Mostly Not on the Nobel Peace Prize

It's not as though the NPP has had much credibility for quite a while now. But at least there has always been a rationale, no matter how twisted, for awarding it. At least Yassar Arafat, for example, made some meaningless gestures. Jimmy Carter put in many years of campaigning for the prize. (See, the inset for observations of a couple of years ago.) At this point, what else can one do than to congratulate President Obama on receiving (using an Indian political expression)  a "scheduled" prize. Congratulations, Sir!

Since it's not cached on the web, allow me to reproduce my sentiments of two years ago: So, Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the U.N. Panel on Climate Change, for his work on publicizing global warming. The Times (of London) On-line reports that predictably the Democrats are interpreting the award as a rebuke of President Bush, who does not share Gore's views. The Nobel Peace Prize has been somewhat questionable off and on anyway. It is instructive to look at the list of former winners and consider how many laureates were of rather dubious character, who received the prize for some single gesture, which the rest of their entire lives repudiated. Yassir Arafat and Menachem Begin both were leaders of terrorist gangs. In his autobiography, written after his meetings with Begin, Anwar Sadat still gloried in the destruction he had caused by the Yom Kippur war. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev couldn't keep the Soviet Union together, even by taking military action against Lithuania; so, after losing the Cold War, he was given the Peace Prize for ending it. That's kind of like giving it to Hitler for ending World War II (which, I hasten to clarify, did not happen). The man who stood in Berlin and said, "Mr. Gorbachev, take down this wall!" and who really ended the Cold War, was overlooked. What I'm getting at is that the Democrats who are using the Prize as a jaded piece of propaganda are not really cheapening it; sadly, they are acting entirely in accord with the ideology that seems to be intrinsic to the Prize. Given the notoriety of the Nobel Peace Prize, one cannot ignore it. At least one wishes that it would be awarded to people who really are working for peace. Let me make a serious suggestion: The Prize should go to the two Ahmadyya sects of Islam, who are maintaining a solid pacifist stance, and who have always decried Islamic terrorism, not just when it's been a pragmatic PR move. It would appear to me that they aren't being true to the Qur'an, but that's all the better for them. They should be acknowledged and rewarded for their teaching, derived from their founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1839 -1908 ) .

So, the bottom line is that I shall not devote this entry to the Nobel prize. Instead, let me talk about the Islamic group(s) that should receive the Nobel prize, namely the adherents of Ahmadiyya Islam. What follows is a rescension of an article in a dictionary on religious sects that may eventually be published by Baker Book House.

Ahmadiyya is an Islamic sect based on the nineteenth-century reformer, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1839–1908 ), who proclaimed himself to be both messiah and Mahdi.

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad lived in the Punjabi region. He was born in 1835 in a small village called Qadiyan. Ahmad first came to the attention of the greater Islamic world in 1880 with the publication of an exposition entitled Barahin-i-Ahmadiyya (The Blessings of Ahmad). I should clarify that Ahmadiyya (and consequently the name of the movement) does not actually refer to Ghulam Ahmad, but to the prophet Muhammad.

A few years later Ghulam Ahmad announced to the world that he was the Mahdi as well as the second coming of Jesus Christ. This version of the Mahdi is not the same as the Shi’ite one, where the Mahdi is the returning Imam, presently in occultation. Here it refers to the general belief that shortly before the last judgment a great leader will appear who will establish Islamic peace and justice all over the world. Sometimes this belief is also associated with a second coming of Christ alongside the Mahdi. Ghulam Ahmad professed that he was both.

Now, we need to be careful to understand what Ghulam Ahmad probably meant with these assertions. His claim to be the Mahdi was unbending, and there is no question that he saw himself as having fulfilled the prophecies of Christ’s second coming. But this latter contention did not mean that he thought he was Jesus Christ as understood by Christians, that is to say the incarnate second person of the Trinity. Rather, it meant that he, the Islamic Mahdi, also fulfilled the Christians’ anticipations of their future hope.

A few years before his death, Ahmad added to his claims by stating that “to the Hindus I am Krishna.” But again, what he most likely meant by that statement was simply that he fulfilled Hinduism’s expectations of Krishna’s return (or a little more accurately, a future incarnation of Vishnu, as promised in the Bhagavad Gita), not that he was a Hindu god—an idea totally inconsistent with his devotion to Islam.

Ghulam Ahmad attracted a sizable number of followers, who had to undergo an initiation ceremony (baya) into his movement, which consisted of taking a vow of unyielding adherence to Islam, as well as obedience to Ghulam Ahmad, and the latter would take precedence over all other human relationships. He taught his disciples to be strict in their observances, to relate to each other with love, and to avoid violence at all costs. The Qur’an, as Ahmad and his subsequent movement interpret it, never permits physical violence, let alone a military jihad, no matter how dire the circumstances may be.

Soon after Ghulam Ahmad died, dissension among his followers surfaced, and in 1914 a permanent split occurred,over the issue of the identity of Ahmad himself. No one questioned whether he was the Mahdi and messiah, but did that make him a full prophet? If so, he would be on a par with Muhammad, and all Muslims would be obliged to follow him. If not, he would simply be a great reformer, and the movement could retain partnership with Muslims around the world.

One side took the more radical view that Ghulam Ahmad was, in fact, a prophet, and that his movement was the only true expression of Islam. This group has become known by Ahmad’s town of birth as the “Qadiyanis.” Their leaders claim the title of “caliph”; they believe that only those who recognize Ahmad are genuine Muslims. Everyone else is kafir, an unbeliever. Consequently, Qadiyani Ahmadis are not permitted to identify themselves as Muslims in Pakistan.

The other group came to be known by the name of the city that houses their headquarters, Lahore, Pakistan. The Lahore group emphasizes the need for a pure, reformed Islam as taught by Ghulam Ahmad, but it identifies with mainstream Islam. They take the view that Ahmad was a reformer only, and that Muhammad was the last genuine prophet.

Both groups of Ahmadis are very active in attempting to reach new converts. In the context of the early twenty-first century, when many Muslims are attempting to rationalize or excuse acts of terrorism that have been committed in the name of Islam, the Ahmadiyya movement can claim greater credibility because of its consistent renunciation of violence.