Christ did not die on the cross. His reasons for this conclusion are as follows:-
- Certain, inferences based upon the Gospel narratives, to the effect that Jesus when He was removed from the Cross was not really dead, but only unconscious through loss of blood and the pain of the wounds in his hands, feet and side. He remained on the cross only a few hours, and his legs were not broken. Moreover, the women who came to anoint His body were asked: "why seek ye the living among the died?" (Luke xxic.5) And finally the Post Crucifixion appearances of Jesus to his disciples were those of the body of a living man and not of a disembodied spirit; Since He ate and drank with His disciples and allowed them to touch him. In short, this is a revival of the "Swoon theory".
- The Marham-i-Isa or "ointment of Jesus" otherwise called the "ointment of the disciples" is refered to as "the first" clue to this all important discovery." According to the Mirza Sahib, this ointment is spoken of by Jewish, Christian, Parsee, and Muhammaden physicians alike, and over a thousand books on medicine contain a description of it" (Kashful Ghita P. 25). The Mirza Sahib's theory is that after three days Jesus recovered from the swoon and that than the disciples applied this wonderful ointment to his wounds with such success that within the space of forty days He was entirely healed and ready for foreign travel. It is unnecessary to say that we have here the "fraud theory" of the resurrection, the disciples of Jesus being represented as acquainted with the facts and yet solemnly declaring that Jesus rose from the died.
- The Mirza Sahib refers to the Russian traveller, Nicolas Notovitch's "Unknown Life of Christ" in proof of this his thesis that Jesus actually visited India after his escape from the Cross. That is, the forty days which, according to the New Testament narrative, are followed by the Ascension, are, according to the assertion of the Mirza Sahib, followed by Jesus' separation from His disciples, in order to visit India,Tibet, and Cashmere. It is nudless (sic) to say that the "Unknown Life of Christ" ie accepted as anthentic by no competent scholar. But even granting for the sake of argument it is authenticity, it contradicts the conclusion of the Mirza Sahib in two important particulars: (a) It makes Christ visit India not after his crucifixion, but in the interval of sixteen or seventeen years between his visit to Jerusalem at the age of twelve and His public appearance at the age of thirty; and (b) it asserts in unequivocal language the actual death of Jesus Christ on the Gross.(pp.l33,195).
- The Mirza Sahib claims that there is archaeological evidence that Jesus visited India and died in Cashmere at the advance age of 120. The tomb of a certain Yus-ASAF is situated in Khan Yar Street, Srinagar. It is asserted that the keepers of this tomb regard it as the tomb of a Shahzada-Nabi or Prince-Prophet. But Muhammad was the last of the Prophets. Therefore it must have been one of the Hebrew Prophets. Whose tomb could it be but that of Jesus? Besides, the first part of the name Yus-Asaf is clearly a corruption of Yasu(1) or Jesus, and Asaf (from Hebrew asaf together) means gatherer. Hence according to the Qadiani interpretation Yus Asaf means Jesus the Gatherer of the lost sheep (i.e., the ten lost tribes) of the house of Israel.
- The Mirza Sahib cites the testimony of the apacryphet (sic) Gospel of Barnabas, which he regards as genuine, in support of his contention that Christ died did not die on the cross.
- In "A Prospectus of the Review of Religions" the Mirza Sahib writes: "The spiritual death of Christianity is important evidence of the death of its founder; for if Jesus is living, why does not his influence work?"
- Jesus' interpretation of "the Sign of Jonah the prophet" is regarded by the Mirza Sahib as a confirmation of the same view. Jesus said: "As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (Matt xii.40). But, says the prophet of Qadian, Jonah entered the belly of the fish alive, remained there alive, and came out alive. So must Jesus have entered the tomb alive, remained there alive, and come out alive, in order to make the analogy complete.
It will be observed that the Mirza Sahib's theory of the death of Christ may be summed up in two theses: (a) Negatively, Jesus did not die on the cross in Jerusalem; and (b) positively, he did die in Srinagar, Cashmere. For the first thesis the proof is found
- In certain inferences from the Gospel narratives which contradict their uniform tenor,
- In the testimony of the spurious Gospel of Barnabas
- In the unfounded statements concerning the MARHAM-i-ISA and
- in the asserted spiritual death of Christianity.
In like manner, the second thesis depends for its proof upon the unauthenticated testimony of a Russian adventure, together with the imaginary archaelogy of a poor little tomb in Srinagar, clearly that of a Muhammaden Pir (SAINT).
From all this, it is manifest that the Mirza Sahib is at once very clever at the manipulation and manufacture of evidence and very ignorant of the principles which govern historical research and determine the comparative value of historical sources. The adventure of the Mirza Sahib in the field of literary and historical criticism can not be pronounced a success. But the Qadiani Savant demonstrates, to his own satisfaction at least, that Jesus did not die on the cross at Jerusalem, but died in Cashmere. This theory of the death of Christ is given great emphasis, because in the view of the Mirza Sahib it is absolutely fundamental to his claim to be the promised Messiah. In a verbatim report of a discussion between the Mirza Sahib and the Delhi Maulvis, which took place Oct 5,1891, the Mirza Sahib says: “If Christ was in reality exalted in body form alive to heaven, then there is no need of further controversy, and my claim to be the promised Messiah is in vain. The reason is that my claim is based upon the natural death(Wafat) of the Son of Mary." That is, if the Christian belief that Jesus Christ died on the cross, rose again the third day, and ascended into Heaven, be true, then the predicted second coming of Jesus Christ will be the second coming of "this same Jesus" (Acts I.11) and not of one who comes merely in His "spirit and power." Hence the Mirza Sahib tries to break down the Christian belief that Jesus passed by the way of death and resurrection into the glory of His Father, and also the Muhammadan belief that Jesus Christ without death was "taken up" to God. His conclusion is that "Christ died like ordinary mortals" (Kashful Ghita, P.l3) and the consequences which he would draw from this conclusion areas are as follows:-
(A) Negatively,(1) the over throw of the doctrine of Christ's sacrificial death, resurrection, ascension and second coming as accepted by Christians and (2) the overthrow of the belief that Christ was "taken up" to God and will come again to the help of the Mahdi as accepted by Muhammadans; and (B) positively, the leaving of the way open for the coming of one who will come in "the spirit and power" of Christ, yea who has already come in the person of the Moghul Messiah, Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian.
So much for the first ground of the Mirza Sahib’s claim to be the promised Messiah, namely his Critical theory of the death of Christ. We now come to the second or prophetic basis of his claim.
Prophetic Ground
In the first number of "The Review of Religions"(Jan 1902,P.1) it is formulated thus: "Mirza Ghulan Ahmad, whom God has chosen to be his Messiah, has come in fulfilment of the prophecies given to Jews, Christians and Muhammadans." First, then, as to the alleged Jewish prophecies concerning the Mirza Sahib and his Mission. It is chiefly by resorting to typology that the Mirza Sahib finds in the old testament material suited to his purpose. He has a doctrine of "Parallelism", which l heard from his own lips at Qadian. Briefly stated it is this:- There are two tribes of fundamental importance in divine revelation namely, the children of Israel and the children of Ishmael.
- ↑ See his writings Didi-Haqq, Gul Shigufta and Hidayat Name.
