Intro
In 1977, K.L. Gillion published “The Fiji Indians: Challenge to European Dominance, 1920-1946″. He only quoted Ahmadiyya on one page and gave no references. He alleges that all of his info came from oral tradition. He quoted the Fiji Times and Herald of Nov 21-22-24-26, 1938 in terms of what happened after the Ahmadi’s were banned from all Muslims spaces. Check out my essay on the history of Ahmadiyya in Fiji and on Muhammad Abdullah.
Allegedly, several Fiji Indian Muslims were converted to Ahmadiyya ideas by Muhammad Abdulla, headmaster of the Hidayatul-Islam school at Nausori. Prominent Ahmadiyyas included Muhammad Tawahir Khan, a garage proprietor, transport operator and electricity contractor of Lautoka, the Sahu Khan family of Suva, and X. K. N. Dean. In 1933, in the name of the Fiji Muslim League, they brought out an Ahmadiyya preacher, Mirza Muzaffar Beg, after secret negotiations that angered the older orthodox Muslims. But they were not able to secure control of the League, and formed their own organisation, the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat-i-Islam. Disputes over the control of mosques and schools continued for some years, accompanied by violence and police intervention on occasion. The orthodox were more numerous, but the Ahmadiyyas had able, educated and wealthy leaders. Muzaffar Beg also angered the Arya Samajists, who protested that they had no champion since the government had refused to allow Srikrishna Sharma to return to Fiji after a visit to India and had also refused entry permits to other known Arya Samajist preachers. But the government did not take sides in these religious and sectarian disputes, and it applied the same treatment to Muzaffar Beg after his return to India.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Click to access K.L.-Gillion-The-Fiji-Indians-Challenge-to-European-Dominance-1920-1946.pdf
Page 122
“””Although the Muslim community presented a more united front to outsiders than the Hindus, it was not immune to sectarian conflict of an analogous type to the Arya Samajist/Sanatani conflict among the Hindus. When the Fiji Muslims appealed to their homeland for help it was not the traditional, orthodox Sunni Muslims who responded, but the modern missionary type, in this case the Ahmadiyya sect of Lahore, regarded as heretical by the orthodox. In the communal conflict in India in the 1920s the Ahmadiyyas were prominent as vocal champions of Islam against the Arya Samajists and were also active in proselytising abroad. Several Fiji Indian Muslims were converted to Ahmadiyya ideas by Muhammad Abdulla, headmaster of the Hidayatul-Islam school at Nausori. Prominent Ahmadiyyas included Muhammad Tawahir Khan, a garage proprietor, transport operator and electricity contractor of Lautoka, the Sahu Khan family of Suva, and X. K. N. Dean. In 1933, in the name of the Fiji Muslim League, they brought out an Ahmadiyya preacher, Mirza Muzaffar Beg, after secret negotiations that angered the older orthodox Muslims. But they were not able to secure control of the League, and formed their own organisation, the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat-i-Islam. Disputes over the control of mosques and schools continued for some years, accompanied by violence and police intervention on occasion. The orthodox were more numerous, but the Ahmadiyyas had able, educated and wealthy leaders. Muzaffar Beg also angered the Arya Samajists, who protested that they had no champion since the government had refused to allow Srikrishna Sharma to return to Fiji after a visit to India and had also refused entry permits to other known Arya Samajist preachers. But the government did not take sides in these religious and sectarian disputes, and it applied the same treatment to Muzaffar Beg after his return to India.
For a few years after 1934 the controversy between the Ahmadiyyas and the orthodox Muslims died down, but rows within the Muslim community continued over personalities and political ambitions rather than doctrines. The Punjabi brothers, Said Hasan and Muhammad Hasan, both lawyers and Sunnis, won for themselves positions of leadership in the Muslim community and respect from the government. But they were unable to control the Suva branch of the Muslim League, and their political ambitions were challenged by the Sahu Khan family, who formed the Muslim Association in 1938, with other Ahmadiyyas and some Sunnis as well. There was further trouble after the arrival of an orthodox teacher, Aziz Ahmed, in 1938, and there were quarrels over the possession of the Lautoka mosque in 1939, but the details need not detain us here. Enough has been said to indicate the pattern of sectarian conflict, exacerbated by personal and political rivalries and the activities of preachers and teachers from India, as the Indian community in Fiji struggled to educate its children and find dignity and acceptance in its new land and links with its past in India.”””
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Links and Related Essay’s
K.L. Gillion, The Fiji Indians Challenge to European Dominance, 1920-1946
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Tags
#ahmadiyya #ahmadiyyafactcheckblog #messiahhascome #ahmadiyyat #trueislam #mirzaghulamahmad
2 Pingback