Iqbal's writing...

Iqbal's writing: "Far from understanding the cultural value of the Islamic idea of finality in the history of mankind generally and of Asia especially he (i.e., Mirza Ghulam Ahmad) thinks that the finality in the sense that no follower of Muhammad can ever reach the status of prophethood is a mark of imperfection in Muhammad's Prophethood.

As I read the psychology of his mind he in the interest of his own claim to prophethood, avails himself of what he describes as the creative spirituality of the Holy Prophet of Islam and at the same time deprives the Holy Prophet of his "finality" by limiting the creating capacity of his spirituality to the rearing of only one prophet, i.e., the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement.

In this way does the new prophet quietly steal away the "finality" of one who he claims to be his spiritual progenitor". He claims to be 'buruz' [^4] of the Holy Prophet of Islam instituting thereby that, being a buruz of him, his finality is virtually the "finality" of Muhammad, and that this view of the matter, therefore, does not violate the finality of the Holy Prophet.

In identifying the two finalities, his own and that of the Holy Prophet, he conveniently loses sight of the temporal meaning of the idea of Finality. It is, however obvious that the word 'buruz' in the sense even of completed likeness, cannot help him at all, for the buruz must always remain the other of its original. Only in the sense of reincarnation a buruz becomes identical with the original.

Thus if we take the word 'buruz' to mean 'like in spiritual qualities' the argument remains ineffective. If, on the other hand, we take it to mean reincarnation of the original, in the Aryan sense of the word, the argument becomes plausible but its author turns out to be only a Magician in disguise." [^1]: Vol. 9, No. 3, March, 1914. [^2]: Vol. 12, No. 8, August, 1917. [^3]: Vol. 9, No 3, March, 1914. [^4]: Buruz: Appearance. Previous…