Intro
The following is a quote from the Book “Noah’s Ark” which was written by MGA in the context of a plague outbreak in Punjab.

The overall message of the book was:

Join my community because God has revealed to me that whoever is part of my community will be statistically safer from the plague. And that will be a miracle . He followed that announcement by an outline of his beliefs in a section called “Our Teaching”. There, he has a section which talks about who counts as being part of his community. It goes as follows:

(The numbers were added for ease of understanding and the more ambiguous and harsher criteria has been bolded. No words has been added, removed or changed.)

“”

  1. He who at the time of supplication does not believe that God has power over all things, except that which might be contrary to His promise, is not of my community.

  2. Whosoever does not give up lying and deceit, is not of my community.

  3. Whosoever is consumed by material greed and does not lift his eyes to look at the hereafter, is not of my community.

  4. Whosoever does not truly give precedence to religion over the world, is not of my community.

  5. Whosoever does not repent of every vice and every evil deed, such as drunkenness, gambling, lustful glances, deceit, bribery and every misappropriation, is not of my community.

  6. Whosoever does not observe the five daily prayers, is not of my community.

  7. Whosoever is not constant in supplication and does not remember God with humility, is not of my community.

  8. Whosoever does not discard the company of an evil one who influences him towards vice, is not of my community.

  9. Whosoever does not honour his parents and does not obey them in all matters that are not contrary to the Quran, and is careless in serving them diligently, is not of my community.

  10. Whosoever does not treat his wife and her relatives with gentleness and benevolence, is not of my community.

  11. He who refrains from doing even the least bit of good to his neighbour, is not of my community.

  12. He who does not desire to forgive an offender and harbours rancour, is not of my community.

  13. Every husband who deceives his wife, and every wife who deceives her husband, is not of my community.

  14. Whosoever breaks the covenant of Bai’at in any respect, is not of my community.

  15. He who does not truly believe in me as the Promised Messiah and Awaited Mahdi, is not of my community.

  16. Whosoever is unwilling to obey me in all that is good, is not of my community.

  17. Whosoever associates with my opponents and endorses what they say, is not of my community.

  18. Every adulterer, transgressor, drunkard, murderer, thief, gambler, deceiver, bribe-taker, usurper, tyrant, liar, forger and those who sit amongst them, and everyone who slanders his brothers or sisters and does not repent of his foul deeds, and does not abstain from evil company, is not of my community.

“”

Firstly, If anyone who is part of the community got the plague, they could be scrutinized according to those criteria and inevitably, 1 would be found to be broken. This allows for the rationalization of all failures of the prophecy rendering it practically unfalsifiable. Any way things happen, its still going to be taken as a proof of the existence of God and his influence on our lives.

Secondly, if this passage was to be taken seriously, it makes the creation and growing of a community practically impossible. Most Ahmadis that I know would not qualify to be part of MGA’s community and given how harsh the criteria are, it is fair to extrapolate this to the whole of the community.

I know some people will say that this should be taken metaphorically, but this is not indicated in the way that the passage is written. The paragraph that follows the list explains why this should be taken as both literal and something serious.

All these are poisons. You cannot consume this poison and survive; light and darkness cannot exist together. Everyone who possesses a crooked disposition and is not straightforward with God, can never achieve the blessing that is bestowed on the purehearted.

So the question is, how is this passage reconciled with the fact that: the vast majority of people who would be considered part of Ahmadiyyat today do not meet the criteria set by the prophet they claim belief in?

Is the word of the prophet MGA not important?

Did the prophet MGA give an unrealistic recommendation as to how to determine who is in his own community?

Does the current philosophy value quantity more than quality?

Links and Related Essays
https://www.reddit.com/r/islam_ahmadiyya/comments/d54lqm/noahs_ark_criteria_to_be_considered_part_of_the/

https://ahmadiyyafactcheckblog.com/2019/09/16/kishti-nuh-publish-dates-in-english-as-noahs-ark-1902/

https://www.alislam.org/library/books/Hidden-Treasures-of-Islam.pdf

https://www.alislam.org/library/books/Noahs-Ark-Kashti-Nuh.pdf

Tags
#ahmadiyya #ahmadiyyatrueislam #ahmadiapartheid #Ahmadiyyat #rabwah #qadian #meetthekhalifa #muslimsforpeace #ahmadiyyafactcheckblog #nolifewithoutkhalifa #AhmadiMosqueattack #AhmadiyyaPersecution #trueislam