This year Ahmadiyya Muslim Community celebrates its 100th anniversary in the USA. Mufti Muhammad Sadiq was the first Islamic missionary to set foot on the soil of these United States. Upon his arrival on Feb. 15, 1920, at the Philadelphia port, he was taken into custody before disembarking to be sent back to India. He had indicated that the purpose of his visit was to preach the message of Islam to Americans. Mufti Muhammad Sadiq had preached Islam in England for several years before coming to the US. He appealed the decision and was incarcerated in the Philadelphia Detention Center, where in a matter of weeks, Sadiq was able to convince some 19 people of various nationalities from among the detainees to accept Islam. He was released in April 1920.
Mufti Muhammad Sadiq set out to introduce the teachings of Islam as explained by the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community to the American people through public lectures and articles in the newspapers. He established his mission headquarters first in New York and then in Chicago. He forged contacts with other Muslim communities that had immigrated to the United States from various Arab countries and from the Balkan states. In 1921 he started publishing a quarterly journal, Moslem Sunrise, that is the only continuously published Islamic magazine for 100 years. The journal defended Islam against false accusations published in American newspapers and magazines.
By 1922 Mufti Sadiq had gathered communities of newly converted Muslims in Chicago, Detroit, Gary, Ind., and St. Louis. These were from white, brown and black races, all worshipping together without distinction. Mufti Sadiq was traveling widely, giving lectures at schools, clubs and lodges. African-Americans were the most active members of the new community. Several of them became very successful missionaries under the able leadership of Mufti Sadiq. Before he returned to India in 1923, Mufti Sadiq had created vibrant multicultural communities of Ahmadi Muslims in many big cities in the Eastern and Midwestern United States.
Ahmadiyya Muslim Community was established in 1889 in Qadian, a small hamlet in the state of Punjab. The founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, declared that violent Jihad has no sanction in Islam; instead Qur'an urges Muslims to carry out defense of Islam through dedicated efforts to cleanse one's own soul and to become a role model for others to follow. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is the leading Islamic organization to categorically reject terrorism.
Congratulations, Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, USA, for a great century of working to promote tolerance and harmony among the various ethnic and religious communities in the United States of America. Let us join hands to pray that the mission of Ahmad comes to pass in our lifetime, and that we see with our own eyes the end of religious and ethnic wars, incessant violence and unending hatred in the world. May morality, justice and peace prevail. Amen.
NAN Religion on 02/22/2020