First
convert: Violet Ebrahim
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The first person to accept Islam at the hands
of Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din was a Mrs Violet Ebrahim. He reported
this conversion to the Ahmadiyya newspaper Badr as
follows:
Brethren,
assalamu alaikum. Time is very short. I have not yet
even filed the accompanying article which is about Woking.
It is to be published in the paper. It must be read out to
Hazrat [Maulana Nur-ud-Din] either in summary or in its entirety.
Today God made it a very blessed Friday. Among
the Englishwomen in my circle of meeting here is a Mrs Ebrahim,
a native of Scotland and daughter of a colonel. I continued
preaching to her in a slow process in my own way. Today she
was present at the Friday khutba. God had put into
my mind a fine topic on the special characteristics of the
Quran, which made a deep impression on her. In my letter to
Hazrat [Maulana Nur-ud-Din] yesterday, which will be received
with this letter, I mentioned a European woman who was getting
close to Islam.
After the khutba she joined the prayer of
her own will and pleasure. Praying in the manner in which
we do, she showed herself as a Muslim. Millions of thanks
to God for this. All brethren and the Hazrat sahib
should pray that she remains steadfast. This should not be
considered as a complete fulfilment of the prophecy. God the
Most High will, shortly, fulfil that dream of the late Hazrat
[Mirza Ghulam Ahmad]. However, by way of a good omen I mention
the following strange thing.
This is the first European woman who said Friday
prayers behind me. Her dress today, by a happy coincidence,
was a khaki satin. Could this not be the first of those
white birds whose wings, that is to say dress, the Hazrat
[Mirza Ghulam Ahmad] saw as khaki in his vision? The
wings of a bird are its dress as they cover its body. Congratulations,
congratulations, congratulations!
Kamal-ud-Din.
Badr, 6 March 1913, p. 5 (See
original report)
Note by Website Editor: The vision of Hazrat
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, referred to in this letter, was described
by him in his book Izala Auham, published 22 years
earlier in 1891 as follows:
This humble servant has been shown in a
vision that the rising of the sun from the West signifies
that the Western world which has been involved of old in
the darkness of disbelief and error shall be illuminated
with the sun of Truth, and those people shall have the light
of Islam. I saw that I was standing on a pulpit in the city
of London and explaining the truth of Islam in a well reasoned
address in the English language, and after this, I caught
a large number of birds that were sitting on small trees
and in colour they were white and their size was probably
the size of the partridge. So I interpreted this dream as
meaning that, though I may not personally go there, yet
my writings would spread among these people and many righteous
English men would fall a prey to the truth. (Izala
Auham, pp. 515-516)
The wings being of khaki colour is not in
this published version of the vision and must have been a
detail known by word of mouth at that time.
Maulana Nur-ud-Dins
reply
In the next issue of Badr, the reply by
Maulana Nur-ud-Din is published as follows:
Hazrat Khalifat-ul-Masih
says: I want to give you good news, and it is such a congratulation
that, at least in my view, no one would have given you. And
it is that when the Holy Prophet, may peace and the blessings
of Allah be upon him, was called to his mission the first
person to accept Islam on his hand was a woman. On your hand
too, in London, it is a woman who is the first to accept Islam.
This is tremendous good news. You must prostrate before Allah
the Most High, and I do so too. The second happiness and congratulation
I convey to you is that the people of England worship the
son of a woman, and it is a woman that you have made a Muslim
there first of all.
Badr, 13 March 1913, p. 2 (see
original report)
Later report in The Review
of Religions
In The Review of Religions of Qadian, the
Ahmadiyya monthly edited by Maulana Muhammad Ali till 1914,
in the issue for December 1913, there is a report containing
a letter by Violet Ebrahim. It is as follows:
Quotation from The Review of Religions begins below:
ONE MORE CONVERT AND A NOBLE APPEAL
One of the signs of the latter days which were
to see the advent of the Promised Messiah was the rising of
the sun from the West. This sun was the sun of Islam and we
are glad to say that the dawn has already begun to break from
the Western horizon. There has begun an awakening to Islam
in the West. The gloom which Christian misrepresentation had
spread over the West has begun to disappear and people are
becoming more and more alive to the truth of Islam. Christianity
is also waning and preparing the way for the spread of the
Muslim faith. The signs are very hopeful. Our readers have
already learnt of the conversion of Lord Headley. There are
others, both ladies and gentlemen, who have privately informed
our Missionary, Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, of their acceptance of
Islam and it is hoped that like Lord Headley they will soon
publicly announce their conversion.
A lady that has already announced her conversion
to Islam writes to Mrs. Khadev Jung:
My dear sister Mrs. Khadev Jung. I was
greatly pleased at your sending your regards to me in your
letter to Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din and I thank you for the same.
He told us how interested you were in his monthly paper
called the Islamic Review and in the work he was
doing: really he deserves all the encouragement we could
give him. Last year when Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din had recently
arrived in London, my husband met him at some meeting and
invited him in company with Mr. Zafar Ali Khan, Editor of
Zamindar, at our house. Since that day he was our
frequent visitor and he used to talk about Islam: he used
to invite us at his house on every Friday when after praying
he used to preach.
His logical arguments in favour of Islam and
his comparisons of Islam and Christianity were most interesting
and convincing. When I was with my parents I used to go
to Church with them every Sunday and used to hear the preacher
who failed to rouse in me any interest for religion, and
I used to take everything for granted without giving
any serious thought. Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din has studied Christianity
and therefore he is better able to make comparisons as to
what is said in the Bible on different subjects and how
Al-Koran treats the same subject, thereby proving how superior
Islam was to Christianity. My eyes were beginning to open
in favour of Islam and gradually I found that I was Moslem
at heart. My heart went to Islam all the more by my reading
every day in newspapers about the butchery and atrocities
committed by the Christians of Balkan on the noble Turks
whom now I consider my brothers in faith. I openly declared
to be Moslem. The Islamic Review has done wonders.
It has been my text-book, Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din has a
great talent for writing which must be a gift from God.
I can never thank him enough for the change he had brought
in my soul; we consider him as a member of our family; whenever
he comes to London from Woking, he stays with us.
He has made another conquest which will have
far-reaching consequences in favour of Islam. Lord Headley,
an Irish peer and member of the House of Lords, has accepted
Islam, so much so that he has commenced to contribute articles
in favour of Islam in the Islamic Review. We have
intimate knowledge of Khwaja Kamal-ud-Dins doings
from the time he came to London. He started the Islamic
Review at his own expense. He had about nine thousand
rupees when he came to London and he spent it all in his
work, publishing the Islamic Review and distributing
it broadcast. Living in London is also expensive. But now
he has no money and he is worried as to how to continue.
At present he is circulating only a thousand copies in the
Western world whereas at least a hundred thousand copies
should be given out. It would be a thousand pities and great
shame for us Moslems if his Islamic Review was to
stop for lack of financial help. I have been to the Woking
mosque with my husband and have prayed there on one Friday.
Khwaja sahib lives in the adjoining house belonging to the
Mosque, and he is living there very poorly, almost like
a hermit. Moslems of India should rise to this occasion
and you will please convey my message to my sisters in India
for helping him in this great work. This work should grow
to gigantic proportions and should spread through the whole
world. I shall be pleased to hear from you and I shall also
keep on writing to you. With true sisterly love,
I remain,
Yours sincerely,
VIOLET EBRAHIM
Mrs. Khadev Jung sends this letter to the Comrade
(Delhi) for publication together with a sum of Rs. 250
as her first installment towards the help of Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din.
She has made an appeal to the Mussalmans of India to assist
the Khwaja in his noble work and we are glad to learn that
her appeal has been answered by others. The Comrade
proposes to open a Fund in aid of Islamic Review. We
heartily thank those ladies and gentlemen who have given a
practical proof of their sympathy for the noble work which
our Missionary is doing in Europe and we hope that their example
will be followed by others. Ladies and gentlemen desiring
to be subscribers to the Islamic Review may send their
subscription money to Shaikh Rahmatullah, Proprietor, English
Warehouse, The Mall Road, Lahore, or to the Secretary
Sadr Anjuman-i-Ahmadiyya, Qadian.
The Review of Religions, December
1913, pp. 519 to 521 (see original
report)
Note by Website Editor
In her letter quoted above, Mrs Violet Ebrahim
has written:
Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din has a great talent
for writing which must be a gift from God.
(Click here to go to this line
in her letter.)
Some years earlier Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had
told Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din that, after praying for him, he had
received the following revelation about him: Husn-i Bayan.
This means eloquence of expression and indicated
that God would endow Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din with the gift of
eloquent speech and articulation. This is confirmed by Mrs
Violet Ebrahims own observation.
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