the light (english) october 2013
TRANSCRIPT
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Editors:
Shahid Aziz
Mustaq Ali
Contents: Page
The Call of the Messiah 1
The Names of World Religions
byHazratMaulana
Abdul Haq Vidyarthi 3
Call of the Messiah
byHazratMirza Ghulam Ahmad,
the Promised Messiah and Mahdi
The Promised MessiahIn Islam, too, people imbued with Jewish habits
and qualities have also adopted this course and,
persisting obstinately in their misunderstanding
and error, have in every age
persecuted and oppressed
the holy men of God. Just see
how, turning their back upon
and forsaking Imam Hussain
(God be pleased with him),
thousands of ignorant people
went over to Yazid, joining
forces with him, and tor-
mented the innocent Imam
by their deeds and their
words, and did not rest until
they had finally encompassed
his death. In the same way,
they have always molested
and maltreated the Imams,
the righteous persons and
the mujaddids (inspired re-formers) of this ummah, call-
ing them unbelievers and infidels. Thousands
of truthful persons have suffered sorely at their
cruel hands, and not only have they been con-
temptuously labelled kafirs, but no effort has
been spared even to bring about their death or
disgrace, with the result that now our time has
come and it is our turn. In the thirteenth cen-
tury [of the Muslim era] these same peoplewent about from place to place preaching that,
in the fourteenth century, Imam Mahdi or the
Promised Messiah, or at least a great mujaddid
would make his appearance and yet when that
Mujaddid made his appearance at the head of
the fourteenth century, and not only did the
word of God confer on him the title of the
Promised Messiah, but the evils and abomina-
tions of the age, too, gave the same decree that
he should be named the Promised Messiah, he
was, sadly, accused of falsehood and cruellypersecuted, and the utmost effort was exerted
in the way of devious and devilish plots to en-
compass his death or disgrace; and if it had not
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been for the rule of the British Empire in this
land of India they would have torn him apart
and finished him off a long time ago.
The fourteenth century
Now it was but patently evident that this age
was a time of dangerous wickedness in terms of
faith and belief and that
the beliefs of hundreds of
thousands, having been
distorted and diverted
away from Divine Unity,
had turned towards crea-
ture-worship, which con-
sisted for the most part
great emphasis havingbeen laid upon it in this:
that in support of the
Church doctrine of Atone-
ment so much use was
made of pen and tongue
that even if you were to
rummage through and
ransack all the records of
human history, you would
not be able to find, in any
age, such zeal in support
of falsehood. Moreover,
when the writings of the
advocates of the doctrine of Atonement had
reached their highest point of scurrilousness
and spite, and virulent and aggressive attacks
had been launched against the Islamic doctrine
of Divine Unity, against the honour, chastity and
truthfulness of the Holy Prophet of Arabia and
against the status of the Holy Quran as the Word
of God, so that the number of books, pamphletsand newspapers containing these vicious at-
tacks had reached the prodigious figure of sev-
enty million, and when all this had come to pass
before the end of the 13th century, was it not,
then, necessary for God Most High, who had said , Surely we have revealedthe Reminder, and surely we are its Guard-
ian (15:9), to set some heavenly process in mo-
tion at the head of the fourteenth century in or-
der to resist and repel these unfounded attacks?
If it is true that every Mujaddid should comeempowered to deal with the evils of his age,
then it is also true that the Mujaddid of the four-
teenth century will have been properly
equipped to deal a deadly blow to the evil of the
Cross, for it is this evil that has had such a dan-
gerous effect upon millions of human minds,and it is this same evil that should be called the
greatest of all the evils of the present age. Now
when it has been estab-
lished and proved that the
mission of the Mujaddid of
the fourteenth century is
to smash the abomination
of the Cross and repel the
attacks of its upholders the
question naturally arises,
What should be the nameof the mujaddid whose
duty it is to break into
pieces the religion of the
Cross, to guide us to the
path of real deliverance
and to scatter to the winds
the false doctrine of salva-
tion by the Cross? Is it not
true that the appellation
Promised Messiah has been
conferred upon this Mu-
jaddid by the Holy
Prophet? When it is but obvious from the sad
state of affairs of the present age that the name
of the Mujaddid of the fourteenth century
should be the Promised Messiah, or in other
words, that the Promised Messiah would be the
mujaddidof a century in which there is so much
noise and uproar about evil of the Cross, why,
then shake the head and deny it? At any rate,
when the abomination of Cross reached its cli-max, and we saw with our own eyes that hun-
dreds of thousands of books had been published
in support of the doctrine of deliverance
through the Cross, pouring falsehood and hatred
on the religion of Islam, and that a man stood up
at the head of this wicked century, and claimed
that he had been raised for weeding out and
eradicating these evils, was, then, such a claim
out of place and inappropriate? Was it not nec-
essary that, at the time of these dangerous evils,
the God Most High, Who would not bear and
tolerate indignity for Islam, should establish an
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Islam, the name should be the same as well. Un-
doubtedly, the religion brought by the Holy
Prophet Muhammad is the whole and perfect Is-
lam, yet the religions before it must be compo-
nents and parts of this whole. The verses quotedabove are conclusive, and in the Quran the religion
of every prophet and his followers is called Islam.
Even the religion of the disciples of Jesus is de-
scribed in their own words as:
And bear witness (O Lord) that we are Mus-
lims. (5:111)
Muslims accept this fact which has been ex-
plained by the Holy
Quran. But are other
religions of the
world prepared to
accept it? It would
be an act of coercion
if we force them to
acknowledge this
fact, unless we can
make them admit it
on the basis of their
own religions. In
that case, their own
faith and sense will
be the compelling
factor. They will have no choice but to accept the
verdict of the creed and faith which they believe to
be from God.
Correction of a mistaken idea aboutnames
Shakespeare has written:
Whats in a name?; that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
It is also said that if a good name is given to a bad
thing, it would still remain bad. Nonetheless, a
good name does go some way to show the good-
ness of a thing. A good name is regarded with
approval and a bad one with disapproval . Some-
times a good name is bought for millions, and one
having a bad name suffers more than one who is
actually bad.
It is a fact that no religion other than that of
the followers of the Holy Prophet Muhammad is
known as Muslim. The ancient religion of India is
Hindu dharma; the Iranian is called Zoroastrian orParsee; the predominant religion of China and
order of His own, and send some heavenly balm
for the healing of this wounded and stabbed sys-
tem? Is it a matter for surprise that the mercy of
God Most High demanded that He should, in such a
period of dishonour and debility, take care of andprotect Islam? Will there be any more dangerous
time for which you will keep yourselves waiting?
Depriving this fourteenth century of the advent of
a Mujaddid, will you be looking for some other un-
known century? Is it the way of God-fearing and
piety that, notwithstanding the fact that fourteen
years have also passed
from this century, and
the evils of the Cross
have entrenched them-
selves strongly, you
should cling to the view
that the man who was to
come has not come as
yet, and the unfortunate
fourteenth century has
remained devoid of even
an ordinary Mujaddid,
and that the one who
came was no other than
the Antichrist, theDajjal? Is it faithfulness
and honesty to harbour such thoughts that the
fourteenth century has passed without a Mujaddid,
and the double eclipse of the month of fasting
(Ramadan) witnessed not the appearance of the
Mahdi, and the time of the evils of the Cross saw
not the advent of the Promised Messiah; that is to
say, all the three great prophecies of the Holy
Prophet (peace and the blessings of God be upon
him) turned out to be false (God forbid)?
The Names of World Religions
byMaulana Abdul Haq Vidyarthi
Surely the religion with Allah is Islam.(The Holy
Quran, 3:18)
He (God) has named you Muslims.(22:78)
There are countless religions in the world, and ac-
cordingly there are countless names of religions.
However, if every true religion is of Divine origin,as is the principle laid down by the Holy Quran and
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Japan is Buddhism; and a great religion of the
world is known as Christianity. Every religion
claims that only itis the true religion, and that
there is none other whose foundation was laid
by God Himself. The reason for this is the differ-ence in the beliefs and concepts of the various
religions. The principles of the religions are so
different, one from another, that it is almost im-
possible to consider them as having the same
source, even though this may be true. Our dis-
cussion here, however, only concerns the names
of the religions.
The Hindu religion
The religion of India has been known as Hindu.
It is claimed that despite being ruled by foreignreligions for centuries the Hindu nation, its cul-
ture and religion still survive. The question may
be asked: What is Hindu culture and society? If
it is the caste system, the separate dharma and
duties for the four castes, the worship of idols,
saints and millions of gods, and
the making of sacrifices to attain
their pleasure, then these beliefs
have been receiving great shocks
in the past century, and have
been rejected by educated Hin-
dus.
The question is: What is the
name of this religion? The Arya
Samaj says, and rightly so, that
their name Hindu is not found
anywhere in the Vedas or the
authentic shastras. They say that
the word Hindu really means a
slave and a thief, and that it is
really a term of abuse applied tothem by their enemies or the
Persians, which has been ac-
cepted by them due to a submissive and servile
mentality. Swami Dayanand, founder of the Arya
Samaj, has furiously condemned the name
Hindu, and urged that it should be dropped in
favour of the termArya.
In response to this, the traditional Hindus
rectified their name by calling themselves
Sanatan Dharmi. Now Sanatan means old and
ancient, and it is obvious that this name can
only be given to a religion when it has been in
existence for a long time. It cannot be the name
when the religion came into being, and more-
over, this name is not to be found in the Vedas,
just as the name Hindu is not found therein.
As to the name Arya, it is obvious that it isthe name of a nation, not that of a faith. Included
among the Arya people are the English, Ger-
mans, Dutch, Scandinavians, etc. Most impor-
tantly, the term Arya Dharma is nowhere to be
found in the Vedas. According to reliable lexi-
cons, Arya means owner or master, or the
progeny of an owner or master (see Nirukt). So,
even according to its linguistic meaning, Arya
cannot be the name of a religion. It can be ap-
plied to a ruling nation, indicative of its position,
but not to a dharma or religion. If the nameHindu must be given up because it does not oc-
cur in the Vedas, the nameArya suffers from the
same disadvantage.
It is argued, however, that the name Arya is
preferable because it refers to a noble, ruling
nation. But those who have
read the Vedas know that
Arya most definitely does not
mean righteous, noble and
God-fearing, as there are
scores of mantras in which
the Rishis prayed to be safe
from Aryas in the same way as
they prayed to be safe from
Dasyus, which signifies rob-
bers and malicious men. For
example, it says in the Rig
Veda:
O brave Indra! kill both the
enemies Dasa and Arya, as the
wood is chopped with thesharp axe. (Mandal6, Sukt
33, Mantra 3)
O You who are praised by many! May the
Arya or Dasa who dares us to war be thoroughly
crushed by us, may we kill these enemies in war
with Your help. (Mandal10, Sukt38, Mantra 3)
O Lord of the brave! may we kill these ene-
mies, Aryas and Dasa. (Mandal6, Sukt6, Mantra
6)
Even a little consideration of these mantras
shows that the Rishis of the Vedas looked uponthe Aryas as their enemies like the Dasa robbers.
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If the meaning of Arya had been noble and
righteous men, how could the Vedas teach
prayers for their destruction? In the light of
these two facts, firstly, that the Vedas give no
name for the religion or dharma of these people,and secondly, that neither of the words Hindu
and Arya means good and religious people, the
only conclusion that can be drawn is that Hindu
was the name of a people living by the river
Sindu (Indus), and a certain race was known as
Arya. With neither of these names is the word
dharma (religion) used in the Vedas.
The Jewish religion
It is clear that the basis of the
Jewish faith is the law ofMoses, but the Jews have been
named after Judah, one of the
twelve sons of Jacob. Jewis
not a divinely-revealed name,
but is a family name con-
nected with Jacob, and they
are generally called Israelites.
No law was revealed to Jacob,
and therefore Israelite is a
family name, not the name of
a faith. So there is no name for
this religion which God may
have given to it in the Bible or
ordered to be used for it.
Buddhism
Buddhism is also a religion,
but it does not say anywhere
in the teachings of Buddha
that his followers should be called Buddhists or
that the name of their religion is Buddhism. Thereason is that even before the Gautama Buddha
there had been many men who were given the
name Buddha. These have been mentioned by
Buddha himself. If the followers of the previous
Buddhas were not called Buddhists, there can be
no authority for applying this title to the follow-
ers of the Gautama. This too is a fictitious name.
So it is a fact, which cannot be denied, that
the Israelites are called after Jacob, who was
given the name Israel by God, the followers of
Buddha are called Buddhists, the adherents of
Zoroaster, the prophet of Persia, are named after
him, and the Hindus are named after their land
and country.
The followers of Christ
The strangest riddle is that of the name given to
the followers of Christ. In the first place, the
name given to a religion stays the same in any
language or country, except for some slight
change in one or two letters due to the different
rules of various languages. So Hindu, Buddhist,
etc., are substantially the same in any language,
whether English, Persian, etc. However, the
name of the followers of Christ is different in
almost every country. There
are scores of names such as
Christian, Mas, s, Jesuist,Nazarite which they apply to
themselves. Their real name is
a mystery. The personal name
of the Messiah was Yasu. The
name Christwas added long
after the events of the cruci-
fixion. Matthew records that
an angel appeared to Joseph,
the husband of Mary, saying:
She shall bring forth a son,
and thou shalt call his name
Jesus. (Matthew, 1:1821)
Luke, however, records that
the angel went to Mary, and
said to her: Thou shalt call
his name Jesus.
According to Matthew, it is the
father who would give the
nameJesus to his son, and according to Luke it is
the mother who would do so. In any case, it was
not God Who gave him this name or ordered
that this name be given to him. Even disregard-
ing the conflicting accounts, it is clear that his
personal name, as related by the angel, was
Jesus. Therefore this faith should have been
named after Jesus. But instead, followers of this
religion are known by various other names such
as Christian.
The names Christand Messiah
The word Christdoes not belong to the native
tongue of Jesus. It is from the Greek word
Christos, which is said to be synonymous with
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Messiah. It is obvious that
the followers of Jesus must
have referred to the name
of their mentor, when nec-
essary. But they couldnever have been known as
Christians after his name
because the word Christ
was not used during his
lifetime. His name was
Yushu, pronounced in He-
brew and Aramaic as Yo-
shua. There had been
many people before Jesus
who bore this name. For
instance, the military com-mander appointed by
Moses was given the name
Joshua, son of Nun. He was
accorded this name be-
cause of his conquest of
Canaan, meaning liberator,
whose wisdom and spiri-
tual strength combined to
raise the Israelites from a demoralised slave
people to a triumphant and victorious one.
Likewise Jesus was given the name Messiah
by God. But never could he dare proclaim it be-
cause of the intense opposition of the Jews and
the weakness of his own followers. So when one
of them plucked up the courage to call him the
Messiah at a secret gathering, Jesus told him to
keep it concealed and hidden. And this hap-
pened in the last year of his mission:
Now it happened that as he was praying
alone, the disciples were with him; and he asked
them: Who do the people say that I am? Andthey answered, John the Baptist; but others say,
Elijah; and others, that one of the old prophets
has risen. And he said to them, But who do you
say that I am? And Peter answered, The Mes-
siah of God. But he charged and commanded
them to tell this to no one. (Luke, 19:1822)
It was only Peter who called Jesus the Mes-
siah, about whom Jesus himself said: Get be-
hind me, Satan, you are a hindrance to
me. (Matthew, 16:23) Considering that Jesus
himself feared trouble if he was called the Mes-
siah, and urged that it should be kept a secret,
how could it be possible
that his followers could be
called Mas(followers of
the Messiah) during his
life? Hence, during his lifethey called one another
brother, believer, chosen
one, disciple, friend, poor
one, etc. What they were
notcalled was Christian or
Mas. God had given him
the name Yushu, and that
was what his parents had
named him. He had himself
strictly forbidden the title
Messiah to be used abouthim. It says in the Encyclo-
paedia Biblica:
According to the same
(Lukes) Gospel, he does
not himself lay claim to the
name Christ till later (9:20),
and even then wishes it to
be kept secret, and further
that, according to the same author (Acts 11:26),
the name Christian did not arise till a consider-
able time after his death.
It is also acknowledged that the name Christ
was proposed at the time when the Christians were
mixing with pagan people, and it is most probable
that this name originally was applied to Christians
by the pagans. It cannot be from the Jews because
they are awaiting the Messiah till today. That event
is recorded in Acts as follows:
For a whole year, they met with the church,
and taught a large company of people; and in An-
tioch the disciples were for the first time calledChristians. (Acts 11:26)
In the translations of the Gospels into eastern
languages, the word Christians here has been ren-
dered as Mas. It is a wonder of the scholarship of
the translators that they rendered Masas Chris-
tian or rendered Christian as Mas. No proper
noun is ever translated into another language. If
Christian is a proper noun, why was it translated as
Mas?And if the original name is Mas, derived
from Messiah, why was it translated as Christian?
The incident at Antioch allegedly happened 43
years after Jesus. Even if it did happen, no historian
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used this name till 150 CE, so this name is not to
be found in the writings of Clement of Rome,
Barnabas, Hermas, etc. It is found later in the
writings of Justin Martyr, etc. If the decision at
Antioch was a collective one, why was it notacted upon till 150 CE, and why did the
Christians of the East continue calling them-
selves nasr?
To sum up, according to the Gospels Jesus
kept his claim of Messiahship concealed till his
crucifixion, and strictly prohibited this title to be
used for him in public. For 43 years after him, it
occurred to no one that his followers should
have a name. In fact, till 150 CE no writer called
this faith and people Christian. The claim about
the name Christian being first used in Antioch isa hypothesis, merely on the basis that, as there
was now a non-Jewish following of Jesus, they
must have been given a name, and that name
can only be Christian. Obviously this hypothesis
does not amount to certainty, and the fact that
Eastern Christians have always called them-
selves nasr shows it to be completely
mistaken.
Birthplace of Jesus
According to the Gospels, Nazareth of Galilee
was the home town of Joseph and Mary. Jesus
lived there before his baptism (Matthew, 4:13,
21:11; Mark, 1:9; Luke, 1:26, 2:4, 39, 51 and
4:16; John, 1:46; Acts, 10:38). It is also written
that this was why Christians were called nasr
(Nazarites). It is then curious that in this birth-
place of Christianity no one became Christian
for 300 years, and it remained a purely Jewish
town. During the Crusades, its name was used to
rouse Christians to ight the Muslims, and itacquired a signiicance. But it is doubtful
whether this is the same Nazareth where Jesus
was born, or whether it was another town to the
south of the present Nazareth in the valley of
mount Kafsia.
Was there in fact a town called Nazareth
which ever existed? Two references from the
Gospels themselves raise doubts about it. Mat-
thew, 2:23 says:
And he [Joseph, along with Mary and Jesus]went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that
what was spoken by the prophets might be ful-
filled, He shall be called a Nazarene.
This reference is utterly wrong. In no book
did the prophets say that the coming one will be
called a Nazarene. The references to the book ofJudges and to 1 Samuel 1:11 which are cited in
this respect actually mention people making a
vow not to shave the heads of their children.
And all John 1:46 says is:
Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
Why Nazareth is given as the home town of
Jesus is impossible to answer. The account in
Matthew that Joseph, the father of Jesus, went to
live in Nazareth for fear of the king, does not
make that place the home town of Jesus. Then
there is the point that Joseph and Mary jour-
neyed to Bethlehem from Nazareth in order that
Jesus should be born there in accordance with a
prophecy of the prophets. This too is wrong be-
cause according to Luke (2:15) they went there
to be recorded in the census. History has shown
that this census was held either eight years be-
fore the birth of Jesus or six years afterwards.How could they have gone there six years before
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the census in order to be recorded in it?
Why are his followers calledChristians?
In Christian writings, Jesus is generally referred
to as Jesus Christ, as if the name Jesus takes
precedence over the name Christor Messiah. It
has been explained earlier that the name given
to him by his parents, or by the angel, was only
Yushu. That name is the basis of the Christian
religion. By descent, he belonged to the Jewish
race. His parents did not possess wealth and
riches or fame. In his youth he worked in his
parents house as a carpenter (najjr). Thus it
appears from Matthew 13:54 that when he went
to his native land, people said: Is this not thecarpenters son? In other words, in his home
town he was known as the son of Joseph the
carpenter. This is borne out by Luke 4:22, but
the words of Mark 6:3 are as follows:
Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary
and brother of James and Joses and Judas and
Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?
So according to this, Jesus himself was a car-
penter. In Hebrew the words naar( being the
letter d) and nasar(s being the letter sn) are
synonymous, and the word nsharmeans to saw
wood. Therefore, by Jesus of Nazareth (Nasra)
is meant Jesus the carpenter (najr). From the
Acts we learn that the Jews used to refer to this
new religion as najarn, or the faith of car-
penters (Acts, 24:5). The ancient historian
Tertullian has also supported this, and written
that the Jews used to curse this name three
times daily in their prayers.
When Jesus grew up, became a teacher,
started preaching, and attracted disciples, hefaced intense opposition from the people, so
much so that his followers were terrified to ut-
ter his name. On taking his name, they were
beaten and persecuted. Not only could they not
call him Messiah, but even taking his own name
Jesus was forbidden. The hatred and opposition
was not only against his office and position, but
his personal name as well. This is what we learn
from the four Gospels, Acts of the Apostles and
the Epistles. Sending his disciples to preach hismessage, he gave the following instructions:
I send you out as sheep in the midst of
wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as
doves. Beware of men; for they will deliver you
up to councils, and flog you in their synagogues,
and you will be dragged before governors and
kings for my sake you will be hated by all formy names sake. (Matthew, 10:1622; see also
24:9; Mark, 13:13; Luke, 21:12)
After Jesus, the oppression of his followers
continued. Let alone calling themselves Chris-tians, they could not even take the name of their
teacher:
So they called them and charged them not
to speak or teach at all in the name of
Jesus. (Acts, 4:18; see also Acts, 5:40;
2 Corinthians, 11:2425; 1 Peter, 4:16; Revela-
tion, 2:1013)
In conclusion, the name of the religion of
Jesus was neither nasr, nor Christian, nor yetMas. Just as the name najarnwas given to
this faith contemptuously by its Jewish oppo-nents, similarly Christian was a name proposed
by the heathens. As the Encyclopaedia Biblica
says:
In fact, it is probable enough that the name
came from the heathens themselves in the first
instance. With such a view of its origin, Acts
11:26 fits in very well. (p. 753)