Articles of Faith:

 I. We, the members of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Jamaat, believe what the Founder himself believed, and also wanted us to do, in his following words:

‘I enjoin on my Jamaat that they should, with a true heart, have faith in the Kalima Tayyiba: La ilaha il-Allah Muhammad-ur-Rasool Allah (‘There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah’) and should die in that faith. And they should believe in all prophets and all revealed books whose truth is evident from the Holy Quran. And they should carefully and correctly follow the tenets of Islam, and they should consider all the duties laid down by Allah and His Messenger to be incumbent on themselves, such as prayer, Zakat (charity), fasting, etc. And they should give up all that is forbidden (by Allah and His Prophet). In short, it is obligatory to believe in all matters, whether of faith or practice, on which there has been consensus between the past righteous leaders of Islam, and which are considered by consensus among the Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat to constitute Islam. And we call upon the heavens and the earth to bear witness that this is our religion. And he who accuses us of faith contrary to this religion is guilty of slander against us without regard to fear of Allah and to honesty. And on the Day of Judgement it will be our case against him whether he had opened up our hearts to be able to allege that at heart we believed contrary to what we have professed above. May the curse of Allah fall on those who lie or make false charges’ (from the book Ayyam-us-Sulh, published 1899, p. 87).

II. As the detractors of the Founder accused him of all sorts of things, he personally read out on October 2, 1892, the following statement in the sanctity of the biggest House of Allah in the Indian sub-continent (now broken up into India and Pakistan), namely the Jamia Masjid, Delhi (which later became the capital of the British Government in the sub-continent):

‘I have heard that some of the leading Ulema of this city are giving publicity to false charges against me that I lay claim to prophethood, or do not believe in angels, or in heaven and hell, or in the existence of Gabriel, or in Lailat ul-Qadr (the Night of Majesty), or in miracles, or in the Miraj (Ascension) of the Holy Prophet. So to make the truth known to all and sundry, I do hereby publicly declare that all this is a complete fabrication. I am not a claimant to prophethood, nor am I a denier of miracles, angels, Lailat ul-Qadr, etc. On the other hand, I confess belief in all those matters which constitute the Islamic principles of faith. And, in accordance with the belief of the Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat, I believe in those things which are established from the Quran and Hadith. And I regard any claimant to prophethood and messengership after our Master Muhammad Mustafa (may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), the Last of the Messengers, to be a liar and a disbeliever (kafir). It is my conviction that wahy-e-risalat (revelation given to a Messenger of Allah) began with Adam, the chosen one of God, and came to a close with Muhammad Mustafa, the Messenger of Allah.’

III. The Founder, on another occasion, wrote:

‘I wish to make it abundantly clear to the people at large that I call to witness the Mighty and All-Powerful Allah that I am not a kafir (disbeliever). I have whole-hearted faith in La ilaha il-Allah Muhammad-ur-Rasool Allah. And as for the Holy Prophet Muhammad (may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), I believe that he was the Messenger of Allah and the Last of the Prophets. As evidence of the truthfulness of this, my declaration, I swear by Allah as many times as His Blessed Names are, and as many times as the number of letters of the Holy Quran are, and as many times as the excellences of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) are in the view of Allah’ (Karamat-us-Sadiqeen, p. 25, in the edition published on August 24, 1893).

IV. ‘The sum and substance, and the summary, of our faith is La ilaha il-Allah Muhammad-ur-Rasool Allah’ (Izala-e-Auham, 1891, p. 224).

We could cite any number of other references to show that the faith of the Founder and ourselves is not a whit different from conventional Islam. Then why all the propaganda against him and us? For that, a brief account of the historical background follows.