by
Mubarak Ahmad Khan
(Ex. National President of Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at New Zealand)
It gives me great pleasure to speak on Ahmadiyyat in New Zealand that is --how the Jamaat was formed in New Zealand.
Ahmadiyyat is the true essence of Islam. Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad the Promised Messiah (AS) started this Jamaat under the divine command of Almighty Allah in 1889 and since then it has spread all over the world in 180 countries and is spreading further more. Allah’s promise “I shall cause thy message to reach the corners of the Earth “is fulfilling with its great might.
God is the best planner, All Knowing and all wise. He chooses whom He desires for His plan to be fulfilled. This person does not have to be a smart or a highly educated. His Grace and Blessings bring everything that a person needs to complete the job. His strong hand makes the way and every impossible starts to become possible. I believe He had His mercy upon me in choosing me in establishing His Jamaat in New Zealand. Although I had been trying to come to NZ for a long time but it never happened until the time was right and when I came to NZ, the Government of New Zealand offered a permanent position of teaching with a sponsor letter to reside in New Zealand. That is why I feel I was a part of His plan. I feel humbled by His Grace as I don’t find any better qualities in myself than any other person who came to New Zealand before me.
“I started marching alone towards the destination. People joined me and a convoy continued to form”
There was no apparent sign or possibility of forming a Jamaat when I came here with my family in 1987. There was hardly any known Ahmadi in NZ. Hazrat Khalifatul Masih IV (Rehmullah) gave me permission to work in NZ and advised me to strive towards forming the Jamaat in New Zealand. He kindly guided me with numerous prayers and advices whenever I found myself in problems.
Let me give you a brief background of me becoming a Dai-illallah (Honorary waqif)
Background
In 1983, during his tour of Fiji Islands, Hazrat Khalifatul Masih IV (RA) approved my honorary waqf for Western Samoa where I spent 3 years working as a teacher in a Christian college. By the Grace of Allah, I converted 13 people to Ahmadiyyat. In November, 1986, on the way to Pakistan, I stayed in Auckland for a week. I explored the possibility of a teaching job and fortunately found a Science teacher’s job at Aorere College. I applied for a work permit and left for Australia where I received the approval of my work permit.
I returned to New Zealand on 1st January, 1987. I wrote a letter to Huzur seeking his permission to stay in New Zealand and to continue working as an honorary waqif. Huzur kindly granted me permission. We did not have an address of any Ahmadi living in New Zealand so we lived in various motels for two weeks. Rental properties were scarce. We finally found a rental house in Otara, a suburb in South Auckland which remained a temporary headquarter of our local Jamaat for one year until I bought my own house in Papatoetoe. This is where most of the planning and hard work was carried out to form a Jamaat in New Zealand.
Formation of Jamaat
I started gathering information from Fiji and Australia about Ahmadis living in New Zealand. I was told from Australia that Dr. Nadeem Mian, a Pakistani, was working in Auckland Hospital whom I invited to my residence. A few days later Muhammad Iqbal was contacted. I was now in a position to form a Jamaat. Huzur kindly approved our first Majlise Amla .
Mubarak Ahmad Khan National President
Dr. Nadeem Mian General Secretary
Muhammad Iqbal Financial Secretary
My accommodation, 22 velvet crescent, Otara, became Jamaat’s temporary headquarters. We opened our account with the ASB Bank and named our Jamaat as Ahmadiyya Muslim Association New Zealand. We did not have a proper Jamaat receipt book; therefore chanda was collected on a plain book that we bought from a stationary shop. Later on in June we received a Jamaat receipt book from Australia and designed our own receipt book. We advertised in the New Zealand Herald about our Jamaat and also provided our contact address and phone number for likely scattered ahmadis in New Zealand to contact me. From London and Fiji Jamaat I was given contacts of a few people. We started inviting non-Ahmadi friends to our meetings.
In June, 1987 Fiji had a coupe and this caused many Fiji Ahmadis to come to New Zealand. My close relations with Fiji Jamaat members helped me to find the migrating ahmadis quickly and keep them in close contact. As our number started to increase, I thought of registering our Jamaat with the Justice Department New Zealand. For this purpose I collected copies of the constitutions from Australia, UK and Nigeria. This helped me draft a constitution for NZ Jamaat. Mr. Muhammad Iqbal helped me type this constitution, complete the registration form and lodge it with the Justice Department, Auckland on 9th August, 1987.
I must tell you that Muhammad Iqbal, then a young lad, worked equally hard with me for the development of this Jamaat. He knew the city well and was willing to devote his time and effort to see that the Jamaat was established on solid grounds.
In order to unite and have good communications amongst Jamaat members, I started monthly meetings (Ijlaas) of Jamaat members. These Ijlaas’ were more like family meetings than a religious meeting as you may notice these days. There was a great feeling of belonging among the members and we talked about almost any personal problems for a solution. These Ijlaas’ were held at my residence in 22 Velvet Cres. Otara. Whenever we found any Ahmadi in Auckland, I made him part of Majlise Amla because we were always short of members. This method not only united the community members but also made them more active and responsible. We started publishing a magazine “Peyam-e-Aman”. Mr. Tariq Malik became its first editor.
On 25th December, 1987, we had our proper full day Ijlaas. Every one brought food and we had a memorable day. Dr Shorab taught kids scouting skills such as survival in a bush. My children still remember the way to pass a knife to another person.
By the end of the year, we had enough Lajna members in the Jamaat. Mrs. Nargis-un-Nisa was appointed its first national president.
Apart from working towards forming and organizing the Jamaat, there were number of other activities carried out in the year.
In February, 1987, Mr. Shakeel Munir, Amir Jamaat Australia asked me to help him translate “The Selected Verses of the Holy Quran “into Maori language. I contacted Mr. Morris Wilson; Head of Maori language at Aorere College who agreed and started its translation. This book took almost a year to complete
Huzur had asked us to find a large piece of land for the mission house .Therefore during this year; we remained very active in finding a suitable land for our mission house all over Auckland without any success. This search continued for 13 years until by the Grace of Allah we succeeded in buying a place at 16b Dalgety Drive, Wiri, Manukau, where you all are sitting today.
During 1988 we formed Majlise Khuddamul Ahmadiyya under the presidency of Dr. Muhammad Sohrab and Majlise Ansarullah under Mr. Iqbal Ahmad Khan.
Now that the Jamaat was formed and organized in various auxiliary Tanzeems, it was a matter of maintaining this work. For this purpose regular monthly Ijlaas’ of Jamaat and Tanzeems started to take place at Aorere College.
In 1989, Huzur, in his Friday sermon, had asked Ahmadis to attend Jumma Namaz. We decided to start having Jumma Namaz in my house at 482 Great South Road, Papatoetoe. Amazingly in spite of difficulties of transport and finance, everyone attended Jumma Namaaz regularly. Later on an additional jumma centre at Mr. Tahir’s place, in Auckland City was established for the convenience of members working in the city area.
1989 is a great historical year for NZ Jamaat. We celebrated centenary alongside the rest of the world. This was our first public gathering in which we had invited European and Maori guests. Three months later unexpectedly, Hazrat Khalifatul Masih IV honored us with his short visit which put NZ Jamaat on an international map. In one way, NZ Jamaat is unique in getting such an honor because there is hardly any Jamaat in the world which has been blessed with Khalifatul Masih’s visit at such a young state. We were less than 30 members including children at that time yet, with the Grace of Allah, we were made to appear to the world as a highly organized large community. We hosted this at a very high level in the White Heron Hotel. A luncheon with top 40 dignitaries from Auckland was held, an exciting Radio Pacific talkback, and an interview with Radio New Zealand and the Holmes show were recorded. We all had our personal family meetings with Huzur and a bai’at of a few lajna before his departure. A Maori chief, Mr. Maurice Wilson, was sent to attend the 1989 Jubiliee Jalsa Salana in UK on Huzur’s invitation. Allah fulfilled all our desires and made us proud. We observed many miracles of God during his visit and I wish to tell you about two miracles that are beyond explanation.
First miracle “He is a man of God”
We decided to invite prominent members from different sections of the community in Auckland. One such guest was Dr. Ranganui Walker, the head of the Maori Department at Auckland University. He is also a very senior spokes person of Maori people in a media. Members of the community warned me that he could be a problem person. I felt that such a person must be invited so I took Mr. Iqbal Khan with me and went to see him in his office. The moment I handed him a centenary book with a photograph of Hazrat Khalifatul Masih IV (Rehmullah), he uttered “He is a man of God; I shall come “The meeting did not take more than five minutes. Mr. Iqbal was shocked with surprise to hear this great sentence from his mouth. Mr. Iqbal later told me that how wrong he was in judging this man.
And the second miracle happened at the airport—God Almighty honored Huzur a VIP status. Before Huzur’s arrival, I tried my best to arrange for him to come out of the airport without any checks. All my efforts with Custom and Immigration at the Auckland airport failed to find any success. The night Huzur was to arrive, I went to the airport, a senior police officer met me and told me that he is assigned to assist me at the airport. I asked him if he could get our honorable guest out without the usual checks. He explained that it was beyond his powers. He suggested that we try with Air New Zealand officials. While we were walking towards the office, He received a message on his walkie talkie that Huzur is given a VIP status and he is coming out directly with someone. We ran to find Huzur coming out of the door. This was a big surprise for all of us. Indeed it was an act of God and His perfect plan worked.
In December 1989, we had our first Jalsa Salana. This was held in Aorere College Laboratories. The Jamaat flag was hoisted inside the lab which had arrived from London. We took our photographs. I think we were, including children, less than 50 members. Today we are having Jalsa in our own Marqaz with almost 5 times more Ahmadis.
The cutting has grown to a big tree and this happened with the effort of each one of you. Allah has showered His Grace and mercy upon us so much that we feel a big Jamaat today. It makes me so proud. I bow to my Almighty Lord and say “Subhan Alaah wa bi hamdihi Subhan Allah hill Azeem”
Since then our Jamaat has gone through a few administrative changes. Mr. Basharat Ahmad Khan and then Mr. Usman Dean Khan have done their utmost to lead the Jamaat to its new heights. Every member of the Jamaat has sacrificed everything such as time and money to assist the plans of presidents of their time.
Please do not take it in any negative form as I have missed many events due to my time restrictions. It is impossible for me to tell about every great success achieved in the past 18 years in only 20 minutes of my speech. At the end I want to spend the last few minutes of my speech in advising my fellow Jamaat members whom I call my family members.
Now we are in the fourth presidency. We all know that we are a small branch of the greater Jamaat which is headed by our beloved Khalifatul Masih Khamis. Our success is mainly in the obedience to Khilafat. My advice to you is “ Wa tasimu be hublillah” Hold the string of Khilafat tight, which on your end is handed down to you by your president of the time. You all can only unite and succeed if you obey your president and secretaries so you can receive the blessings of your Khalifa and ultimately make your God happy and He will have His mercy upon you and will guide you to another height. I have shown you my examples. In every situation I remained faithful and supportive to every president and the Aamla. Today I can tell each one of you that your respect, your success, your unity and the glory of your Jamaat depends upon your obedience to the administration. Don’t put your needs or personalities above the Jamaat. Don’t let Satan come in between you and your Jamaat. Don’t let your personal views or differences hinder its progress.
I want you to remain a family, guide each other as a family member, support the administration with unconditional obedience and loyalty so that your Allah may have mercy on you and make you the delight of your khalifa’s eyes. People do come and go. What they leave behind for others to remember are their deeds. Question yourself, what good deeds am I leaving in this Jamaat for the people to come? What have I contributed to the Jamaat that my generation can feel proud of me. In what manner will this Jamaat remember me?
I pray that Allah Ghafoorur Raheem forgive our weaknesses, have His mercy upon us and keep the spirit of brotherhood alive in us. May Allah help us in every difficulty and keep us steadfast and help us in holding the rope of Khilafat tightly. May Allah take this Jamaat to greater heights and make our generations remember us lovingly as we remember our great sohabas. O Allah shower your blessings on all those who have contributed in any way in the success of this Jamaat.
Rabbna taqabil mina inaka untas- samee uduaa. Ameen.