Thread by @AlHakamWeekly

Under the unifying leadership of Khilafat-e-Ahmadiyya, the Ahmadiyya #Muslim Community @AhmadiyyaUSA @TrueIslamUSA has played a critical role in preaching & spreading #Islam in the USA 🇺🇸, amid fierce backlash & hurdles.

🧵 A brief history:

Mufti M Sadiq (Ra) arrived in America in 1920. Richard Turner states: "In the nineteenth century, the Ahmadis began to formulate plans to revitalize Islam as a world religion by missionizing the Western hemisphere...

"Although they did not formally begin their work in America until 1920, the spirit of their movement was embodied in the activities of a white American named Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb, the primary representative for Islam at the World’s Parliament of Religions."

This Parliament of Religions was held in Chicago, 1893. Reports show how this European-American Muslim was booed by the audience when he spoke about the permission of polygamy in Islam.

Webb was introduced to Islam through Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (as), the Promised Messiah, as he clearly stated in his letter to the former: “After reading your circulars, an idea occurred to me which I will present to you for your consideration...

“knowing or rather feeling confident that you, who are so much more spiritual than I, so much nearer to God, will answer me in a way that will be for the best.

“[…] The public mind, I think, is now more than ever fitted to receive Muhammadanism...

“and it may be that through you it is to be introduced in my country. I am convinced that you are very much in earnest. I have no reason to doubt that you are inspired by God to spread the light of truth […]”. (Shahna-e-Haqq, Ruhani Khazain, Vol. 4, pp. 439-444)

Although Webb never became a registered follower of Hazrat Ahmad (as), historians agree that his correspondence with the latter played a key role in his conversion to Islam.

The dawn of the Ahmadiyya mission in America happened at a time when the American mind generally despised Islam, and the African American soul, in particular, was faced with an existential crisis – or, as rightly termed by Logan, had sunk to the “nadir” of its existence.

The ethos of the Ahmadiyya mission to America can be summarised, in the words of Jane Smith, as follows:

“The first Ahmadi missionary to the United States was Mufti Muhammad Sadiq in 1920. He began a society for the preservation of American Islam and in 1921 started...

publication of the periodical Moslem Sunrise […]

“Ahmadi missionaries played a significant role in the early decades of the century in attacking what they saw as the blatant racism of American society.” (Islam in America, p. 74, Columbia University Press, 1999.)

Historians see this mission of Hazrat Ahmad (as) to be the first in modern history “to reach the New World, and his teachings opened up novel spiritual possibilities for many”. (From India to America and Back Again, Cornell University Press)

Moustafa Bayoumi sees the story of the Ahmadiyya mission to America as “particularly unusual” as the mission styled itself as “pioneers in the spiritual Colonization of the Western world”.

Bayoumi takes the latter quoted line from the message of Hazrat Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad (Ra), the Khalifa of the Ahmadiyya community, that he sent for the Americans and published in the first issue of @MuslimSunrise. It is important to present the message in full...

as it places the Ahmadiyya ambition for America in perspective: “The Pioneers in the Colonization of American land are always looked back upon with great honor and respect. Their work was temporal but now, my dear Brothers and Sisters, Allah the Almighty has made you...

“the Pioneers in the spiritual Colonization of the Western world. If you will work with the same love, zeal, sincerity and loyalty as they did your honor and respect and name will be still greater than their’s, as you will have moreover the Reward at the Last day...

“and Allah’s pleasure, the grandeur and beauty of which no one can estimate here in this world. Mirza Mahmud Ahmad”. (The Moslem Sunrise, July 1921, Vol. 1, No. 1, USA)

In a society where racism had become the greatest vice, the Ahmadiyya emerged as “unquestionably one of the most significant movements in the history of Islam in the United States in the twentieth century, providing as it did the first multi-racial model for American Islam.”

“The Ahmadis disseminated Islamic literature and converted black and white Americans. They attacked the distortions of Islam in the media, established mosques and reading rooms, and translated the Quran into English.” (Ibid)

This image of Islam in the American mind many decades before 9/11 was not much different to what it is in the post-9/11 era of America-Muslim relations – a radically charged political force against the West.

It was only two years after these attacks that Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad (aa) assumed office as Khalifa of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The 9/11 attacks were still a painful scar and a basis for aversion towards Islam. Islam faced the biggest challenge of its history.

Under the leadership of Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad (aa), Ahmadi Muslims took it upon themselves to dispel such a derogatory image of the whole body of #Islam. His Holiness visited America himself on numerous occasions and endlessly dispelled misconceptions about Islam.

He told the world: “Our only mission and our sole aspiration is to win the hearts of mankind through love and to bring people closer to God Almighty. So to become true worshipers of Him and fulfil the right of one another.”

Speaking to the dignitaries of the Congress, he reminded them that “all people should be granted equal rights without any discrimination or prejudice” and that “the United States […] should play its role in acting with true justice”.

After almost a century of consistent efforts, the Ahmadiyya message of Islam is bringing Americans to understand the true beauty of Islam.

This mission continues under the leadership of Khilafat-e-Ahmadiyya.

Source & complete referencing:
alhakam.org/the-ahmadiyya-…