Khwaja Kamal-ud-Dins
acclaimed speech at the Allahabad Convention of Religions,
January 1911
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In January 1911 a conference under the name Convention of Religions
in India was held at Allahabad. Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din delivered
a speech at this convention on 9 January.
(Note: Maulana Muhammad Ali had also been invited but
as he could not go in person he sent a lecture which was read out
by Maulana Sadr-ud-Din. The text of Maulana Muhammad Alis
lecture was published in the Review of Religions, January
1911, the magazine of the Ahmadiyya Movement published from Qadian,
of which the Maulana was the editor. Some years later this lecture
was revised in the form of his well-known booklet Islam, The
Religion of Humanity.)
In the Ahmadiyya community newspaper Badr some reports
about the convention were published in its issues during January
and February 1911. In one issue it quoted a review of the convention
from the famous Muslim newspaper Paisa Akhbar. We translate
below extracts from that review:
“The most regrettable aspect of this Conference was the
apathy and indifference of our Muslim brothers. … After
all, this religious conference was in India, a country in which
the Ulama have written volumes upon volumes in calling one another
kafir and false, and to degrade one another, but none of them
made an appearance on this occasion to prove the truth of Islam.
… Very few Muslims were to be seen at the convention. On
the benches and chairs in the hall mostly Hindus and Christians
were to be seen. Perhaps no more than one-twentieth of the audience
were Muslims. …
It was a blessing of God that there were two papers by Muslims
read out at this occasion, and by good fortune those two papers
were acknowledged as the inspiring ones of the convention. One
was by Maulvi Muhammad Ali, M.A., editor of the Review of
Religions, Qadian, which was in eloquent English. The European
people among the audience, having heard it, gave the opinion that
there was probably no other paper of this standard. It explained
the philosophy of Islam and its pillars, and condensed a vast
amount of knowledge within a few pages. This paper was read on
the second day of the conference, and it was the only one listened
to with intense attention and pleasure by all present, regardless
of their religion, and praised by everyone, whereas the other
papers were listened to with ordinary attention.
On the first day there were papers on behalf of two different
sects of the Hindu religion, and for the Jews the paper by Mr
Isaac was worthy of praise. However, the paper which created such
a general delight among the audience that every few minutes the
hall echoed with “cheers” was the last paper [by Khwaja
Kamal-ud-Din]. It was delivered at a time when everyone was tired
from the exertions of the day. In the paper, it was shown that
the true religion of Islam, which is in consonance with human
nature, has been taught from the beginning of time by various
sacred personages and messengers in different countries; and when
the time came that all the parts of the world were to form a common
bond, this religion reached its complete form in the teachings
of the Holy Prophet Muhammad and the religion brought by him.
The author of this paper was Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, lawyer of the
Chief Court, Punjab. By gradually presenting various events, and
accepting all other religions in their original form as being
from God, he led the audience to a point where they had no choice
but to acknowledge the religion of the Holy Prophet Muhammad as
being the final and definitive one. This paper was highly valued,
and proved to be the one which fulfilled the objectives of the
convention of religions. The organizers of the convention accepted
the value of these two papers on Islam with much generosity. After
the Khwaja sahib finished delivering his paper, the President
of the Convention, Maharajah Bahadur Warbhanga, rose from his
chair to shake his hand. Justice Sarwacharan Matar and other Hindus
congratulated him. The Justice also said that not even twenty
conferences of Hindus and Muslims could do as much useful work
as this one paper.
A correspondent of a respected American newspaper, who had come
to take part in this conference, so much liked these two Muslim
papers that he intends to print photographs of the authors. Praise
be to Allah, it is a matter of the greatest pleasure that Islam
was victorious in this convention, no matter by the hands of which
person.”
As quoted in Badr, 2 February 1911, p. 6. See
at this link the review as reproduced in Badr.
A speech before Muslims on the day
before
A report in Badr says that on the day before his speech,
8 January, Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din gave a lecture at the Muslim Club,
Allahabad, on the topic The living and Perfect Prophet.
During this lecture he said:
“Friends! I received education in a Christian Mission college,
and I developed a close connection with the reverend professors
there. All the attractions of Christianity, natural and artificial,
had influenced me. May God bless my guide and leader, Hazrat Mirza
sahib. If he had not guided me, probably today in some church
hall in Allahabad you would have heard me proclaiming “Jesus
is our Lord” and making speeches in support of the doctrines
of the cross, but today you are seeing me speaking in support
of Islam and its founder. God had granted me the skill of public
speaking. It would have been employed for one purpose or another:
either I would be your lecturer or a preacher of Christianity.
At exactly the critical juncture when the attractions of Christianity
had brought me fully under their spell, my guide rescued me from
this European enchantment.”
Badr, 26 January 1911, p. 6.
Speech at Convention
At this link
we have provided the text of Khwaja Kamal-ud-Dins speech to
the convention. |