Al Islam

Hadhrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad, Khalifatul-Masih IV, was the fourth successor of Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian (India), the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and the divine reformer of this age.

Hadhrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad was born in Qadian, India on December 18, 1928. He was a grandson of Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. His father was Hadhrat Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmood Ahmad, the second successor of the founder. His mother was Maryam Siddiqa, a direct descendant of the Holy Prophet of Islam. He studied in Qadian, the Government College Lahore, and at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. In 1957, he married Asifa Begum, with whom he had four daughters.

After his studies, he served the Community with great devotion and skill in various administrative capacities. He was elected to the office of the head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in 1982. In 1984, when the persecution of Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan became intolerable, he immigrated to England and had been living there since.

He was an avid reader, and his interests spanned an extraordinary variety of subjects. An accomplished poet in his native language, Urdu, his poems move one deeply with its eloquence, anguish, and hope. He enjoyed teaching and talking to children. Despite his various responsibilities as the head of the Community, he regularly met with people from all walks of life and answered hundreds of letters that arrived every day requesting his prayers and advice. He was known for his keen intellect, his witty sense of humor, his redoubtable energy and his active interest in the game of squash.

He spoke and wrote extensively on a wide range of spiritual and secular subjects. In one of his many books, Murder in the Name of Allah, he forcefully argued from the Holy Quran and early Muslim history that Islam unequivocally rejects and reprobates coercion and compulsion in the matter of faith. In his recent book, Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge, and Truth, he sought to establish the truth of the Holy Quran in the light of modern physical and biological sciences.

Under his inspired leadership, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has made remarkable progress and has accomplished notable milestones. He oversaw the establishment of Muslim Television Ahmadiyya (a 24-hour religious television program that reaches large parts of the globe through a satellite channel), several medical clinics, and numerous mosques and mission houses all over the world. Under his direction, the Holy Quran was translated into more than fifty languages. During the past year alone, more than five million new members have joined the Community.

An internationally acclaimed thinker and scholar of comparative religions, he had a profound understanding of the Holy Quran, the Bible, and other scriptures. A discerning student of world history and a keen observer of the international political scene, he urged peace and tolerance among all nations and all peoples. He cared deeply about global human rights, championed the cause of the persecuted and the dispossessed, and advocated Islam as the solution of all contemporary political, social, economic, and spiritual problems.

Hadhrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad passed away on April 19, 2003 after a brief illness. May God bless his soul.