The Moslem Sunrise, January 1922
Hazrat Mufti Muhammad Sadiqra (1872-1957)
Ahmadia news abroad
[Australia]
Our worthy missioner in Australia, Mr H Musa Khan is doing his best to give the message of Islam in Ahmadia Movement to the people there. Recently, he has sent a circular communication to the Press offering the white people an assurance that there is no real danger for them from the dark brethren or Moslems in general and it is a good news that the white people in Europe and America have begun to understand Islam better and consider it more favorably than they used to. Mr Khan is also helping the Moslems there in placing their Mosque on a sound legal position. Also, he has started publishing a monthly handbill entitled the “Moslem Sunshine”, containing extracts from this magazine, [The Moslem Sunrise], and our [The] Review of Religions.
[Africa]
Professor AR Nayyar, our energetic missioner in charge of West Coast Africa, is making good progress in educating 15000 new Ahmadis secured by him out of the Moslems there to the membership of our Movement. They have contributed about $400 to the lamps to be fixed on Minaret-el-Masih Tower at Qadian and the expenses of the learned Professor.
Through the kindness of Brother Ahmadullah, we have been able to read the record of his and other workers’ efforts in England to promulgate the principles of Islam in that country and we are glad to notice that our volunteers are not only doing excellent work in preaching the Moslem Faith, but are, moreover, managing to earn their bread and thus do not want any remunerations from the Mission Fund.
They have set a good example and we hope that other young men will follow their path. This will be one of those many great works which are making the history of the days of our present Leader MAHMUD, Khalifatul Masih II.
[London]
Maulvi Mubarak Ali – Ahmadia Missioner, London, writes:
“Thank God! Moslem Sunrise is a great success and the credit is surely due entirely to you.
“The celebration of the Festival of Id-uz-Zuha in our London Mosque was a great success. Photos and accounts have been published in all the leading London papers. New converts are joining our faith out of which the names of Mr Bacon and Mr Macroe may be stated. Their Moslem names are Omar Ali and Salaiman, respectively. May God bless them all.”
No VP System
For the information of our readers abroad, we beg to state that there is no VP system between India and America and all orders for American books and things must be accompanied with the approximate price.
Call to prayer
See the Moslems gravely on devotion intent,
While from the Mosque the solemn sound is sent,
“There is no God but Allah” calls muezzin far and wide,
While twinkling lights from minaret, the rich and poor guide.
E Mandling (Umme Salaam)
Hierophant from India
A little magazine named “The Messianic Messenger” issued by the Universal Messianic Brotherhood at Oceanside, Cal., contains an article by Mr ZD Rudhyar, from which we quote some lines hoping that they will interest our readers:
“Various denominations have been given to these agents of the Lord. Divine Messenger is truly their generic name. But as each of them is manifesting a special aspect of the Divine Essence, each one is entitled to a specific name, ‘Avatar,’ ‘Messiah,’ ‘World-Teacher,’ ‘World-Reformer,’ – and all these names correspond to definite realities.
“As the Spring of Humanity begins, as the life of new racial circle is bursting forth into human forms, there appear among man two great figures which truly incarnate respectively the two aspects of the Lord – the Ruler and the Hierophant.
“Their respective missions maybe stated thus:
“The Ruler is the one who established the foundation of a new social and political Order.
“The Hierophant is the one who establishes the foundations of the new religious and mystical Order. He shall strive to unite the religions in mysteries of the past, after that, effort shall have been made from within each of them to restore their respective rites and symbols their true esoteric significance.
“Both the Ruler and the Hierophant will evidently have to teach so that they may both be said to be ‘World-Teachers’. However, the Ruler will pre-eminently give LAWS and the Hierophant, RULES of ETHICS and of discipleship.
“Humanity stands today at the end of the first moment of the evolutionary period of the Divine manifestation the coincides with the entrance of the Sun in the zodiacal sign Aquarius. As evolutionary period shall end, then the Aquarian age will have begun and humanity will have been launched upon a new and glorious path of cooperative and more harmonious realization. […] Ere seven years pass, both the Supreme Ruler and the Great Hierophant shall have manifested their mission through no disputable signs.
“The Supreme Ruler shall come out of the Jewish Race. […] The Great Hierophant shall come from the great reservoir of wisdom and of spirituality: India
“The year 1921 and especially the great astrological conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury (September 7) ushers in culminating period of the Divine manifestation. The time is short and great the task that confronts every one of us. Let us therefore make straight the way of the Lord.”
Ed. – It sounds like the coming of the Messiah and Mehdi both at the same time as stated in Moslem books. But a thorough study of the subject has at last shown that they are both personified in One. “Jews”, “Fatimites,” etc., in such prophecies convey the meaning of those chosen of Allah.
Key to the puzzle
“From the gulf of Bengal to the farthest limits of Morocco, the Muhammadan world is in a ferment. […]
“The new ferment in the Muhammadan world bears no likeness to that Islamic nationalism of which alarmists make so much.
“Pan-Islamism, nationalism and bolshevism are not powerful enough in themselves to unite that greatness of divergent and conflicting peoples which we call the Islamic world. Why then is that whole world in ferment? A glance at the map is enough for an answer. Every Muhammadan in nation is governed, or threatened with government by a Christian power. All of them have been filled by the war with an ardent longing for justice and fair play. That is the key to the puzzle. We need not seek it in the shade of the mosques in the tumult of public meetings. We shall find it in the universal resentment at foreign control. In the universal desire to have a share in the work of rebuilding the world – a world which should hold forth equal promise and hope for the whole human race.” – La Revue Mondiale. [https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb34430420z/date1921]
A vision of truth
Mr John D Bagley of E Jefferson St. Detroit city who had never before heard of “Ahmad[as]” of India had a vision of him [the Promised Messiahas] on 26 July 1916. A message was given to him on that day by one who told him he was prophet Ahmad[as] and said “Great changes are coming on the earth.” He always wondered who the Prophet Ahmad[as] was and having kept a note of the message, he spoke of this recently to Mrs Sharman, an American lady, who knows me and of my work and thus we came to meet each other and had a nice time in talking on spiritual experiences.
Says a Turkish lady
Angora, 1 October [1921]: “The seclusion of the harem is best adapted to woman’s nature and it is best for the social order that she should be there,” declared Mufide Ferid Hanem, the Nationalist novelist and wife of Ahmed Ferid Bey, ex-minister of finances, to the correspondent in an interview. “The harem grew out of the intelligent understanding of the marriage relation. It represents the wisdom of the East.
“I am a reformed woman’s rights advocation,” she continued. “I used to yearn for the independence of the American and European woman, but now I believe the mistress of the harem is a superior product to the spendthrift Russian woman, the sentimental Austrian, the nagging English woman and the calculating self-centered American woman.
“To these women, woman’s rights mean the right to spend money on foolish finery, to marry late and be childless. They live for the store and the theater. They are responsible for a good deal of factory labor expended in useless directions. They won’t work with their hands to make their clothes; their minds are filled with fashions, novels and candies.
“Men have become their slaves and you call this western civilization.
“We Nationalists are in favor of abolishing the theory of polygamy, though in fact it long since ceased as an institution. But we are sure woman’s place is the home, and the best way to keep her there is the harem, which gives her much liberty but not license.” – Grand Rapids Sunday Herald, 2 October [1921].
Ed. – No, Khanam, we need not abolish anything. Our sacred Law is every true. The western people are gradually understanding and adopting Islamic system of life.
In praise of Detroit
“The fate of Allah caused you to locate in the middle West of this continent, and Detroit by all accounts I have heard about its civic pride will in time respond to your missionary work. Unprecedented giving for great philanthropic, humanitarian, educational and evangelistic causes has marked its fame during the past 10 years.” – CF Sievwright, Los Angeles.
(Transcribed by Al Hakam from the original in The Moslem Sunrise, January 1922)