Mirza Ghulam Ahmad: Difference between revisions

 

{{Infobox clergy|honorific prefix=|name=Mirza Ghulam Ahmad<br/>{{nq|{{nobold|مرزا غلام احمد}}}}|title=Founder of the [[Ahmadiyya|Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam]]|image=Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (c. 1897).jpg|caption=Ahmad, {{circa|1897}}|religion=[[Ahmadiyya]] Islam<ref name="Upal 2021">{{cite book |author-last=Upal |author-first=M. Afzal |author-link=Afzal Upal |year=2021 |chapter=The Cultural Genetics of the Aḥmadiyya Muslim Jamāʿat |editor1-last=Cusack |editor1-first=Carole M. |editor1-link=Carole M. Cusack |editor2-last=Upal |editor2-first=M. Afzal |title=Handbook of Islamic Sects and Movements |location=[[Leiden]] and [[Boston]] |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion |volume=21 |doi=10.1163/9789004435544_034 |doi-access=free |isbn=978-90-04-43554-4 |issn=1874-6691 |pages=637–657}}</ref><ref name="Korbel-Preckel 2016">{{cite book |last1=Korbel |first1=Jonathan |last2=Preckel |first2=Claudia |year=2016 |chapter=Ghulām Aḥmad al-Qādiyānī: The Messiah of the Christians—Peace upon Him—in India (India, 1908) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZtY6DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA426 |editor1-last=Bentlage |editor1-first=Björn |editor2-last=Eggert |editor2-first=Marion |editor3-last=Krämer |editor3-first=Hans-Martin |editor4-last=Reichmuth |editor4-first=Stefan |editor4-link=Stefan Reichmuth (academic) |title=Religious Dynamics under the Impact of Imperialism and Colonialism |series=Numen Book Series |volume=154 |location=[[Leiden]] |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |pages=426–442 |doi=10.1163/9789004329003_034 |isbn=978-90-04-32511-1}}</ref>|spouse={{unbulleted list|{{marriage|Hurmat Bibi|1852}}|{{marriage|[[Nusrat Jahan Begum]]|1884}}}}|children={{Collapsible list|titlestyle=font-weight:normal; background:transparent; text-align:left;|title=|Mirza Sultan Ahmad|Mirza Fazal Ahmad|[[Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad]]|[[Mirza Bashir Ahmad]]|Mirza Sharif Ahmad|Mirza Mubarak Ahmad||Mubarika Begum|Amatul Naseer Begum |Amatul Hafeez Begum}}|birth_date={{birth date|df=yes|1835|2|13}}|birth_place=[[Qadian]], [[Gurdaspur]], [[Sikh Empire]] <br /> {{small|(present-day [[Punjab, India|Punjab]], [[India]])}}|death_date={{death date and age|df=yes|1908|5|26|1835|2|13}}|death_place=[[Lahore]], [[Punjab Province (British India)|Punjab]], [[British Raj|British India]] <br /> {{small|(present-day [[Punjab, Pakistan|Punjab]], [[Pakistan]])}}}}

 

Born to a family with aristocratic roots in [[Qadian]], rural [[Punjab]], Ahmad emerged as a writer and debater for [[Islam]]. When he was just over forty years of age, his father died and around that time he claimed that [[God in Islam|God]] began to communicate with him. In 1889, he took a [[Bay'ah (Ahmadiyya)|pledge of allegiance]] from forty of his supporters at [[Ludhiana]] and formed a community of followers upon what he claimed was divine instruction, stipulating [[Ten Conditions of Bai'at|ten conditions of initiation]], an event that marks the establishment of the Ahmadiyya movement. The mission of the movement, according to him, was the reinstatement of the [[Tawhid|absolute oneness]] of God, the revival of Islam through the moral reformation of society along Islamic ideals, and the global propagation of Islam in its pristine form. As opposed to the Christian and mainstream Islamic view of Jesus (or Isa), being alive in heaven to return towards the end of time, Ahmad asserted that he had in fact survived crucifixion and [[Jesus in Ahmadiyya Islam|died a natural death]]. He traveled extensively across the Punjab preaching his religious ideas and rallied support by combining a reformist programme with his personal revelations which he claimed to receive from God, attracting thereby substantial following within his lifetime as well as considerable hostility particularly from the Muslim ''[[Ulama]]''. He is known to have engaged in numerous public debates and dialogues with Christian missionaries, Muslim scholars and Hindu revivalists.