Sir Michael O’Dwyer, GCIE, in his latest book, India as I knew it, writes:
“I was horrified a few weeks ago to read that the ‘ulema (Doctors of Divinity) of a Sunni Theological College had expressed publicly their approval of the recent stoning to death at Kabul, by the Amir’s order, of a cultured gentleman who professed the Ahmadiyya’s quietest and pacific tenets.
“In February 1925, two other members of the sect were executed for their religious opinions. […]”
Support of Christianity
During the course of a lecture, Reverend WW Cash, Home Secretary of the Church Missionary Society, is reported to have remarked to the following effect:
“The attitude of the French and British Governments, which formerly had been contrary to any Christian propaganda in Moslem areas, had changed, and not long ago he was thanked by a leading official in one of those areas for some of his missionary work.”
We do not know how far all this is true, but we must point out that all civilised governments should scrupulously observe a policy of complete non-interference in all religious matters. They should neither encourage nor discourage the missionaries of any particular religion.
Obituary
We are grieved to record the death of Prince Brimah Adele of Lagos, the father of our General Secretary, Ahmadiyya Movement, Nigeria:
Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji‘un
He was a most affectionate and amiable father, and a staunch supporter of the late Chief Imam Brimah of Lagos. During the later part of his life, he was heart and soul in the Ahmadiyya Movement.
Islam Ahmadiyyat in West Africa
Dr SM Zwemer writes in the Moslem World:
André speaks of the present-day influence of the Sennusia in West Africa as waning, but says the Ahmadia sect is active in all French West Africa, with Lagos as their chief centre. […]
Regulation of Reports Bill
The Church Assembly has passed a resolution to the following effect:
“That this Assembly, while recognising the importance of the liberty of the Press, is of the opinion that the effect of the detailed reports of divorce and certain other cases upon public morals, and especially on the morals of the young of both sexes between the ages of 17 and 18, is most deleterious; and therefore strongly urges His Majesty’s Government to facilitate the further progress of the Regulation of Reports Bill, now before the House of Commons.”
We may agree to the resolution, because Islam does not allow the publishing of anything which is indecent or obscene. But this is not all. The young ones do not only read in papers what is “most deleterious.” It is in actual life that they meet with facts everywhere from which they cannot escape. The fear of indissoluble monogamy drives people in the first place to postpone marriage as long as they can help, and then they very soon begin to get on each other’s nerves, which makes them seek comfort and enjoyment somewhere else. Is it not a potential divorce and a secret polygamy of a worse nature? The mere suppression of such reports, we fear, will give the public a sense of false security.
Science and the Bible
A Christian missionary says:
“The only question seems to be whether their Koran will bear the light of literary criticism.”
We draw the attention of our Christian friends to the trial of a schoolmaster in Tennessee for showing disrespect to the Bible by teaching some of the sciences of today and request them to first settle their own differences with the scientific people. The Bible cannot stand the light of modern criticism. Honest persons, like the very Reverend WR Inge, the Dean of St Paul’s, are forced to declare that the infallibilities of the Church and the Bible are both gone.” But it is not so with the Holy Quran.
Ahmadiyyat in Turkey
The Moslem World publishes an account of a discussion in the Turkish Press about Jesus. Omar Riza Bey, we are informed, writes in the daily paper, “Teyhid-i-Efkiar” (Constantinople) of 26 December 1921, as follows:
“Jesus is called ‘Messiah,’ which means one who travels much. Jesus, being tired of the persecutions of the Syrian Jews, went to Afghanistan to search for the lost tribes of Israel, arrived in Kashmir, and died and was buried there. His tomb is there to this day. The falseness of his death on the cross can be proved even from the Gospels.”
Dr Ismael Hakki Bey also “accepts the actual death of Jesus, but denies the crucifixion as unworthy of his honour and personality.”
An admission
Mr JH Leckie, in his book, Authority in Religion, page 117, writes:
“Mohammad travelled the same road. In the first stage of his experience, he might have used the words of the Psalmist, ‘my tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, “Where is thy God?”’ The condition of Arabia was a burden to him: its political divisions, its lawlessness, its idolatry and its manifold distresses. His own religious nature, also, was profoundly unsatisfied, disturbed with the sense of the presence of One not seen nor understood. And the issue of this inward and outward trouble was lonely vigils, wrestlings and tears. But out of this travail and sorrow came at last the revelation, the vision of the spiritual reality. And then Mohammad was a Prophet proclaiming, to all who would hear, the Gospel of the clear shining Unity of God.”
Impact of food on behaviour
Commenting upon the “Indecent Exposure” statistics, the Editor of The Shield very rightly remarks:
“This is an extraordinary offence and it is very common; much more common than these figures imply. Probably for every man who is charged, at least twenty cases of exposure occur. Comparatively few women living within the area of large towns can have altogether escaped this detestable form of ‘insulting behaviour.’ The remedy would seem to be mental treatment rather than ordinary imprisonment, as exposure is frequently a form of sex perversion.”
There is evidently much truth in this suggestion, but there is another way of looking at it as well. The effect of food on our mental system is far-reaching. The body acts upon the soul. We think the habit of pig-eating is very largely responsible for this sex perversion. We should, therefore, not only “go dry” to get rid of this, but also cease taking this apparently harmless food.
A Prohibition Bible
Prohibition has added a new version of the Bible to literature. Messrs. Scribners, of America, announce the publication of a two-volume shorter Bible, edited by two Yale professors and the YMCA, in which the festive passages are all dry. Wherever the word ‘wine’ occurs in the King James’s version, ‘raisin cake’ takes its place.
Thus, I Chronicles, 16-3: “And he dealt to every one of Israel, both man and woman, to everyone a loaf of bread and a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine,” becomes: “And he dealt to every one of Israel, both man and woman, to everyone a roll of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins.” (The Indian Daily Mail, Bombay [now Mumbai])
Why not adopt the Holy Quran, the only Prohibition “Bible” in the world, rather than alter the older Bibles, which are all flooded with wine?
Luther and the devil
That even Christian reformers of such standing as Martin Luther were possessed with superstitious notions about matters spiritual is apparent from the fact that he ascribed head noises, by which he was afflicted, to the machinations of the devil. This was because Christians had long ceased to have any personal experience of spiritual things and groped in darkness so far as knowledge of spiritual matters was concerned.
Such has not been the case with Muslim reformers. Being the followers of a living religion, they were favoured with divine communion. They walked in the light of personal experience and never betrayed such ignorance of things spiritual, and never entertained childish ideas about things divine.
Afghanistan and Italy
Some time ago, an Italian engineer, Dario Piparno, was executed in Kabul. Signor Mussolini made a formal protest against the execution, which he described as “an act of barbarism” and demanded firstly a public demonstration at Kabul to protest against the execution, secondly that the Afghan Foreign Minister should march to the Italian Legation with a company of Afghan soldiers and there salute the Italian flag, thirdly repayment of the “blood money” paid for the purpose of saving Piparno’s life, and fourthly, payment to Italy of an indemnity of £7,000.
“The reply of the Government of Afghanistan to the Italian note,” says the Simla correspondent of The Times, “is published by a Kabul newspaper”, and adds that a settlement of the dispute is likely.
But whatever be the outcome of this dispute, the Amir’s eyes are opened to the fact that it is not so easy to hang an individual belonging to a powerful nation as to cold-bloodedly stone to death harmless and innocent law-abiding Ahmadis.
(Transcribed and edited by Al Hakam from the original English, published in the August 1925 issue of The Review of Religions)