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Messianic Legitimacy: the case of Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya Movements

Year 2016, Issue: 35, 217 - 256, 31.12.2016

Abstract

The Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya are contemporary
Islamic messianic movements emerging in the late nineteenth century during a
period of general Muslim discontent. This study aims to see how the respective
leaders of these two movements, Ghulam Ahmad and Muhammad Ahmad, sought to
legitimize their claims while addressing the problems they perceived to exist
in their societies. It is found that the originality and magnitude of Ghulam
Ahmad’s messianic message, which aimed to address the claims of Christian
missionaries as well as other religious groups by  drawing on the example of the prophet Jesus
for legitimacy and the abolishment of jihad, made the movement relatively
inflexible doctrinally, but with focus on proselytization gained greater global
influence. Muhammad Ahmad’s message and practice, by contrast, though highly unorthodox
in its treatment of prophetic hadith, emulated to a greater degree the example
of Prophet Muhammad, was more humble in its claims, and achieved relatively
greater domestic popularity and doctrinal flexibility, paving the way for eventual
political power in Sudan.

References

  • Abbot, Freeland, Islam and Pakistan. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1968
  • Ahmad, Mirza Bashir-ud-din Mahmud, Invitation to Ahmadiyyat: being a statement of beliefs, a rationale of claims, and an invitation, on behalf of the Ahmadiyya Movement for the propagation and rejuvenation of Islam. London; Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980
  • Ibn al-Arabi, Muhyi al-Din, Kitab al-futuhat al-makkiyya. 5 vols. ed. 'Uthman Yahya. Cairo: Maktaba al-'Arabiyya, 1972.
  • Al-Asar al-Kamila li’l-Imam al-Mahdi, ed. Muhammad Ibrahim Abu Salim, I-VII, Khartoum: Jamiat al-Khartoum, 1990-1991
  • Brush, S. E., ‘Ahmadiyyat in Pakistan: Rabwah and the Ahmadis’, Muslim World 45 (1955): 145-171
  • Burke, Edmund, Lapidus, Ira M., (eds). Islam, Politics, and Social Movements. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988
  • Al-Bursawi, Tafsir ruh al-bayan, Vol. 7 Matbaa Uthmaniyya, A.H. 1330
  • Campbell, Sandra ‘Millennial Messiah and Religious Restorer: Reflections on the Early Islamic Understanding of the Term Mahdi’, Jusur 11 (1995): 1-11
  • Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn, Lobban, Richard A., and Voll, John Obert, Historical Dictionary of the Sudan, Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, 2d ed., 1992
  • Cragg, Kenneth, Counsels in contemporary Islam. Edinburgh: University Press, 1967
  • Daly, M. W., ‘Islam, Secularism, and Ethnic Identity in the Sudan’. Gustavo Benavides and M.W. Daly (eds.) Religion and Political Power. Albany (USA): State University of New York Press, 1989
  • Dard, A. R., Life of Ahmad: Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement. Lahore: Tabshir Publications, 1948.
  • Dekmejian, Richard H. & Wyszomirski, Margaret J., ‘Charismatic Leadership in Islam: The Mahdi of the Sudan’. Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 14(2) (March, 1972): 193-214
  • Dekmejian, Richard H., ‘Charismatic Leadership in Messianic and Revolutionary Movements: The Mahdi (Muhammad Ahmad) and the Messiah (Shabbatai Sevi)’, Antoun, R. T., Hegland, M. E. (eds.), Religious Resurgence: Contemporary Cases in Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1987
  • Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Leiden, 1954
  • Friedman, Yohanan, Prophecy Continuous: Aspects of Ahmadi religious Thought and its Medieval Background. New Delhi; New York: Oxford University Press, 2003
  • Friedman, Yohanan. “Jihad in Ahmadi thought,” in Studies in Islamic History and Civilisation in Honour of Professor David Ayalin, ed. M. Sharon, 221-235. Leiden: Brill, 1986.
  • Hardy, Peter, The Muslims of British India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1972.
  • Holt, Peter M., The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1881-1898: A Study of its Origins, Development and Overthrow. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958
  • Holt, Peter M., Daly, M. W., A History of Sudan: from the Coming of Islam to the Present Day, 5th ed., Harlow (Britain): Longman, 2000.
  • Lavan, S., ‘Polemic and Conflict in Ahmadiyya History: the ‘Ulama’, the missionaries, and the British (1898)’, Muslim world 62 (1972), 283-303
  • O’Fahey, R. S., Sufism in Suspense: The Sudanese Mahdi’, in Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen Centuries of Controversies and Polemics, eds. De Jong, F., Radtke, B., 267-282, Leiden: Brill 1999,
  • Metcalf, Barbara D., Islamic revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982
  • Moore-Harrel, Alice, Gordon and the Sudan: Prologue to the Mahdiyya, 1877-1880. London: Frank Cass., 2001
  • Nadvi, Syed H. H. Islamic Resurgent Movements in the Indo-Pak Subcontinent during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries: a Critical Analysis. Durban, South Africa: Academia, the Centre for Islamic, Near, and Middle Eastern Studies, Planning & Publication, 1987, Available from the Dept. of Arabic, Urdu, and Persian, University of Durban-Westville
  • Rahman, Fazlur, Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003
  • Qureshi, Naeem M., “The ‘Ulama’ of British India and the Hijrat of 1920,” Modern Asian Studies, 13:1 (1979): 41-59
  • Sachedina, Abdulaziz, A., Islamic Messianism: the Idea of Mahdi in Twelver Shiism. Albany: State University of New York Press 1981
  • Shuqayr, Naum, Tarikh al-Sudan, Beirut: Dar al-Jil, 1981
  • Trimingham, J. S., Islam in the Sudan. London: Frank Cass, 1965
  • Titus, Murray T., Islam in India and Pakistan: a Religious History of Islam in India and Pakistan. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 2005
  • Voll, John O., “Abu Jummayza: The Mahdi’s Musaylima?” in Islam, Politics, and Social Movements. eds. Burke, Edmund and Lapidus, Ira M., Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988
  • Voll, John O., “The Sudanese Mahdi: Frontier Fundamentalist,” International Journal of the Middle East Studies, 10 (1979): 153-165.
  • Voll John O., “Wahhabism and Mahdism: Alternative Styles of Islamic Renewals,” Arab Studies Quarterly 4 (1982): 110-126
  • Warburg, Gabriel R., “From Revolution to Conservatism: Some Aspects of Mahdist Ideology and Politics in the Sudan,” Der Islam 70:1 (1993): 88-111
  • Zafrullah Khan, M., Hazrat Maulvi Nooreddeen Khlifatul Masih I, London 1983[?]

Messianic Legitimacy: the case of Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya Movements

Year 2016, Issue: 35, 217 - 256, 31.12.2016

Abstract

The Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya are contemporary Islamic messianic movements emerging in the late nineteenth century during a period of general Muslim discontent. This study aims to see how the respective leaders of these two movements, Ghulam Ahmad and Muhammad Ahmad, sought to legitimize their claims while addressing the problems they perceived to exist in their societies. It is found that the originality and magnitude of Ghulam Ahmad’s messianic message, which aimed to address the claims of Christian missionaries as well as other religious groups by  drawing on the example of the prophet Jesus for legitimacy and the abolishment of jihad, made the movement relatively inflexible doctrinally, but with focus on proselytization gained greater global influence. Muhammad Ahmad’s message and practice, by contrast, though highly unorthodox in its treatment of prophetic hadith, emulated to a greater degree the example of Prophet Muhammad, was more humble in its claims, and achieved relatively greater domestic popularity and doctrinal flexibility, paving the way for eventual political power in Sudan.

References

  • Abbot, Freeland, Islam and Pakistan. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1968
  • Ahmad, Mirza Bashir-ud-din Mahmud, Invitation to Ahmadiyyat: being a statement of beliefs, a rationale of claims, and an invitation, on behalf of the Ahmadiyya Movement for the propagation and rejuvenation of Islam. London; Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980
  • Ibn al-Arabi, Muhyi al-Din, Kitab al-futuhat al-makkiyya. 5 vols. ed. 'Uthman Yahya. Cairo: Maktaba al-'Arabiyya, 1972.
  • Al-Asar al-Kamila li’l-Imam al-Mahdi, ed. Muhammad Ibrahim Abu Salim, I-VII, Khartoum: Jamiat al-Khartoum, 1990-1991
  • Brush, S. E., ‘Ahmadiyyat in Pakistan: Rabwah and the Ahmadis’, Muslim World 45 (1955): 145-171
  • Burke, Edmund, Lapidus, Ira M., (eds). Islam, Politics, and Social Movements. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988
  • Al-Bursawi, Tafsir ruh al-bayan, Vol. 7 Matbaa Uthmaniyya, A.H. 1330
  • Campbell, Sandra ‘Millennial Messiah and Religious Restorer: Reflections on the Early Islamic Understanding of the Term Mahdi’, Jusur 11 (1995): 1-11
  • Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn, Lobban, Richard A., and Voll, John Obert, Historical Dictionary of the Sudan, Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, 2d ed., 1992
  • Cragg, Kenneth, Counsels in contemporary Islam. Edinburgh: University Press, 1967
  • Daly, M. W., ‘Islam, Secularism, and Ethnic Identity in the Sudan’. Gustavo Benavides and M.W. Daly (eds.) Religion and Political Power. Albany (USA): State University of New York Press, 1989
  • Dard, A. R., Life of Ahmad: Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement. Lahore: Tabshir Publications, 1948.
  • Dekmejian, Richard H. & Wyszomirski, Margaret J., ‘Charismatic Leadership in Islam: The Mahdi of the Sudan’. Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 14(2) (March, 1972): 193-214
  • Dekmejian, Richard H., ‘Charismatic Leadership in Messianic and Revolutionary Movements: The Mahdi (Muhammad Ahmad) and the Messiah (Shabbatai Sevi)’, Antoun, R. T., Hegland, M. E. (eds.), Religious Resurgence: Contemporary Cases in Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1987
  • Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Leiden, 1954
  • Friedman, Yohanan, Prophecy Continuous: Aspects of Ahmadi religious Thought and its Medieval Background. New Delhi; New York: Oxford University Press, 2003
  • Friedman, Yohanan. “Jihad in Ahmadi thought,” in Studies in Islamic History and Civilisation in Honour of Professor David Ayalin, ed. M. Sharon, 221-235. Leiden: Brill, 1986.
  • Hardy, Peter, The Muslims of British India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1972.
  • Holt, Peter M., The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1881-1898: A Study of its Origins, Development and Overthrow. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958
  • Holt, Peter M., Daly, M. W., A History of Sudan: from the Coming of Islam to the Present Day, 5th ed., Harlow (Britain): Longman, 2000.
  • Lavan, S., ‘Polemic and Conflict in Ahmadiyya History: the ‘Ulama’, the missionaries, and the British (1898)’, Muslim world 62 (1972), 283-303
  • O’Fahey, R. S., Sufism in Suspense: The Sudanese Mahdi’, in Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen Centuries of Controversies and Polemics, eds. De Jong, F., Radtke, B., 267-282, Leiden: Brill 1999,
  • Metcalf, Barbara D., Islamic revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982
  • Moore-Harrel, Alice, Gordon and the Sudan: Prologue to the Mahdiyya, 1877-1880. London: Frank Cass., 2001
  • Nadvi, Syed H. H. Islamic Resurgent Movements in the Indo-Pak Subcontinent during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries: a Critical Analysis. Durban, South Africa: Academia, the Centre for Islamic, Near, and Middle Eastern Studies, Planning & Publication, 1987, Available from the Dept. of Arabic, Urdu, and Persian, University of Durban-Westville
  • Rahman, Fazlur, Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003
  • Qureshi, Naeem M., “The ‘Ulama’ of British India and the Hijrat of 1920,” Modern Asian Studies, 13:1 (1979): 41-59
  • Sachedina, Abdulaziz, A., Islamic Messianism: the Idea of Mahdi in Twelver Shiism. Albany: State University of New York Press 1981
  • Shuqayr, Naum, Tarikh al-Sudan, Beirut: Dar al-Jil, 1981
  • Trimingham, J. S., Islam in the Sudan. London: Frank Cass, 1965
  • Titus, Murray T., Islam in India and Pakistan: a Religious History of Islam in India and Pakistan. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 2005
  • Voll, John O., “Abu Jummayza: The Mahdi’s Musaylima?” in Islam, Politics, and Social Movements. eds. Burke, Edmund and Lapidus, Ira M., Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988
  • Voll, John O., “The Sudanese Mahdi: Frontier Fundamentalist,” International Journal of the Middle East Studies, 10 (1979): 153-165.
  • Voll John O., “Wahhabism and Mahdism: Alternative Styles of Islamic Renewals,” Arab Studies Quarterly 4 (1982): 110-126
  • Warburg, Gabriel R., “From Revolution to Conservatism: Some Aspects of Mahdist Ideology and Politics in the Sudan,” Der Islam 70:1 (1993): 88-111
  • Zafrullah Khan, M., Hazrat Maulvi Nooreddeen Khlifatul Masih I, London 1983[?]
There are 36 citations in total.

Details

Subjects Religious Studies
Journal Section Articles
Authors

Kayhan Ali Özaykal This is me

Publication Date December 31, 2016
Published in Issue Year 2016 Issue: 35

Cite

APA Özaykal, K. A. (2016). Messianic Legitimacy: the case of Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya Movements. Journal of Istanbul University Faculty of Theology(35), 217-256.
AMA Özaykal KA. Messianic Legitimacy: the case of Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya Movements. Journal of Istanbul University Faculty of Theology. December 2016;(35):217-256.
Chicago Özaykal, Kayhan Ali. “Messianic Legitimacy: The Case of Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya Movements”. Journal of Istanbul University Faculty of Theology, no. 35 (December 2016): 217-56.
EndNote Özaykal KA (December 1, 2016) Messianic Legitimacy: the case of Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya Movements. Journal of Istanbul University Faculty of Theology 35 217–256.
IEEE K. A. Özaykal, “Messianic Legitimacy: the case of Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya Movements”, Journal of Istanbul University Faculty of Theology, no. 35, pp. 217–256, December 2016.
ISNAD Özaykal, Kayhan Ali. “Messianic Legitimacy: The Case of Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya Movements”. Journal of Istanbul University Faculty of Theology 35 (December 2016), 217-256.
JAMA Özaykal KA. Messianic Legitimacy: the case of Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya Movements. Journal of Istanbul University Faculty of Theology. 2016;:217–256.
MLA Özaykal, Kayhan Ali. “Messianic Legitimacy: The Case of Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya Movements”. Journal of Istanbul University Faculty of Theology, no. 35, 2016, pp. 217-56.
Vancouver Özaykal KA. Messianic Legitimacy: the case of Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya Movements. Journal of Istanbul University Faculty of Theology. 2016(35):217-56.