Mīrzā
Ghulām Aḥmad, born on 13 February 1835, was Indian Indian Muslim leader who founded
an Islamic religious movement known as Ahmadiyyah.
The son of a prosperous family, Ghulām Aḥmad
received an education in Persian and Arabic. He initially refused his
father’s urgings that he go into British government service or practice law.
However, because of his father’s persistence, he served as a government clerk
in Sialkot from 1864 until 1868. Ghulām Aḥmad led a life of contemplation and
religious study. He claimed to hear revelations and declared in 1889 that
he had received one in which God had entitled him to receive bayʿat (an oath of allegiance). Soon he gathered
a small group of devoted disciples. From then on his influence and following
steadily increased, as did opposition from the mainstream Islamic community
Ghulām Aḥmad claimed not only that he was the mahdi (a promised Muslim “saviour”) and a
reappearance (burūz) of the Prophet Muhammad but also that he
was Jesus Christ and the Hindu God Krishna returned to earth. A
number of his rather unorthodox teachings were incorporated into the beliefs of
the Aḥmadiyyah.
After Ghulām Aḥmad’s death, his followers disputed whether he
had really claimed to be a prophet and, if so, what he meant by his
prophethood. Nonetheless, his devotees formed a community of believers and
elected a caliph to lead them. Ghulām Aḥmad’s most famous work is Barāhīn al-Aḥmadiyyah (“Proofs of the Ahmadi
Faith”; 1880).
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