Intro
The famous Ahmadiyya schism erupted in Pittsburgh in 1934, via Saeed Akmal and Sheikh Ahmad Nasir. Saeed Akmal called Sufi Muti-ur-Rahman Bengali a slave master, an uncle Tom (See Dannin. A few months earlier, in Cleveland (in the mission house and followers of Wali Akram), another Qadiani-Ahmadi Maulvi named Muhammad Yusuf Khan openly exploited African-American’s and even had them buy him a car (See Dannin, page 98). Muhammad Yusuf Khan even had them pay for his travel to British-India. However, while Muhammad Yusuf Khan was gone to British-India (on an import/export run), the African-American’s figured out that they were being exploited and sold all of Muhammad Yusuf Khan’s furniture and ousted his heir too (some desi guy who didn’t know Arabic). Sufi Muti-ur-Rahman Bengali ran to Cleveland and promised changes and publicly denounced Muhammad Yusuf Khan and thus quelled the situation for a few months. Check out the full history of Ahmadiyya in the USA herein.
The schism between the converts and the missionaries had widened into a gulf by the latter half of 1936, when Sufi Muti-ur-Rahman Bengali demanded more money for return travel from India. He pressured Ahmadiyya stalwarts in Pittsburgh and Chicago while urging the Clevelanders to pay their arrears. The whole structure of Ahmadiyya authority was based on this material sign of loyalty. Any breach of unity was tantamount to blasphemy against Allah, he warned. Wali Akram famously quits Ahmadiyya in Cleveland in the summer of 1936.
Nevertheless, in late 1936 a full-on rebellion took place between the African-American pseudo Ahmadi’s and the Ahmadi immigrant Maulvi’s from British India. African-American’s like Wali Akram and Saeed Akmal alleged that Sufi Muti-ur-Rahman Bengali, did little to change the Jim Crow system of double standards. It became known that he organized Sufi rites for white people but kept African Americans segregated in their mosque. Those who questioned his practices were told that black people weren’t ready for Sufism, an affront that prompted one anti missionary partisan to retort, “I’d rather be a friend of the white man than be a friend of yours. . . . You have nothing to offer me, not even the Arabic language because all you know is Urdu. You don’t even know Arabic, just enough Arabic to read the Quran and that’s it! (This is the testimony of Hameeda Mansur, audiotape interview by author, Cleveland, August 25, 1990, via Dannin). At some point in 1936, while at Juma prayer, Wali Akram announced his independence from the Ahmadiyya Movement (Qadiani) in dramatic fashion, he had a dream. Sufi Muti-ur-Rahman Bengali heard about all of the turmoil and rushed to Cleveland where he found Wali Akram in the Mosque (mission house) giving Arabic lessons. Sufi Muti-ur-Rahman Bengali yelled out that this mission house was property of the Ahmadiyya Movement and anyone not loyal to Ahmadiyya should leave, practically the whole congregation left (See Hameeda Mansur, audiotape interview by author, Cleveland, Aug-25-1990, via Dannin).
Continue reading “In the USA, the Ahmadiyya Movement never spoke out vs. Jim Crow laws (1936)!!”