Book Nur-ud-Din

Maulana Nur-ud-Din expressed the following view:

"i. The Islam taught to us by that Divine Scripture, the Holy Quran, does not say anywhere that to become a Muslim you need to believe that Jesus had no father.

"ii. The Holy Prophet has not told us that a part of Islam is to believe that Jesus had no father.

"iii. Our beloved holy Companions, our four leaders of jurisprudence, and other great Imams, have nowhere instructed us that it is necessary to believe that Jesus was born without a father.

"iv. Our respected Sufi saints have not exhorted us anywhere in their teachings that to attain the ranks of Divine nearness, to accomplish self-reform, and to acquire noble morals, it is necessary to believe that Jesus had no father.

"v. Besides Jesus, how many prophets, messengers and appointed ones of God, have there been! Is the genealogy of any one of them recorded in the Holy Quran? In fact, God says, `None knows the hosts of thy Lord, save He'. So it is not necessary to know of the existence of everyone, let alone how they were born."

(Book Nur-ud-Din, pp. 181--182)

Comments on book about Jesus having a father

When `Master' Muhammad Saeed sent his book Sa`adat Maryamiyya, about the birth of Jesus through the agency of a human father, to Maulana Nur-ud-Din for an opinion, he gave the following reply:

"God does not waste anyone's effort. He says: `Whoever desires the Hereafter and makes an effort for it, and he is a believer, these it is whose effort is rewarded.' When it is accompanied by your sincerity and the backing of the Quran, you become deservant of Divine gratitude… I myself have held these beliefs since childhood, but you have not given the arguments which I had in my mind. However, Hazrat Mirza had said: `I have not been told by revelation to devote energy on this point. Otherwise, this is no great issue, and if there is Divine support I can write about it. Therefore, I am silent, and will remain silent till a Divine command comes.' This is a particular matter. But your labour cannot be worthless."

(Published in Periodical Paigham Sulh, 22 March 1929)

Reply to an enquiry

Shaikh Muhammad Jan, secretary of the Ahmadiyya Anjuman of Wazirabad, made a written enquiry from Maulana Nur-ud-Din in 1911 which ran:

"Sir! If a person amongst your disciples does not believe that Jesus was born without a father, is this to the detriment of his faith?"

The answer was given as follows:

"As far as my understanding goes, this issue is not a part of faith. There is no explicit direction in the Holy Quran or Hadith to the effect that one must hold this belief. If someone's research forces this conclusion [that Jesus had a father] upon him, he cannot help it. This is my view --- Nur-ud-Din."

(Al-Mahdi, January 1915)

THE QADIANIS

1. In a booklet entitled Izhar Haqiqat, published just before the death of Maulana Nur-ud-Din by the Ansarullah group of Qadianis, containing signatures of forty prominent men of the Ansarullah, they answered an objection raised by someone against Maulana Nur-ud-Din to the effect that he was associated with those who believed Jesus to have a father. It is written in this reply:

"You should first answer whether he [the Maulana] was associated with the Promised Messiah, or not. Prove from Islamic law that those who believe Jesus to have a father should be excluded from Islam, or should be declared transgressors and disbelievers like those who deny the caliphs."

(Izhar Haqiqat, p. 23)

2. Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad, the head of the Qadianis, replied to a Christian preacher in 1913 as follows:

"The reverend says that all Muslims are agreed upon this issue, except Sir Sayyid who has rejected it on rational grounds, but that no one has rejected it on the basis of the Holy Quran. However, I will go on to show that he is wrong in saying that no one has rejected it from the Holy Quran. I will prove that people have shed light on this from the Quran itself and have proved that Jesus was not born without a father, but was born like the rest of the world. What I mean to say is that there have been differences on this issue, and that some people have believed Jesus to have had a father."

(Tashhiz al-Azhan, April 1913, pp. 165--170)

3. In 1917, the following reply was given on behalf of Mirza Mahmud Ahmad to a question about the birth of Jesus:

"The Khalifat-ul-Masih II [Mirza Mahmud Ahmad] says that it is not on the basis of a clear verdict that he believes Jesus to have been born without a father, but it is a mere deduction, against which other people deduce the opposite view. However, historically the Ahmadiyya community has held the belief that Jesus had no father."

HAZRAT MAULANA MUHAMMAD ALI

In his famous Urdu commentary of the Quran, the Bayan al-Quran, Hazrat Maulana writes:

"Christians believe in the virgin birth of Jesus, and so do Muslims generally. But there are Christians who do not believe this, and also Muslims who do not. There is, however, one difference. If, in fact, Jesus was not born without a father, it does not have any effect on any religious belief of the Muslims because it is not part of their faith to believe in the virgin birth. But the very foundations of the structure of Christianity are uprooted if it cannot be proved that Jesus was born without a father. For if he had a father, then Mary did not conceive of the Holy Spirit, nor was Jesus divine, nor is the doctrine of atonement correct.

"So, Jesus not being born of a virgin uproots Christianity altogether, but does no harm to Islam. A Muslim equally believes in the prophethood of Jesus, whether he had a father or not. He only wants to consider what the Holy Quran says, or what can be established from the Holy Prophet's Sayings. If these record birth without a father, he will accept that, otherwise not. Nor would being born without a father show him to be superior to the prophets who had fathers because, for that matter, Adam and Eve had no father, and the Bible mentions Melchizedek who was `without father or mother', see Hebrews 7:3. In this case, these three would be considered superior to Jesus. But, in fact, the very argument is wrong that one born without a father is superior.

"Besides this, a Muslim does not hold that Mary conceived from the Holy Spirit. If he was born without a father, this would merely be one of the wonders of creation, that Mary possessed both types of faculties. In fact, it is not even a miracle because it is necessary for a miracle that someone should be a witness or observer. But none except Mary could be a witness to her conceiving without a husband. What sort of a miracle would this be? So all we have to determine is what the Holy Quran and the Hadith disclose about this.

"God Himself says that He has put into effect the law for mankind that after the beginning this race propagates by the sperm, and He says that He makes man from the sperm of the male mixed with the female ovum. So unless God explicitly says that He created Jesus against this law of mating, and in a different manner, we would have to accept that the means which God brought about correspond to this law. There is no question here of whether God has the power to do such a thing or not. He can create someone without a father or a mother. The question is only whether it can be shown from the Holy Quran or authentic Hadith that God made Jesus without a father. When He Himself explains a law, then unless He Himself says that in a certain case He displayed His power as against that law, we cannot take something to have happened in breach of His law. So if some person concludes from the words of the Holy Quran that Jesus was born without a father, let him believe it. I do not draw this conclusion from the Quranic words. Though I do not consider this issue to be of any great importance, I think that it is a Muslim's duty to make known his honestly and sincerely drawn conclusions from the Quran. Believing Jesus to have had a father, or believing him not to have had a father, does not affect our religious beliefs or practical actions in any way."

(Bayan al-Quran, footnote 427 under verse 3:46)