Barelvi'ism and Christianity: similarities and the possible reasons why

It is important to mention that Naqi Ali Khan took part in a debate which discussed
the omnipotence of Allāh. In this debate a very important matter was discussed known
as ‘imkan-e nazir’ or the possibility of an equal. This revolved around the issue of the
ability of Allāh, whether he was able to create another equal to the Prophet
Muḥammad. Any general Muslim would believe that Allāh is able to do everything,
so the possibility of Allāh creating another creation similar to the prophet is definitely
possible; however, Naqi Ali Khan opposed such an idea, believing that there could be
no one like the messenger and that Allāh is not able to create the likes of the
Messenger (Sanyal, 2005). This understanding of Naqi Ali Khan gives an insight to
his `aqīdah showing us that he believed that Allāh is not all-powerful.
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Goodness gracious me. It's true then that Wahabis have absolutely no grasp of theology.

 

Unfortunately, sources are limited in providing historical information about Ahmed Riḍa’s grandfather and what is known of him is almost inconceivable.
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Really?

Is that why you keep calling him Hasan Raza?

 

Moreover, it is important to recognise that the first person to gain Islāmic knowledge within the family, which was then passed down to his father, was his grandfather, Hasan Raza Ali Khan.
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the question you must ask is how many pints of low quality liquor did nouman drink before he wrote this screed.

since it is rumoured that nouman could be a graduate of madinah university, it is difficult to imagine how liquor was smuggled in this holy place. if this is disproved, we must turn to our second hypothesis - LSD.

if it cannot be proven that he downed pints of cheap liquor, the only other explanation is that he was under the influence of drugs.

if not, then the third hypothesis is that the man is raving mad and a psychopathic liar like khalid mahmud and ehsan zaheer.

what else can explain hallucinations?

 

Sanyal (1996) mentions that it was Ahmed Riḍa and his father who went together to pledge allegiance to become murīds of Shah Aale
Rasool, however, Cassim (2010) mentions that it was Ahmed Riḍa and the mentor of his father Badayouni who took this journey and there is no mention of the father.
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Three of them went.

 

And again:

Zaheer (2011, p. 26) claims ‘that in fact he authored no more than ten books’.​

 

The confused Nouman writes:

He never attended school, he was home tutored by his father; it has already been mentioned that the possible reason for this was because of the fear that his son might be affected by the Christian Missionaries. In addition to this, Sanyal (1996) suggests that it was due to the British control over the madrasas.​

 

Furthermore, it was within this generation that the custom of taṣawwuf was introduced in the family and Hasan Raza was the first to have gained Islāmic knowledge under Mowlana Khaleel ur Rahman (Cassim, 2010). Thus, the trend within his family shifted from being progovernment to being anti-government and gave rise to a generation dedicated to Islāmic knowledge.
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The mysterious Hasan Raza makes an appearance again...

 

His forefathers were known to have worked for the government including the government under the British rule, however, for reasons
that are not mentioned, the grandfather of Ahmed Riḍa, Hasan Raza, was the first of his family to discontinue the connection with the British government and fought with General Bakht Khan against the British in 1834 (Sanyal, 2005).
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Will have to check again but I'm sure Sanyal doesn't mention half of this. Also, who is Hasan Raza ?

 

With regards to their beliefs about the Messenger, the Deobandis held the position that the messenger was human and not divine; this was something that Ahmed Riḍa would vigorously deny and it was from the beliefs that would be vehemently refuted by him in his fatāwa and
books.
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Lā ḥawla wa-lā quwwata illā bi-Llāh

 

One can rather swiftly gauge Dr Nouman’s grasp of historical nuance simply by examining the sources he chooses to cite. Take, for instance, this:

Gordon (2014, p. 83) believes that the rising of this sect was seen as response to the dangers brought by the British, he mentions that the Deoband are ‘the Hanafi school of jurisprudence adopted by some Mughals but was nevertheless a puritanical reformist movement in response to the perceived modernisation then being imposed by the encroaching British’.​

This statement is, on its face, a historical anachronism. Dār al-ʿUlūm Deoband was founded in 1866, nearly a decade after the collapse of the Mughal Empire in 1857 and the exile of its final emperor, Bahadur Shah II. To suggest that Deobandism was “adopted by some Mughals” is not only inaccurate—it is chronologically impossible.

One is left wondering whether the author actually verified the substance of his citations, or whether the allure of an academic reference, however flawed, was sufficient to underwrite a thesis already in search of a scaffold.

Even more damning is the fact that the very beliefs Dr Nouman claims are Christian parallels were also widely upheld under the Mughal empire—an empire he describes as being Deobandi.

So the question naturally arises: are we now to assume that both the Baraylawis AND the Deobandis—by his own line of argument—are theologically akin to Christians? If shared practices constitute theological imitation, then by his own logic, the Mughal court, with its reverence for saints, celebration of the Prophet’s birth, and endowment of shrines, must also fall under this imagined umbrella of crypto-Christianity.

In attempting to tarnish the Baraylawis, Nouman’s argument collapses under the weight of its own inconsistency, ensnaring even those he implicitly seeks to exonerate.

 

For example, in 1880s British nurses in Bareilly would give medical help to the local people but at the same time give Bible classes to their patients (Singh, 2000). It was at this time, Ahmed Riḍa, was becoming more of a prominent figure in society and towards the end of the century the tide had changed to intra-faith dialogue and debate.
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*Yawn*

 

I might now resign myself to abandoning this drivel. It is, quite frankly, an exercise in absurdity. The “evidence” presented so far is that there was a marginal increase in Christian missionary activity in North India during the lifetime of al-Imām Aḥmad Riḍā Khān. From this, the author leaps to the astonishing conclusion that the Imām—despite the author admitting as having no secular education, no known engagement with missionary texts—must have somehow absorbed and been influenced by Christian theology.

This is not scholarship; it is conjecture bordering on the laughable. One might as well argue that any Muslim scholar who lived under British colonial rule was a latent Anglican.

 

However, we also see a great increase in the number of communicant members at the turn of the century, this period coincides with when Ahmed Riḍa was at his most influential. Ahmed Riḍa seems much more lenient towards the Christian missionaries than he was towards the different sects in Islām during this time, was it that he did not see them as much of a threat or was it because that the missionaries held similar beliefs to him as opposed to the Deobandis who were against shrine and saint worship?
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How so? There is no proof for this claim in this "academic" piece

 

Dr Nouman is so confused. He writes:

This progression was to show more signs of improvement after the mutiny, this period coincides with the time of Ahmed Riḍa’s
education. However one should note that this progression is considered significant relative to its situation prior to this. This point is reinforced by Webster (2007, p.111) who mentions while discussing the 1881 census ‘there were 299 Catholics recorded’.
This number is out of ‘3912 Native Christians in the Punjab and its dependencies’ (Webster, 2007, p.111). This indicates that while there was some improvement, the work by the Roman Catholics in this period would have not caused too much concern to the likes of Ahmed Riḍa even though the beliefs of Ahmed Riḍa closely resemble those of Catholicism; one would not see the Roman Catholics having enough strength to influence Ahmed Riḍa.
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al-Imām Aḥmad Riḍā Khān was born in 1856 and thus 25 years old in 1881, where there were only 299 Catholics in the whole of the North West Frontier.

He also states:

After the mutiny it was slow progress with regards to the willingness of the missionaries to work in North India. One can only be lead to believe that the mutiny itself was a deterrent to the Christian missionaries coming from the west. Webster (1976) mentions that in 1864 in North India there were 216 communicant members and by 1870 this had increased by only 20.​

 

There is insufficient literature about how much governmental schooling Ahmed Riḍa was exposed to,
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None whatsoever

 

A curious line of reasoning emerges when one applies Dr Nouman’s methodology consistently. By his logic, one might conclude:

1. Dr Nouman and the Christians are united in their belief that Adam, peace be upon him, is the father of mankind.
   
   
2. Dr Nouman and the Christians both affirm that the Bible was a originally a divine revelation from Allah.
   
   
3. Dr Nouman and the Christians profess belief in Resurrection, life after death, and the realities of Paradise and Hellfire.
   
   
4. Dr Nouman and the Christians maintain belief in the existence and function of angels.
   
   
5. Dr Nouman and the Christians both uphold the miraculous virgin birth of Jesus, peace be upon him.
   
   
6. Dr Nouman and the Christians are in agreement concerning the existence of Satan as a malevolent force.

One wonders, then—using his own criteria—whether Dr Nouman might also be accused of theological syncretism with Christians?

 

Utterly laughable

There are three main hypotheses that will be explored. The first hypothesis; Ahmed Riḍa was directly affected by Christianity, either by Christian Missionaries that were in North India or by the British government, this is the claim of the Deobandis (Mahmood 2012). The second hypothesis that will be looked at is that Ahmed Riḍa absorbed in the different cultures around him and thus was indirectly influenced and it was this that led his form of Islām to resemble Christianity. If one finds that one of the previous two hypotheses are true this would necessitate that Ahmed Riḍa propagated a Christian version of Islām. If it is not possible to prove these hypotheses then a third hypothesis that will be explored and that is that both Ahmed Riḍa and Christianity were affected by similar external factors that led to the religions being similar. If we find that this hypothesis is true this would necessitate that Ahmed Riḍa propagated what he believed was the correct form of Islām and that these beliefs were parallel to certain beliefs held by some of the different sects of Christianity.​

 

فَنَجْعَل لَّعْنَتَ اللَّهِ عَلَى الْكَاذِبِينَ


ehsan zaheer was an even bigger liar - kazzabun ashir - than khalid mahmud. shameless scoundrel.

i believe that he received the first punishment in this world already - the scoundrel was blown to bits by dogs. and may Allah give him what he deserves.

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the humbug is lying shamelessly. they don't have the capability to read alahazrat.