Heart warming story about a brother who saw the light of Islam and reverted to the religion of truth… thought I’d share it..
Why did I Renounce Ahmadiyyah ?
By Dr. Ismail A. B. Balogun - a former high level Ahmadi
“…I must say, before God and man, that the more I scrutinized the claims and purported references for them, the more I discovered that the Ahmadiyyah Mission is deceiving the world and playing on the ignorance of many of their followers.”
In a series of articles published in Nigeria during 1974, Dr. Ismail A. B. Balogun, a high level Ahmadi leader, refuted the tenets of Ahmadiyyah and publicly denounced the Movement he had been born and raised in. A Professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the University of Ibadan, Algeria, Dr. Balogun had dedicated his life to the cause of Ahmadiyyah and had raised through the ranks to become a top spokesman and ambassador for the Movement. Throughout the years, his well articulate and emotional speeches had motivated many young Ahmadis. Similarly, his public departure and the commotion and debates that pursued caused many educated individuals to realize the truth and abandon Ahmadiyyah.
Allah accept the repentance of those who do evil in ignorance and repent soon afterwards; to them will Allah turn in mercy: For Allah is full of knowledge and wisdom.
(The holy Quran, An-Nisa, 4:17)
Subsequently, Dr. Balogun documented the reasons for his withdrawal from the Movement and included some of the ensuing debates in a book entitled “Islam versus Ahmadiyyah in Nigeria”. In this book, Dr. Balogun disclosed how he, as many other highly educated individuals, had blindly accepted Ahmadiyyah out of loyalty to his parents, misinformation disseminated by the Ahmadi leadership, divisive methods of the Indo-Pakistani Ahmadi missionaries, and other subjective reasons having more to do with propaganda and cultural habits than the truthfulness of any movement.
Dr. Balogun recounts his upbringing and his blind faith in the Indo-Pakistani Ahmadi missionaries in the following passage:
"In my Childhood, I was brought up to revere the Indo-Pakistani Ahmadiyyah missionaries who guided and controlled our religious activities. When the mission came to our elders and, through the elders to us, we believed all that they told us in toto, because of the implicit confidence we had in them. Their preaching appeared plausible to us and we accepted their arguments in good faith. They made references to Islamic books in order to substantiate their claims and we accepted the references without cross-checking them because of our confidence in them.
Their method was to alienate us against the orthodox Muslims in whom they found faults in the way they practiced Islam. The missionaries claimed to present “the true Islam” to us in the name of Ahmadiyyah.
They often impressed on us that the stiff opposition, which Ahmadis suffered in India before the partition and subsequently in Pakistan, was a conclusive proof of the truth of Ahmadiyyah. After all, no prophet is readily accepted in his own town or country. This also appeared plausible to us, hence we followed them with unalloyed confidence." (Sunday Sketch, Nigeria, Sept. 29, 1974; Islam versus Ahmadiyyah in Nigeria, p. 85-86)
Over a quarter of century ago, Dr. Balogun had accurately identified the strategy employed by high level Ahmadi missionaries to misguide the uninformed. Not only the missionaries do not publicize a complete picture of their doctrine and history, but also they distort the teachings of Islam and attempt to exasperate and capitalize upon sectarian division among few ignorant Muslims.
Dr. Balogun testified:
“Even though Ahmadiyya has been in this country for close to sixty years, I make the bold to say that, up till now, the vast majority of the adherents of the organization, within both the Movement and the Mission, are still in the dark about the details of its teaching, as well as its purpose. For example, it was only very recently, when stiff opposition to Ahmadiyyah started to rear its head in this country, that certain high-ranking Ahmadis knew for the first time that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claimed to be a Prophet.” (Sunday Times, Nigeria, Jan. 20, 1974; ibid., p. 3)
“[The fact that Ahmadis hid their true doctrine from the membership at large is] evident in the fact that when one of the young educated Nigerian Muslims, who originally invited the Movement here, went to Britain for further studies and thereby came in contact with Indian Ahmadis, who resided then in Britain, he studied them at first hand and returned home only to withdraw his membership of the Movement. This was the late al-Haj L. B. Agusto of blessed memory." (Sunday Times, Nigeria, Jan. 20, 1974; Ibid., p. 2)
Indeed, since its very inception, the Ahmadi leadership has relied upon the well-proven methods of the Christian Missionaries to alienate the uninformed individuals from knowledgeable and sincere Muslims and selfishly increase their membership. They know only too well that the descendants of individuals somehow tricked into joining their organization are generally less likely to renounce their membership, even after they discover the truth.
Truly they found their fathers on the wrong Path;
So they (too) were rushed down on their footsteps!
And truly before them, many of the ancients went astray;-
(The holy Quran, As-Saaffat, 37:69-71)
Dr. Balogun records that, when in 1974, the Pakistani Government and the Muslim World League both declared the Ahmadiyyah to be a non-Muslim group, he set out in earnest to defend the Movement he was born into and prove its truthfulness. However, his scholarly and thorough research into the teachings of Ahmadi leadership untangled a disturbing web of deceit and left him with no alternative but to denounce the Mission. This finding is even more significant since Dr. Balogun, even though a high level Ahmadi and a Professor of Islamic Studies, had himself been kept in the dark for over forty years.
Regarding the authenticity of the alleged references and interpretations provided by the Ahmadi Missionaries, from the Holy Quran, books of Hadith, and the writings of Muslim personalities, to lend the appearance of support to their various claims, Dr. Balogun wrote:
"My aim [in cross-checking the references offered by Ahmadi missionaries] was actually to strengthen myself against the gathering opposition to Ahmadiyyah. As a University scholar, I was conscious that my pronouncement in support of Ahmadiyyah must necessarily be backed with authentic references to Islamic sources.
In my cross-checking of the Ahmadiyyah missionaries’ references, however, my findings were rather disappointing.
Consequent upon my first article on the Ahmadiyyah problem in Nigeria (Sunday Times, 20 January 1974), the Ahmadiyyah Mission members wrote extensive rejoinders which gave me a further opportunity to examine, independently, more Ahmadiyyah claims and views than hitherto.
I must say, before God and man, that the more I scrutinized the claims and purported references for them, the more I discovered that the Ahmadiyyah Mission is deceiving the world and playing on the ignorance of many of their followers.
In many cases, they quote authors [scholars] who are explicitly opposed to Ahmadiyyah ideas; but so cleverly do they quote that they often give the impression that the authors support Ahmadiyyah views.
Examples of such distortions abound in the quotations made by Dr. Bhutta in his rejoinder (Sunday Sketch, 8 September 1974) to my article. It may interest the readers to know that Dr. Bhutta is himself a Pakistani Ahmadiyyah medical missionary.
It is only by going to the source references and reading what the Ahmadis had quoted within the context in which they are set that the reader, and the seeker after truth, will realize how much the Pakistani Ahmadiyyah missionaries try to deceive the world." (Sunday Sketch, Nigeria, Sept. 29, 1974; ibid., p. 86-87)
In support of his statements, Dr. Balogun researched, exposed, and refuted many of the deceptive and false arguments used by the Ahmadi missionaries to deceive the uninformed. For instance, he wrote:
"In order to buttress their claim about Khatam-un-Nabiyyin, the Ahmadis often quote the mystic Shaikh Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi as saying, ‘The Prophethood that was terminated with the person of the Prophet of Allah(SAW) was no other than the Law-bearing Prophethood, and not Prophethood itself.’ (Futuhat al-Makkiyyah, Vol. II, p. 3)
