Background.

In late 2018, Umar Nasser and I began discussing the Pigott prophecy of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Umar and his brother co-founded the Rational Religion video channel and website. Their focus? To respond to the atheist critique of religion through the lens of Ahmadiyya Islam.

In this article, I’ll take you through some of my dialogue with Umar Nasser, as well as some points where his brother Tahir Nasser, chimed in. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s prophecy concerning John Hugh Smyth-Pigott (herein “Pigott”) was our focus.

Beyond follow up to conversations on social media, this article will evaluate specific arguments presented by other Ahmadi Muslim apologists made in writing and through video. Namely, material from Ahmadi Muslims Asif M. Basit and Rehan Qayoom. We’ll evaluate changes in Tadhkirah translations and triangulate expectations telegraphed by Jama’at publications from as late as April 1907.

Conversation on this topic with Umar began when the discussion segued into prophecy. I took that opportunity to pivot into what I believe to be Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s failed death prophecy against Pigott. 

You mean like the failed Pigott prophecy? You can’t get out of this one.https://t.co/BNaEpiigAW

— Reason on Faith (@ReasonOnFaith)

December 31, 2018

[archived screenshot]

In the above tweet, I cite the excellent article by author Marmuzah, entitled Ahmadiyya and The Case of John Hugh Smyth-Pigott.

For a proper background to this prophecy and why non-Ahmadis (whether Muslim or not) believe it was a failure, readers are encouraged to read Marmuzah’s article in full. It provides the background and context for understanding the rest of this article.

A Timeline.

This article will make reference to several events and publications spanning over a century, which are also presented in the following timeline.

A timeline of events and publications relevant to the Pigott prophecy issued by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. [Popout Timeline]

Conversations with an Ahmadi Muslim.

My Twitter conversation with Umar Nasser spans multiple tweet-threads. Unfortunately, there isn’t a single link that presents the entirety of our conversation. Such is often the case with conversations on Twitter. The following links, however, should help you navigate through the multiple threads of which our dialogue is comprised.²

• Thread 1
• Thread 2
• Thread 3

With this background, we can produce a summary of Umar Nasser’s key contentions.

I have to commend Umar Nasser in this particular conversation. We were able to exchange ideas without degenerating into ad hominem. After much back and forth, seeing that we were both making assertions that the other was not accepting, I decided to save both of us going in circles. For this reason, I suggested that I would try to revisit the topic in the future in a longer form medium. This is that promised follow-up.

Ok, thanks, until then!

— Umar Nasser (@UmarN91) January 4, 2019

[archived screenshot]

Having both made our points; we cordially agreed to leave it there. At least for the time being.

I’m sure Umar feels confident about the points he made in our dialogue. As do I. We were brief, but key points that needed to be made, were made.

For those of you who felt Umar’s responses were adequate in salvaging Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s prophecy, I encourage you to continue reading. I will endeavor to unpack the layers of defense used in Ahmadiyya apologetics with regards to the Pigott prophecy.

Parting Shots.

Before we dive into an exploration of the prophecy and my conversation with Umar, I’d like to address the parting shot I received from his brother.

Having wrapped up this cycle of our dialogue, Tahir Nasser decided to chime in with a sanctimonious tweet:

Umar you might as well stop. This conversation more than any I have read highlights the nature of disbelievers: ‘whether you warn them or warn them not, they will not believe’.

No answer you can give will satisfy him or his compatriots. They are determined to reject.

— Tahir Nasser (@TahirNasser)

January 4, 2019

[archived screenshot]

Tahir Nasser suggests that my objections to the fulfillment of this prophecy, in light of Umar Nasser’s arguments, amounts to some kind of deficiency in my nature. This accusation is actually quite revealing—about the accuser. Implicated here as well, is the doctrine to which he subscribes.

Tahir Nasser should really consider that I could make the equivalent counterclaim:

Instead, I believe that it’s best for people to simply lay out their arguments. Far superior an approach than to pass judgment on people’s ‘nature’. It does not follow that because we disagree with another’s argument, that we must therefore belong to a category of people who suffer from some manner of mental infirmity.

What Tahir Nasser also fails to realize, is that just as I accept that Nostradamus had some prophetic hits, I grant Mirza Ghulam Ahmad the same. While I haven’t performed a formal comparison between the two, my cursory intuitions would posit that Nostradamus was probably much more impressive in his predictions than Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.

I also don’t believe it to be an “Islamophobic” conspiracy that History Channel documentaries abound exploring the predications of Nostradamus but none have been made introducing the world to the predictive genius of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. The same goes for the Discovery Channel.

What Ahmadi Muslim apologists should take note of is that I have never asserted that every prophecy of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had failed. For example, I haven’t bothered to dispute the Dowie prophecy and its outcome.⁴

If those of us who reject the Pigott prophecy were mindless disbelievers with sealed hearts, we’d be rejecting every positive insight or contribution from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Yet many of us ex-Muslims of the ex-Ahmadi variety applaud without reservation Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s strong rebuke of the Islamists of his time, for example.⁵

The fact that many of us former Ahmadi Muslims are particularly interested in the Pigott prophecy should give Ahmadi Muslim apologists pause. We believe failed prophecies are false prophecies. And false prophecies can only come from false prophets. Gullibility is not a virtue.

Exploring the Prophecy.

I’m certain that both Umar and I could fill dozens of pages expanding on the points touched upon in our conversation. My review, however, limits the discussion to what I believe to be the most salient points raised.

The main points of defense offered by apologists for why Pigott did not die within Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s lifetime:

1. Pigott retreated for a time. His punishment was kept in abeyance while he went quiet.
2. Pigott never accepted Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s challenge of mubahila.

Only a decade ago, the apologetics from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community looked more like this:

1. Pigott retreated for a time. His punishment was kept in abeyance while he went quiet.

The following video provides a succinct critique of the Pigott prophecy based on the apologetics that were current back in 2010. That is, prior to the mubahila apologetic gaining popularity as the reason for why Pigott didn’t die before Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.

The video was produced by Farhan Yusufzai, who adheres to a more normative understanding of Islam. Even those viewers not interested in the video’s invitation to Islam (the last thirty seconds) should find the rest of the video a compelling synopsis on why the Pigott prophecy has come under so much scrutiny. 

5-minute video: A counter-apologetics video by a mainstream Muslim who critiqued Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s death prophecy against Pigott. This video was produced in 2010, prior to the mubahila apologetic gaining popularity among Ahmadi Muslim apologists. See original video of which this is a mirror.

In addition to their explanations for why Pigott was spared, Ahmadi Muslim apologists have consistently made broader observations about Pigott’s life and legacy:

1. Pigott’s health, relationships, and church movement began to fall apart after his 1909 profession of divinity. Therefore, Pigott received his promised punishment.⁶ He was humiliated in his own lifetime.
2. Pigott’s Agapemonite movement died out, while Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s Ahmadiyya Muslim Community continues to grow around the world.

These ancillary observations are used more generally as a vindication of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. See the sidebar from this article entitled Prophetic Red Herrings for some additional commentary on how these outcomes do not address the actual prophecy that was issued by Ahmad.

This article will, for the most part, ignore the rejoinder that Pigott’s life was a mess after 1909 as that is nowhere prophesied in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s warning proclamation containing the death-prophecy.

Although dialogue had on social media is rarely linear and compartmentalized, I will attempt to focus discussion on one apologetic defense at a time. There is, however, a natural interplay and drift between the two arguments which will also be reflected in this article. As a result, some restatement of pivotal arguments and concepts will be unavoidable.

The Repentance Argument.

The traditional defense offered by Ahmadi Muslim apologists for the events surrounding this prophecy is that Pigott wasn’t killed because his behavior after Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s warning proclamation amounted to an effective repentance and retreat. Some apologists even use the word ‘retract’ in a manner that implies a retraction might have been issued, to describe Pigott’s behavior during his first few years in Spaxton.

Prior to ~ 2010, articles and dialogue on the Pigott prophecy emphasized Pigott’s lack of public proclamations of divinity in the years leading up to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s death. That was the reason given for Pigott having been spared God’s wrath.

Repentance, however, was the only condition offered in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s warning proclamation that could have given Pigott an out.

Umar Nasser and I do touch on Pigott’s behavior and notions of retreat and repentance. However, our conversation began with the second and more modern defense of the prophecy now offered by Ahmadi Muslim apologists—the challenge of mubahila.

The Mubahila Argument.

Umar Nasser claims that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s warning proclamation to Pigott was always contingent on Pigott accepting his challenge. Umar Nasser cites a footnote in Tadhkirah claiming that a letter from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad accompanied Ahmad’s original warning to Pigott. This letter apparently included the phrase, “If you have the power, come and compete with me.”

– The lifetime challenge is a mubahila challenge, as made clear in this statement given with the announcement to Piggott – “Come and compete with me.” This was not accepted formally, so the lifetime challenge did not happen + Piggott backed down from strong divinity claims. pic.twitter.com/wtvXp75Ewr

— Umar Nasser (@UmarN91)

January 1, 2019

[archived screenshot]

According to this line of argumentation, all of the bold talk in the warning proclamation issued by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s was subordinated by the very letter which (allegedly) accompanied it. That is, the death-prophecy would only be operative if Pigott were to formally opt-in and agree to compete with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.

Defense 1: Repentance.

Did Pigott repent in the intervening years (1903-1908)? Some Ahmadi Muslim apologists suggest that he did. They suggest that when Pigott transitioned into simply claiming to be Jesus the Messiah, this constituted an implicit repentance. Before we go further, here’s a refresher on what it means to repent..

Oxford Dictionary: British and World English

A reduction in Pigott’s pretentiousness postponed punishment, suggest Ahmadi Muslim apologists. It was God’s mercy. No longer was Pigott making claims synonymous with being God the Father. No longer were any of his blasphemous pronouncements made in public.

In Umar Nasser’s tweet presenting a passage from Tadhkirah (November 20, 1902) we see that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claimed to receive a revelation, which, among other possibilities, stated that “Pigott…would not repent in future”.

If we accept the death prophecy was averted because Pigott repented, then the revelation in Tadhkirah indicating that Pigott would not repent in the future, was falsified.

In this next tweet, Umar Nasser advises that the passage in Tadhkirah sheds light on why the prophecy was made.

– I hope the highlighted segments of the announcement help.

– The Tadhkirah passage makes it clear it is claiming outright divinity which Ahmad (as) spoke out against. [See attached & highlighted] pic.twitter.com/jla84iYW2M

— Umar Nasser (@UmarN91)

January 1, 2019

[archived screenshot]

With regards to the claim to be God, this requires a discussion of whether claiming to be Lord Jesus from a Christian context is the same as making a claim to divinity. This point is discussed in a later section entitled, Levels of Divinity.

To be sure, this particular revelation captured in Tadhkirah is all over the map. It’s a classic example of hedging with multiple possibilities in order to claim a “win” no matter the eventual outcome. For this revelation, the possible interpretations given for Pigott’s current and future state were that:

1. The present condition of Pigott is not good
2. Pigott would not repent in the future
3. Pigott will not believe in God
4. Pigott telling a lie and planning against God is not good.

Of these four explanations, all are quite worthless, except the second option: that Pigott would not repent in the future.

Let’s explore why the other possibilities add nothing of value to our understanding.

Option 1: The present condition of Pigott is not good

Any revelation about Pigott’s present condition isn’t actually a “revelation”. Perhaps if we came to know by some verified means that on the same day that this revelation was published in India, Pigott had experienced an unexpected stroke over in Britain, we might then concede that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad possessed some impressive and prophetic insights on Pigott’s condition. But no such event occurred.

Given that Pigott had no choice but to retreat to Spaxton after his public proclamation in September 1902 had generated significant protest, anyone following the story in November of that same year would already know that Pigott was not living through the best of times.

As such, we can toss out this piece of non-information from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s revelation.

Option 3: Pigott will not believe in God

One could assert that by knowingly making a false claim about God, a person must already not believe in God. It could also mean that perhaps one day, Pigott would publicly declare that he no longer believes in God. But this too, never happened. Pigott never declared himself to be an atheist. Again, no actual insight for us here.

Option 4: Pigott telling a lie and planning against God is not good

This statement is not even prophetic. It’s a religious axiom; a given. Believers across the panoply of world religions would find this to be a true statement regardless of the time or person to whom it was directed. In fact, this statement borders on tautology. It adds nothing to our understanding.

So, what are we left with? We’re left with this:

Remember, this is Tadhkirah. This is what Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claims to be his revelations from God. Knowledge from the Knower of the Unseen.

The possibilities given in this revelation are all rounded out with the words “Allah is severe in retribution”. This is taken to show that Pigott’s end:

This is from the November 20, 1902 entry. It states that Pigott will not repent. And yet, so many Ahmadi Muslims claim that Pigott only outlived Mirza Ghulam Ahmad because Pigott had downgraded his divinity claims from God-the-Father in public to (at most) God-the-Son in private.

Some Ahmadi Muslim apologists suggest that these changes in behavior amount to Pigott having effectively repented.

So no, you’re wrong. He did repent because we know he went silent and stopped making his claims. The punishment was then held in abeyance and the prophecy inapplicable. The PM a.s died. He then returned to his claims and was humiliated without following.

— Tahir Nasser (@TahirNasser)

February 5, 2019

[archived screenshot]

None of the reports which describe Pigott’s life in the years intervening 1902-1908 indicate any heartfelt remorse. We have no information to conclude that Pigott ceased to present himself as a Christian Messiah to his private flock in Spaxton. Curious readers are encouraged to read the extracts from McCormick’s book Temple of Love. The linked passages provide insight into how Pigott presented himself to his congregation.

Returning to Tadhkirah, the 1902 entry, duly distilled, is telling us that Pigott would not repent in the future. Ahmadi Muslim apologists insist, however, that Pigott’s behavior during the 1903-1908 period constitute an implicit repentance.

So, which is it? Did Pigott repent in the years prior to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s death, or didn’t he? Or are we to believe that he ultimately did both? How does Pigott’s initial repentance not falsify the Tadhkirah revelation of November 20, 1902 indicating that Pigott would not repent in the future?

To explore these questions, you best pack your spandex. We’re about to engage in some mental gymnastics—Ahmadiyya style.

Had Tadhkirah captured this flip-flop duality in Pigott’s trajectory, perhaps we could be more impressed. Perhaps if Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had left us an entry in Tadhkirah in 1903 to indicate that Pigott was repentant and that the prophecy had thus gone into abeyance until further notice, this line of apologetic could be accepted. Instead, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad doubled down on Pigott’s death as a sign for the people. Not convinced? Then read the August 23, 1903 announcement from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad entitled, “Predictions concerning Pigott and Dowie”. We’ll explore that announcement more closely in a later section of this article. You’ll witness how Mirza Ghulam Ahmad gave us no indication that Pigott’s death prophecy had been suspended. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Through Ahmadiyya Islam, we’ve been introduced to a God who seems to enjoy trolling believers. He rarely says what He means. Pigott will pause his more extreme blasphemy just long enough for Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to die, and then Pigott will resume his unrepentant behavior, just as Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had prophesied. This line of argumentation implicitly puts the emphasis on Pigott’s suspension of public blasphemy as what had ultimately saved him; not on his having ignored Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s alleged invitation to mubahila. 

On this line of argumentation, we don’t even need to cite the mubahila in order to give Pigott an out. By invoking the repentance angle, however, even if temporary, we are negating Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s revelation recorded in Tadhkirah from November 20, 1902 which stated with knowledge from the Divine, that Pigott would not repent.

Tadhkirah Revised.

The first edition of Tadhkirah in English was published in 1976. It was translated by Sir Chaudry Muhammad Zafarullah Khan—a highly educated and accomplished native Urdu speaker.⁷ As of this writing, the version of Tadhkirah in English available at the official website of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is the 2009 edition. It is this latter edition from which Umar Nasser provided screenshots in his tweets.

Consider, however, that even if we read all of these segments of the revelation’s interpretation as being joined with an “or”, all of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s interpretations of this revelation amount to noise, save the claim that Pigott would not repent in the future. This is the only meaningful non-tautological item of information given to us among the four possibilities presented.

Setting up the statement about Pigott not repenting in the future to be just one of many possibilities from the revelation provides Ahmadi Muslim apologists an out. They can claim that Pigott had in fact, repented. Or, if they feel like overreaching, that Pigott recanted.

Ahmadi Muslim apologists can then offer this repentant behavior as the reason for why Pigott wasn’t struck down in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s own lifetime. To not clash with the revelation in Tadhkirah, however, Ahmadi Muslim apologists are usually careful to avoid using contested terminology. Instead of ‘repent’, they usually, though not always, opt for words like ‘retreat’ and ‘retract’. 

In 2010, an Ahmadi Muslim writer took exactly this approach for his article in the Ahmadiyya Gazette Canada:

Author Tahir Ijaz speculates that having shifted his preaching out of the public eye, God may have elected to show mercy on Pigott. While I disagree with the author’s framing that Pigott “retracted public claims”, I commend Tahir Ijaz for acknowledging that it’s nothing more than speculation as to why Pigott was spared.

Consider that to retract implies to take back. However, Pigott never took back his words. He only retracted in the manner of “cease and desist”. He stopped making public claims of divinity in the way that he once had. If the author had instead written that Pigott had, “retracted from making public claims” the phrase would no longer give the mistaken impression that Pigott had apologized or formally changed his claim and/or underlying beliefs.

An Ahmadi Muslim apologist shouldn’t need to speculate as to why Pigott was spared if a mubahila had been offered to Pigott, yet nowhere does this article mention that Pigott hadn’t accepted the alleged invitation to “come and compete”. 

Perhaps the reason for the missing mubahila reference is that much of the mubahila apologetic comes to us from passages in Malfoozat—a compilation of books not published until the 1960s—and even then, only in Urdu.⁹ As a result, many apologists in the Jama’at for whom English is their main language, wouldn’t have even known about this innovative line of apologetic.

Of course, if a mubahila was proposed to Pigott back in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s own lifetime, you’d think we’d at least have one article defending the prophecy on those grounds in say, 1908, 1909 or 1910.¹⁰

Ahmadi Muslim readers are encouraged to look for such an article from the period. Try the Review of Religions archives from both the Qadian and Lahore branches of Ahmadiyya Islam. Did you find a candidate article? If so, does it provide authenticated evidence from before Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s own death, that a mubahila was issued? If not, why did we have to wait until the 1960s for this evidence to surface? Food for thought.

Contrasting Retreat, Retract, Recant, and Repent.

How do we distinguish whether one can be said to have retreated, retracted, recanted or repented?

To Retreat

One can retreat by withdrawing as a result of being overpowered. To retreat is to move back or to withdraw.

With Pigott being run out of town and no longer making public professions of divinity, his move to Spaxton most definitely qualifies as retreat.

To Retract

One can retract one’s hand. By doing so, it is plain to see that it is no longer outstretched. That’s the verb form. The noun form, retraction, telegraphs something much more definitive. Generally speaking, a retraction is something that explicitly acknowledges the change in position, such as a formal retraction. These are most often issued in writing.

Insofar as both a retreat and the act of retracting represent a withdrawal from a previous position, Pigott can be said to have retracted from making public claims to divinity until 1909. The act of retracting tactically (verb), should not, however, be confused with issuing a formal and clear retraction (noun). Pigott never issued a retraction.

Furthermore, the word retract is misleading in the context of Pigott’s claims. If one retracts one’s hand back to one’s body, the new position is self-evident. Retracting a claim is ambiguous without also providing an explicit statement to indicate that the old claim no longer holds, or alternatively, stating what the new position is, with an explicit and contrasting reference to the old claim. Pigott provided us with neither of these .

To Recant

Stronger than a withdrawal—i.e. the verb forms of retreat and retract—is the act of recanting. To recant is to state that one no longer holds an opinion or belief, especially one considered heretical. One way for a person to recant is to issue a formal retraction.

Pigott, however, never issued a formal retraction. Pigott is nowhere on record as having ever recanted for his blasphemy.

To Repent

As discussed earlier, to repent is to feel or to express sincere regret or remorse about one’s wrongdoing or sin.

The multiple reports available from different newspaper outlets between 1904 and 1908 demonstrate that Pigott continued the charade of being Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, and the Lamb of God—but in private. Pigott allowed his congregation to continue worshipping him. Such conduct is not compatible with repentance—which is, remember—a sincere regret or remorse for one’s wrongdoing.

The Death Prophecy

No doubt, Pigott’s claims from September 1902 upset Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.

But did the Indian Messiah ever give Pigott respite from his death-prophecy for merely retreating? Was there a provision of leniency for merely desisting? Did ceasing to make blasphemous claims of the highest order get one released from the death prophecy? The answer to all of these question is no.

States Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in his November 24, 1902 proclamation:

We’re back to the only means of escape: repentance. Furthermore, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s revelation in Tadhkirah states that Pigott would not repent in the future. But let’s entertain the position that Pigott not repenting in the future was just one of several possible interpretations for the November 20, 1902 revelation. How might we ascertain whether Pigott did or did not repent?

To retreat to Spaxton because he was run out of Clapton doesn’t suggest heartfelt remorse or regret. That was simply a life preserving tactical necessity.

Moreover, for the purposes of prophecy, those of us who are meant to judge success or failure cannot look inside another man’s heart. The only type of repentance the rest of us can assess is the style of repentance that demonstrates a reversal in clear and unequivocal terms. A public retraction, for example, would have sufficed. A congregation that didn’t appear to be a cult, treating their leader as one worthy of worship, would have also worked toward establishing the repentance narrative.

In Pigott’s case, we have neither.

Levels of Divinity.

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s Warning proclamation explains that beyond the “utter blasphemy” of claiming to be “Lord Jesus”, Pigott claimed to be “Lord of the whole earth”. However, this inferred Son of God vs. God the Father distinction in describing Pigott’s arrogance is never made a condition for the activation or deactivation of the death prophecy, as outlined in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s warning proclamation.

The only condition which can be inferred from the original proclamation, is that of repentance. We see this condition about halfway through the warning proclamation:

Pigott never issued a retraction for his claims. In Marmuzah’s article, we see news clippings from 1904, 1905, 1906, and 1908 where Pigott is reported by his own congregation as having made claims of divinity. Pigott is the “Messiah”, the “Lamb of God”, and “Lord Jesus”.

From an Islamic perspective, this can be seen as an imperfect downgrade of sorts from implicit God the Father claims to those more akin to Jesus the Messiah styled prophethood. Yet from a Christian perspective—which better represents the context from which Pigott and his followers would have understood it—Lord Jesus is but one person of the Trinitarian Godhead. Jesus is still divine.

Claiming to be Jesus the Messiah in your local congregation may be a downgrade for some, but it doesn’t constitute repentance. It certainly doesn’t qualify as Pigott having recanted, as some Ahmadi Muslim sources have styled it in what is without a doubt a clear overreach. In any event, simply downgrading a bigger lie to a smaller one isn’t the same as having repented for making that bigger lie in the first place.

On the distinction between God-the-Father and God-the-Son, this tweet illustrates how I’ve been making the case that no contingent punishment was laid out for shifting between these two persons of the Trinity:

Respectfully, I don’t find these highlights address my query. They don’t make a contingent distinction. They are simply descriptions of being aghast at the blasphemy of it all. Happy for readers of this thread to come to their own conclusions, of course.https://t.co/tvtJWvpA9e

— Reason on Faith (@ReasonOnFaith)

January 2, 2019

[archived screenshot]

I offered these comments in response to a tweet from Umar Nasser who had highlighted passages of the death prophecy. His aim was to demonstrate that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was making a distinction: not only was Pigott claiming to be Jesus—he was claiming to possess attributes which belong to God exclusively:

– I hope the highlighted segments of the announcement help.

– The Tadhkirah passage makes it clear it is claiming outright divinity which Ahmad (as) spoke out against. [See attached & highlighted] pic.twitter.com/jla84iYW2M

— Umar Nasser (@UmarN91)

January 1, 2019

[archived screenshot]

Umar Nasser is correct insofar as these descriptive distinctions were made in the warning announcement. But there’s a catch: the punishment prescribed wasn’t made contingent on these descriptions and the gradations of outrage which they engender. The only lever specified as having the capacity to disengage the prophecy was that of repentance.

Indeed, there’s no problem posed by acknowledging that Pigott’s claim to being God himself is what Mirza Ghulam Ahmad originally took exception to. The passage from Tadhkirah highlighted by Umar—“Indeed, it is a very daring thing to claim to be God”—does not somehow subvert the death prophecy into letting Pigott escape if only he would desist from blaspheming. Pigott had to repent.

To salvage the prophecy, Ahmadi Muslim apologists need to read between the lines and insert new opportunities for Pigott to have gained leniency. It may very well be the case that had Pigott claimed only to be Jesus, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad might not have even taken notice. But once Pigott had made these claims to the godhead, a mere downgrade wasn’t going to get him off the hook. Nowhere in his prophecy did Mirza Ghulam Ahmad make this distinction relevant for clemency.

I addressed this specific point in my conversation with Umar:

The “not only” bit in that tract is descriptive of the outrage. It isn’t tied into the contingency of the punishment to follow. To be clear, I still don’t think the prophecy was fulfilled. My reference to it being sloppy is in how it was framed, even despite not being fulfilled.

— Reason on Faith (@ReasonOnFaith)

January 2, 2019

[archived screenshot]

Religious prophecies like this are often crafted with generous servings of ambiguity. This prophecy just happened to be clear about why Pigott was targeted (divinity claims), and what should happen to him if he didn’t repent (die in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s lifetime).

Ambiguous prophecies, as well as those purposely obfuscated by followers (“it was a challenge, though the challenge aspect was not mentioned in the proclamation”), leave dozens of ways for false claimants and their apologists to spin results after the fact.

Contrasting Pigott with Dowie.

Consider the apologetic that it was only the claim to be God which impelled Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to issue his warning to Pigott. As a jealous God who wanted his Messiah to succeed, Allah then stepped in as the omnipotent underwriter for this daring prophecy of death.

To this line of apologetic, we can learn much by contrasting Pigott’s case with that of John Alexander Dowie. Dowie was an evangelical preacher in America against whom Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had also locked horns. Though, to be fair, Dowie never much cared for engaging Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. For the most part, Dowie ignored him.¹³

Dowie claimed to be Elijah, the forerunner to Jesus Christ. His claims put him at odds and effectively in competition with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Similarly, Pigott’s claim to be the Lamb of God, Lord Jesus, the Messiah, etc., also put him at odds and in competition with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.

Despite their differences, it was only Dowie who was subject to a death prophecy without ultimately needing to accept the mubahila which was issued to him—that is, if we even grant that the alleged mubahila for Pigott was real, and not some later fabrication to cover up the fact that Pigott had outlived Ahmad.

Pigott’s claims were an order of magnitude more shirk-laden than Dowie’s. Yet, Pigott’s punishment was allegedly contingent on his formal acceptance of an invitation to come and compete with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.¹⁴

In contrast, Dowie’s punishment for only claiming to be a mortal prophet who also despised Islam was that he had the formal acceptance requirement eventually waived off. That made Dowie the target of a unilaterally activated mubahila. Allah was apparently more jealous that someone had sneered at Islam while claiming to be a lowly human prophet (Dowie) than that someone had claimed to be God Himself (Pigott). So much for the apologetic that claiming to be God is the kind of catalyst that escalates a death wish:

Eventually, Dowie had his mubahila triggered without ever claiming to be divine. His crime beyond claiming to be a prophet? He simply and openly dismissed both Islam and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. The latter he couldn’t even be bothered to mention by name, but had only referred to as the “foolish Messiah” and sometimes as the “Indian Messiah”.

The article Fate of a False Prophet by Syed Hasanat Ahmad,¹⁵ confirms that Dowie never did accept Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s challenge of mubahila. This bears repeating: Dowie never formally accepted Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s challenge.

According to the aforementioned article, John Alexander Dowie stated in his December 27, 1902 publication Leaves of Healing, that:

This same Review of Religions article presents an August 23, 1903 announcement from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad stating that:

Here, we see evidence that a challenge from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad need not be formally accepted in order for it to have been activated. It’s also peculiar that the challenge to Dowie had only been issued two months prior to the warning to Pigott, yet they were treated so differently by the summer of 1903.

1. Dowie’s challenge received a reprieve of seven months within which Dowie was to decide and respond. But regardless, Dowie would face calamity.
2. Pigott was given no such time frame. There wasn’t even a hint that a mubahila had even been issued. Just a straight-up restatement of the expectation that Pigott would die in Ahmad’s lifetime.¹⁷

Religious prophecies are notorious for throwing out several partially conflicting statements that can later be selected from to construct a desired narrative of events. Religious apologists will construct the most convenient narrative after-the-fact to recover from any eventuality.

This is why prophecies like the warning to Pigott and their related revelations offering numerous “outs” are always meaningless. Such prophecies appeal to people who are susceptible to the post-designation fallacy¹⁸

The Boston Herald Not Corrected.

What’s even more telling is that this same Review of Religions article relays that the Sunday Herald of Boston of June 23, 1907 published a statement from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad affirming:

Notice how the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community didn’t intervene to correct the Boston Herald?

Shouldn’t the Jama’at¹⁹ have advised the Boston Herald that the excerpt from August 23, 1903 which makes mention of Pigott is for a prophecy that is currently suspended?

Shouldn’t the Jama’at have sent in corrections to newspapers to advise that Pigott has been in retreat for several years now and as such, the prophecy is currently in abeyance?

Why didn’t the Jama’at step in to clarify to the public that as Pigott hasn’t formally accepted Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s challenge, the prophecy is not yet active?

The Lamb of God is Still Divine.

According to a news report from July 8, 1904 published in The Cambrian, Pigott’s congregation fell to their knees and worshipped him.

The last paragraph of this highlighted newspaper report entitled The Mad Messiah, is particularly relevant:

Please see Marmuzah’s article on the Pigott prophecy for a full set of newspaper citations from the period.

Worship is an act reserved for the divine. Christians would not fall to their knees to worship Moses or Abraham. The events described in the report from The Cambrian contradict speculation by some Ahmadi Muslim apologists that Pigott was repentant for having made strong divinity claims in the past.

It’s worth pondering what evidence might be sufficient to establish actual repentance. I contend that it might come to us as reports detailing how Pigott’s congregation were no longer prostrating before him in worship or where Pigott gave a public sermon stating that he was in fact, nothing more than a man. 

Indeed, a clear and public retraction would have provided the best evidence that Pigott had repented—even had such repentance later proven to have been short lived.

In response to the presence of newspaper reports which reveal that Pigott was still claiming to be the Messiah, “The Lamb of God”, “Lord Jesus”, etc., Umar Nasser defended his position stating:

There are literally a handful of sensationalist reports which at maximum said he privately occasionally claimed to be Messianic. Even IF they are true, (no actual first hand accounts until 1909) that was not what Promised Messiah wrote against, nor were they public or consistent

— Umar Nasser (@UmarN91) January 1, 2019

[archived screenshot]

Regarding Pigott having registered as a priest outside of Spaxton, why should we believe that a con man would willingly create further complications for himself with no discernible upside? Does writing ‘God’ or ‘Lord Jesus’ under the occupation field of a document confer upon the applicant easier access to services than writing ‘priest’? A prudent con man wouldn’t write ‘God’ on such paperwork unless he was hoping to court additional headaches for whenever he had to interact with people outside of his closed community. 

At this stage, Pigott was acutely aware of how public professions of divinity could and would backfire. He had already experienced this back in Clapton in 1902. Maintaining a pretense of divinity in front of his own congregation of committed followers, however, was an entirely different and much more viable charade.

My sentiments on the issue are captured by the following tweet:

Making claims within his congregation, within his city, or dispatching them to Asia is nowhere a condition of MGA's prophecy. There was never a formal retraction. Where did he register as a priest that would have accepted occupation "Jesus the Lord" on the form? The NHS?

— Sohail Ahmad (@ReasonOnFaith) January 1, 2019

[archived screenshot]

I contend that misleading people through silence is not a marker of repentance; heartfelt or otherwise. Neither can repentance be gleaned from a preacher who, among his own congregation, presents himself as divine. After having been run out of town, such behavior only shows that Pigott had gained a modicum of logistical prudence.  

For Umar Nasser to assert that these intervening newspaper reports are unreliable and void of any meaningful claims to divinity, is his prerogative. Such assertions, however, do not change the fact that there’s not a single report to indicate that Pigott had ever repented or issued a retraction. Not one.

Next, let’s consider the defense, “that was not what [the] Promised Messiah wrote against”, where Umar Nasser suggests that Pigott’s messianic claims in these various newspaper reports are nowhere near as blasphemous as the strong “I am God” claims issued from Pigott in 1902. Such a change— viz. a suspension of the most blasphemous of one’s prior claims—is nowhere a condition for clemency in Ahmad’s warning proclamation. Nowhere is a downgrade in degrees of blasphemy identified as an available escape route to what is otherwise a fait accompli. In fact, the only exculpatory option offered to Pigott in the warning proclamation was that he repents.

That’s right—repentance. Straight up.

The newspaper report from The Cambrian in 1904 is one of a handful of accounts from the period. Reports that congregations bowed down to worship Pigott are simply not compatible with apologists who speculate that Pigott was repentant.

Marmuzah’s article cites many of the newspaper reports from the years intervening 1904 through 1908. You can also see them on the timeline prepared for this article. None of these reports portray events that are mutually incompatible. Rather, when taken together, they provide us with an even better insight into Pigott’s behavior. Simply put, Pigott never ceased with the con that he was divine.

We can grant that Pigott’s claims may well have shifted in emphasis between persons of the Trinity. We can grant that Pigott made these claims to a smaller and more exclusive congregation as compared to Pigott’s prior and public profession at Clapton in 1902. 

We must also grant, however, that these reports show no evidence of Pigott having been repentant; nor do they contain a single statement of retraction from Pigott. The only picture established by these reports is that Pigott’s private claims to divinity were still very much alive, though moderated and more carefully worded than before.

Defense 2: Mubahila.

The second defense gaining popularity with Ahmadi Muslim apologists is that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had invited Pigott to a challenge of mubahila which Pigott had ignored. Without Pigott’s formal sign-off, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s warning announcement lay dormant. According to this line of apologetic, Ahmad’s death prophecy was technically never activated.

This mubahila argument has recently become the go-to defense for Ahmadi Muslim apologists. Its rise in popularity over the past decade correlates well with renewed interest in the Pigott prophecy. Tahir Nasser summarized this approach as it incorporates the mubahila apologetic.

The words of the Promised Messiah a.s are correct. He repeated his claims after the death of the PM a.s in 1909 and was further disgraced but never repented.

He was never killed because:

1. His claim was to be God
2. He never accepted the challenge of mubahila.

— Tahir Nasser (@TahirNasser)

February 4, 2019

[archived screenshot]

Of the two defenses presented, the first relates to the nature and expression of Pigott’s God claims. That topic has been addressed in the previous section of this article on repentance.²⁰ The second condition points to what we’ll explore next: the challenge of mubahila.

On November 20, 1902, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad received a revelation regarding Pigott. It was recorded in Tadhkirah. With regards to punishment, the entry states:

Four days later, on November 24, 1902, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad issued his bold warning proclamation wherein he tells us precisely what Pigott’s eventual fate would be should Pigott not repent.

Noteworthy in this entire mubahila defense is the fact that the Jama’at has never published the alleged letter of invitation. The letter inviting Pigott to the mubahila. A letter which would fundamentally subvert—through its power of activation—an otherwise plain reading of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s death-prophecy.

This is so important, it bears repeating:

We have nothing to demonstrate what it was that Pigott would have received beyond the November 24, 1902 announcement entitled, “A Warning to a Pretender to Divinity”.

Of course, such a letter, if produced, would have to be authenticated back to 1902 in order to be taken seriously.

The only item released to the public by the Jama’at was Ahmad’s warning proclamation wherein he prophesied that Pigott would die within in his lifetime if Pigott did not repent. That proclamation made no reference to Pigott having to accept a mubahila before the death prophecy could be set in motion.

Had a challenge of mubahila been truly operative, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad would have worded his prophecy accordingly. The segment of Ahmad’s proclamation on the particulars of who dies when, would have instead, read something like this:

Remember, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claimed to enjoy the support of the Creator of the Universe. Yet this All-Knowing deity did not wish for Ahmad’s prophecy to be worded very well. This deity did not wish to furnish Ahmad’s prophetic announcement with the clarity that my simple rendering provides.

In light of this lost opportunity, I urge readers to contemplate: What is more likely?

1. God is testing your faith by making the prophecy’s fulfillment look like a failure.
2. The proclamation never mentioned a challenge because a formal mubahila was never part of the package to begin with.

I submit to you that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s proclamation was rather meaningless because it never alluded to the presence of a mubahila. Any letter of mubahila to Pigott should have been:

1. Made in 1902
2. Translated into English²¹
3. Widely published
4. Alluded to within the announcement, “A Warning to a Pretender to Divinity”.

The death-prophecy proclamation was daring and it was published for the world to see. Isn’t it rather convenient that none of us get to confirm for ourselves, a critical piece of the evidence defending this prophetic challenge?

In neglecting to mention any challenge of mubahila, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s warning proclamation was worded rather ineptly. As a result, the prophecy against Pigott was effectively rendered dead on arrival.

If, however, the alleged requirement to a mubahila is the very cover-up it appears to be, we’re left with a clear prophecy and its remarkably clear failure.

Does a Mubahila Require Formal Acceptance?.

It’s worth pausing for a brief digression. Specifically, the apparent need for a combatant to formally accept a challenge in order for any of the parties to claim victory. Consider the case of the former military dictator of Pakistan, Zia-ul-Haq. He died in a mysterious plane crash, just days after Mirza Tahir Ahmad had called him out in one of his Friday Sermons.

Can we really attribute Zia-ul-Haq’s death to Mirza Tahir Ahmad’s earlier warnings of punishment, given that Zia-ul-Haq never formally accepted any challenge of mubahila?

Proponents of Ahmadiyya Islam continue to weave post hoc rationalizations around every failed prophecy in order to claim a win. No doubt, apologists will propose that persistent opposition serves as an implicit acceptance to a mubahila. This would explain the case of both Dowie and of Zia-ul-Haq.

What it does not explain, however, is why in August 1903 Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had still awaited Pigott’s death as a sign. It doesn’t explain why the Jama’at continued to cite this 1903 announcement in 1907, knowing that newspaper outlets continued to do so as well.²² All the while, the Jama’at offered no contextual commentary advising people that the Pigott prophecy had gone into abeyance (given that Pigott had long since retreated and gone quiet).

It seems that a challenge of mubahila need only be accepted by an opponent as perceived by Ahmadiyyat, if insisting that this is so will serve the desired conclusion that Ahmadiyyat is true.

Motivated reasoning can trap us all. Proponents of the Pigott prophecy, however, should ask themselves: Who is reading in layers of conditions, contingencies, and exceptions? Who is making rationalizations to defend this prophecy from the most obvious reading of contemporaneous documents, reports, and events?

Malfoozat and the Invitation Letter.

In October of 2018, Ahmadi Muslim @Luqman255 (herein just ‘Luqman’) joined a discussion about the Pigott prophecy. Luqman claimed that the prophecy was part of a formal mubahila prayer duel and that as such, it had to be formally accepted in order to take effect.

Here is the reference I was referring to. I’ve done a rough English translation, but you can get it verified elsewhere as well. The English tract is referenced as well and you can see clearly the intent of the Promised Messiah (as). pic.twitter.com/B2mXX2gjxo

— Luqman لقمان (@Luqman255)

October 31, 2018

[archived screenshot]

The English translation of the Urdu Malfoozat entry, as rendered by Luqman in this tweet, is as follows:

I then responded to Luqman with a series of follow up tweets:

Marmuzah then chimed in with tweets of his own to put Malfoozat in context:

The Review of Religions, April 1907.

To maintain a belief that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was from God, one most hold fast to the claim that Pigott did not die before Mirza Ghulam Ahmad because Pigott did not accept Ahmad’s challenge of mubahila. However, we can best understand the original expectations around this prophecy by examining what Ahmadiyya literature itself had to say, prior to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s death.

To that end, we’ll examine how editors at the Jama’at’s prestigious Review of Religions magazine referred to the Pigott prophecy in their April 1907 edition. For context, Dowie had just died the month prior (March 1907). Ahmadi Muslims were declaring victory, and understandably so.

The Review of Religions published an article entitled, “Divine Judgment in Dowie’s Death”. Here, the magazine reprinted excerpts from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s bold announcement and prayer of August 23, 1903 regarding the anticipated future deaths of both Dowie and Pigott. By their deaths, both men would serve as a sign for the people. While John Alexander Dowie was the focus of the April 1907 Review of Religions article, the editors did also shed light on the Pigott prophecy. The two men, Dowie and Pigott, were often mentioned in the same breath.

An analysis of the aforementioned article from the Review of Religions is instructive. The challenge to Dowie is referred to as a mubahila, i.e. a formal challenge, while no such language is used with respect to Pigott.

Predictions concerning Dowie and Pigott never mention the need for Pigott to accept anything. Predictions regarding Pigott’s doomed fate and death in Ahmad’s lifetime, however, were still published without qualification.

The article’s editors were not simply relaying what Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had written in August 1903. They captured for us what the prevailing beliefs of the time were, as held by the Jama’at’s most senior intellectuals. If there was something misleading about the reprinted excerpts from the 1903 announcement, the Review of Religions editors would have identified it in that very same article. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad himself would have called it out—he was still alive in April 1907, and would not die until May of 1908.

How do we know that these editors were mindful enough to comment on quoted content in need of correction or clarification? Simple. In that very same article, “Divine Judgment in Dowie’s Death”, we see precisely this; a diligent attention to detail regarding quoted content. These editors had included a footnote of correction on page 120 regarding a cited passage from an American newspaper. The American newspaper mistakenly assumed that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s claim to messiahship was also a claim to divinity (as it normally would be in a Christian context). The Review of Religions article made it a point to correct the newspaper’s mischaracterization of Ahmad’s claims. 

In the year prior to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s death, there was no indication that Pigott’s retreat had somehow shielded him from the death prophecy. It’s certainly not a conclusion one could draw from reading the Review of Religions magazine in April 1907. Nor were there any mentions at the time of a still awaited mubahila response in order to activate the death-prophecy.

No Anticipation in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s Own Lifetime.

One might surmise that in 1907, the editors at the Review of Religions magazine were focused on the Jama’at’s recent victory over Dowie. We might excuse them for not being overly concerned with pedantic details regarding the Pigott prophecy they just happened to reprint.

But what of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad? He was alive for a full year after this Review of Religions article was published. Surely it would have been brought to his attention that the Pigott death-prophecy had just been revived in print, and that this might cause many people to mistakenly believe that its fulfillment was still to be expected. Why didn’t Mirza Ghulam Ahmad issue any statement to reset expectations?

In fact, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had lived for a full five (5) years after having originally issued his death-prophecy concerning Pigott. Can anyone produce a single statement from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in this time, authenticated from before he died, which indicates that Pigott’s response to a mubahila was awaited? I’m no Jama’at librarian, but I strongly suspect that statements to this effect do not exist. If they did, they would have already surfaced in defense of this mubahila apologetic.

When you compare the frequent mention of a mubahila in the case of Dowie with its complete absence whenever Pigott is referenced, the contrast becomes undeniable.

For context, a challenge to Dowie was issued in September 1902. The prophecy concerning Pigott was issued in November 1902—just two months later.

A full nine (9) months after publishing “A Warning to a Pretender to Divinity” targeting Pigott, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad published his announcement of August 23, 1903 entitled, “Predictions concerning Pigott and Dowie”. The 1903 announcement was heavily referenced in the April 1907 issue of the Review of Religions. In it, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad fully expects Pigott to die. There’s not even a hint that any response was awaited from Pigott. But for Dowie? Things will get rolling once he accepts Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s challenge.

Between November 24, 1902 and August 23, 1903 spans 273 days—a full nine months. Pigott hadn’t responded during this time, nor had he uttered any follow-up claims to divinity in public. Given these facts, why is it that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad would speak so directly of Pigott’s destruction? Did God not inform Mirza Ghulam Ahmad that Pigott had effectively retreated? Did Mirza Ghulam Ahmad think it reasonable to expect Pigott’s destruction any day now, despite Pigott having not yet accepted his (allegedly issued) mubahila? It makes no sense.

What does make perfect sense, however, is that Pigott’s relative inconspicuousness (“retreat”) was never deemed a sufficient reason to remove him from the clutches of the death prophecy. After all, Pigott had yet to issue a clear and public retraction. Nor was the death-prophecy ever contingent on Pigott having to formally respond and accept. Anyone who reads Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s public proclamation can confirm this point for themselves.

In fact, this key point is most clearly illustrated with a thought experiment. Imagine that Pigott had died on August 24, 1903—the day after Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s announcement. Is there any question that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad would have claimed victory? On what basis could anyone at the time have deemed the prophecy a premature failure? What statement of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s would one have pointed to in order to make the case that the death-prophecy for Pigott wasn’t even operative?

In June 1907, the Jama’at yet again missed an opportunity to submit a correction. This time, to the Boston Herald. They published a flattering victory synopsis of Ahmad defeating Dowie. Once again, we see some bold talk from Ahmad regarding Pigott’s destruction:

Why didn’t the Jama’at advise the Boston Herald that the Pigott prophecy hadn’t even been activated yet and that as a result, the 1903 statement they published without comment was misleading? If we deploy Occam’s razor, we soon realize that no such clarification came because Pigott’s prophecy was deemed by everyone at the time to be every bit as operational as the prophecy against Dowie—and Dowie was now dead.

Remember, for a prophecy to have any value, it has to be falsifiable. There have to be clear indications not only of which outcomes denote success but more importantly,²⁷ of which outcomes constitute failure.

Apologist Arguments: Asif Basit.

Most Ahmadi Muslims will recognize Asif M. Basit from his many appearances on the community’s satellite network, MTA.²⁹ Asif Basit is also the author of several articles on religion. Of particular interest is his article entitled Rev. John Hugh Smyth Pigott, His Claim, Prophecy and End. That article was published in the February 2012 issue of The Review of Religions magazine.

In addition, Asif Basit conducted an interview with Agapemonite expert Dr. Joshua Schwieso in front of the Agapemonite chapel in Spaxton.

Dr. Schwieso is the world’s foremost expert on Pigott’s Agapemonite sect, having written his PhD dissertation on the group.³⁰

The Interview with Dr. Joshua Schwieso.

The interview with Dr. Schwieso confirms that Pigott had retreated from making public claims to divinity after September 1902.

This interview does not, however, lend any credibility to the assertion that Pigott recanted. Dr. Schwieso only relays that Pigott had moderated his claims. There were no more public professions of divinity. Pigott’s private claims for his own congregation were, for the most part, left conveniently ambiguous.

Given the violent reaction encountered in Clapton, Pigott’s more cautious behavior in Spaxton was not at all surprising.

Asif M. Basit from MTA interviews Dr. Joshua Schwieso regarding John Hugh Smyth-Pigott. The interview is approximately 9 minutes in length.

What we do learn is that once in Spaxton, Pigott allowed his private congregation to take whatever they wished from his carefully worded pronouncements.

Noteworthy highlights from this interview follow.

Time [4:10]

Asif Basit suggests that among other reasons, Pigott refrained from making strong divinity claims because of the warning sent by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.

We can see Dr. Schwieso nodding mildly as if to stay agreeable. When Dr. Schwieso does articulate why he believes Pigott refrained from bold proclamations of divinity, Dr. Schwieso doesn’t himself cite Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Instead, he cites the blasphemy laws that were in effect at the time. With Pigott having now also taken a second wife (“Sister Ruth”), it was certainly in Pigott’s interest to keep a low profile. Doubly so, in fact.

Time [4:53]

Dr. Schwieso remarks that once settled in Spaxton, Pigott moderated his claims by employing flowery language—allowing his claims to be read in many different ways. If as a devotee, you wanted to continue to believe that Pigott was divine, he gave you reasons to continue holding such a belief.

Time [6:34]

Asif Basit seems intent on planting words and conclusions for Dr. Schwieso to confirm. Dr. Schwieso, however, seems too polite and agreeable to interrupt.

Asif Basit states that Pigott had, “taken back his claim of divinity”.

What does Dr. Schwieso do? Instead of parroting back the same assertion, Dr. Schwieso politely restates what happened, in his own words. Namely, that Pigott had, “backed off and retreated from these claims”. There’s a difference. “Taking back” one’s claim implies an actual retraction—something Pigott had never issued.

Retreating from public claims in unambiguous terms in favor of private claims in more flowery language only suggests that a tactical calculation had been made. It doesn’t imply repentance.

In the final two minutes, Dr. Schwieso takes us through the end of the Agapemone as a movement.

Ahmadi Muslim apologists often contrast Pigott’s Agapemone religious movement with Ahmadiyyat to shift the focus from Pigott having outlived Mirza Ghulam Ahmad into a comparison regarding which claimant’s religious movement outlived the other. A convenient bait-and-switch that’s nowhere to be found in the actual prophecy.

A Missed Opportunity: Questions Not Asked.

For someone as familiar with the Pigott prophecy as Asif Basit, the interview with Dr. Schwieso was a missed opportunity. We might have gained a lot more insight into Pigott’s beliefs and disposition during his time in Spaxton had more specific questions been asked of Dr. Schwieso.

Here’s what I would have asked instead:

1. Do we have any evidence that Pigott received a challenge of mubahila from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in the form of a letter, beyond the “A Warning to a Pretender to Divinity” proclamation? A letter which explicitly invited Pigott to “come and compete” with him?
2. To what extent do you believe Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s warnings factored into any of Pigott’s decision making? For example, Pigott’s transition to a more private existence? Or Pigott having moderated his divinity claims?
3. Is there any indication that Pigott even thought about Mirza Ghulam Ahmad beyond the few minutes it might have taken him to read Ahmad’s warning proclamation?
4. Did Pigott ever issue a retraction for having claimed divinity, whether formally or informally?
5. Did Pigott ever rebuke members of his congregation for acting as if his prior claims to divinity were still operative? Conversely, did Pigott ever clarify to his congregation that he wasn’t divine after all?
6. Did Pigott give us any indication of having repented (feeling sincere remorse) for having made his public claims to divinity in 1902?
7. Can we trust any of the reports from 1904-1908 which indicate that Pigott did occasionally present himself as Jesus to his private congregation?
8. Would you classify such reports as credible or as not credible? Were these sensationalist newspapers or legitimate sources?
9. Do you believe that Pigott had ever claimed to be the Son of God while in Spaxton prior to 1908—even if just privately to his own congregation?
10. What part of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s proclamation “A Warning to a Pretender to Divinity” indicated to you that by merely abstaining from public claims to divinity, Pigott would have been saved from destruction? Is that something you originally stated having read the prophetic announcement directly, or was this synopsis something you gathered from a secondary source?

The Article.

Turning to Asif Basit’s article in the Review of Religions, there are several points worth addressing.

The first passage of interest is a quote from Dr. Schwieso stating that in order to be spared, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad only required Pigott to abstain from claiming godship:

For context, Dr. Schwieso wrote his dissertation in the early 1990s. I suspect that Dr. Schwieso made this statement based on the only sources that would have been available to him at the time. Articles written by Ahmadi Muslim apologists would have been all that one could have found which actually made reference to the Smyth-Pigott prophecy. It is for precisely this reason that I have included Question 10 above.

Apparently, it was only after some non-Ahmadi Muslims retrieved and published a copy of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s original, “A Warning to a Pretender to Divinity” proclamation that we see Ahmadi Muslim sources also making reference to it.³¹ Apparently, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community hadn’t themselves reproduced this document in full in any of their publications since the early twentieth century.

Regardless of how scarce the proclamation’s availability may have been in the past, it should be evident to anyone who reads the proclamation today that anything short of actual repentance would not have provided Pigott with an escape from Ahmad’s death-prophecy.

Asif Basit goes on to write that:

Earlier in this article, several newspaper reports were shared on a timeline indicating that Pigott had professed to be ‘Lord Jesus’ and the ‘Lamb of God’, and that his congregation had fallen to their knees to worship him. On what basis did Asif Basit discount these various reports across multiple (different) sources? Or did he never come across them?

For example, Asif Basit appears to have missed the report in The Chard and Ilminster News of September 15, 1906³² which described findings gathered by another newspaper, The Star, of letters which they had intercepted. The letters were written by Pigott to his followers. We already know that in Spaxton, Pigott would go out of his way to avoid the press. This particular news report tells us that:

The disclosure continues, expounding on one of these letters from Pigott:

Given these reports, it doesn’t seem prudent to accept the assessment of anyone with a vested interest in stating that Pigott did or did not make any claims to divinity during this period—myself included. That’s why I encourage readers to look at the newspaper reports for themselves.

Keep in mind that abstention from further claims was never a criterion for absolution; only repentance could serve that function. Therefore, even had Pigott refrained from the odd divinity claim which reports have attributed to him in private, his retreat from public pronouncements of divinity still represent insufficient grounds to have him released from Ahmad’s death prophecy.

Continuing on, Asif Basit states:

Even a rudimentary understanding of Christianity would enable one to reconcile these statements with a man claiming to be the Son of God. One need only go to the New Testament and see that Jesus talks to God the Father, as two people speak to one another:

Thus, all we can make of this inscription in the Bible which Pigott gifted his son is that Pigott is not claiming to be God the Father; at least not at that time. He could still have maintained a private claim to messiahship, shared only with his reclusive congregation and family. In a Christian context of course, to claim to be the messiah is to claim to be divine.

Those who are not Christians can be forgiven for reading such passages in the Bible and in Pigott’s dedication to his son as somehow telegraphing that God the Father is completely decoupled from God the Son. Here, however, we are only concerned with assessing the coherence of Pigott’s inscription with respect to Christian doctrine.

In the very next paragraph, Asif Basit continues to display a misunderstanding of the Trinity:

According to Christianity, Jesus was divine in addition to being fully human. He could feel hunger and he could feel pain.

Asif Basit then paraphrases Dr. Schwieso’s conclusion from their video interview: “after his initial claim to godship, Pigott later shied away from it.”

Once again, it must be stated that shying away from grand claims of divinity is not the same as repentance. One can shy away from more pretentious claims in public while continuing to slip in subtle references to messiahship in private. These provide oxygen for one’s original charade. A pretender can continue to exert influence over their unsuspecting flock. 

Asif’s article continues with a false equivocation between abstention and repentance:

Recall Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s own words in regards to Pigott:

Apologist Arguments: Rehan Qayoom.

In March 2012, Rehan Qayoom published an article entitled, “God Breathed & They Were Scattered”: New Light on Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad & the Agapemonites.³³

From the outset, author Rehan Qayoom alludes to recent criticism having been leveled against the Ahmadiyya prophecy concerning John Hugh Smyth-Pigott as his motivation for penning an article in defense of Ahmadiyyat.

Rehan Qayoom is correct in stating that the prophecy pertaining to Pigott’s death was not unequivocal. It was indeed, conditional. Pigott did have a means of escape. As explained earlier in this article, Pigott’s release from the death-prophecy was contingent on Pigott repenting for his claims to divinity. Note the operative word used in the actual warning prophecy: it was “repent”. The prophecy made no allusion to the mere cessation of blasphemy—public or otherwise.

Rehan Qayoom continues:

Let’s examine the first statement from the excerpt above.

This article has already dealt with the retreat vs. continue false dichotomy proffered by apologists. In short: continuing to claim divinity was not the criterion by which the death-prophecy was kept in play. For had it been, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad would not have issued his pronouncement of August 23, 1903 wherein he formally condemned Pigott (yet again). By this time, however, Pigott had long since removed himself from the public scene. He had already setup shop in Spaxton where he managed to make a fresh start of sorts. Pigott avoided the press and had ceased with the public pronouncements of divinity. He oversaw a private congregation living inside a closed community.

September 1902 represents the last time, prior to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s death in 1908, that we have a public declaration of divinity from Pigott.

Pigott’s career in the big city was probably cut short because of what had happened on September 15, 1902. On that date, a riotous mob of 3000 confronted Pigott at the Ark of the Covenant in Clapton. It was only under armed guard that Pigott was able to return to his home in St. John’s Wood.³⁴ This all happened just one week after Pigott had publicly claimed to be the second coming of Christ.³⁵

Reports from the time suggest that Pigott had retreated to Spaxton shortly after this incident with the mob. Living in London was now untenable. Unfortunately, we don’t have a precise date for exactly when it was that Pigott moved to Spaxton. 

Over two months later, and likely well after Pigott had settled in Spaxton, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad issued his death-prophecy of November 24, 1902. In it, he stated that Pigott would die in his lifetime for having committed the blasphemy of not only claiming to be Jesus, but of claiming to be “the Lord of the whole earth”.³⁶ Mirza Ghulam Ahmad took issue with these attributes insofar as they went beyond messiahship and overstepped into the very territory normally associated with the Islamic conception of God.

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s death-prophecy did provide an escape clause for Pigott, although the solution wasn’t to retreat. Nor was it to refrain. It wasn’t even to desist. Neither was it required that Pigott lay low. In fact, it was none of these. There was only one way out. Pigott had to repent.

Read the words from the man himself, the one who authored this prophecy:

Repentance entails sincere and heartfelt remorse. Repentance is a difficult thing for other people to judge unless also accompanied by a retraction; formal or otherwise. And that’s something which Pigott never issued.

Repentance can also be recognized in others by observing their actions over time. Sometimes, we can observe a change in behavior that’s consistent with sincerity and remorse.

In the case of Pigott, however, we need only read of his escapades at the Abode of Love³⁷ to recognize that this was not a man repentant to God for his misdeeds. Numerous works covering Pigott’s philandering ways in Spaxton between 1903-1908 provide no evidence of remorse. Accounts of Pigott’s life in Spaxton only support the view that he engaged in a tactical retreat. He was simply a charlatan who was forced to change his approach.

In light of Pigott having already adjusted to the new circumstances in which he found himself, how should we interpret prophecies made about him?

It seems reasonable to expect that if one issues a prophecy aspiring for it to be a “sign to the world”,³⁸ then the yardstick to assess the prophecy’s fulfillment cannot be that the rest of us are asked to appraise someone else’s inner disposition of heartfelt remorse. Only con men would issue such manner of prophecy—pronouncements which are chock full of ambiguity and result in the exploitation for those who would be misled.

Prophecies and the prophets who make them can only be worthy of our consideration if the criteria for success (and by extension, failure) are clearly understood by the public prior to any concerned party claiming victory.

Exploring the Timeline: The Move to Spaxton.

Let’s take a closer look at the timeline of events as implied by author Rehan Qayoom.

We know that Pigott had issued a public proclamation to divinity as the second coming of Christ on September 7, 1902.³⁹ A week later, he was jeered and heckled by a mob of 3000.

Reports from the time indicate that shortly after this hostile reception, Pigott relocated to Spaxton. He also avoided the press. What isn’t clear is the exact date for when Pigott actually took up residence in Spaxton.

Given the violent reaction Pigott faced in September 1902, it seems highly unlikely that Pigott held out in Clapton and that he only took refuge in Spaxton after Ahmad’s death prophecy was issued in November of that same year.⁴⁰. It’s a real stretch to posit that Pigott had waited around for a full two months before taking flight to Spaxton.⁴¹

Rehan’s article gives the impression that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s original prophecy⁴² was issued while Pigott was still residing in Clapton; as if to imply that only after the November 24, 1902 prophecy did Pigott decide to tone it down and change course. Rehan’s article also implies that the death-prophecy had been rendered inoperative because Pigott had retreated from the public sphere once in Spaxton.

Rehan’s argument completely breaks down if it comes to light that Pigott had actually moved to Spaxton before the November 24, 1902 prophecy was even issued.

Regardless, the sequence of events proposed by Rehan Qayoom don’t add up. Neither do his assertions that Ahmad’s prophecy was somehow rendered inoperative because Pigott had since retreated into relative obscurity. In short, his own narrative contradicts itself.

Let’s revisit for a moment, when it was that Pigott had likely relocated to Spaxton.

Consider the violent reception Pigott received in September of 1902. He required police protection to escape. Such hostility strongly suggests that Pigott’s relocation to Spaxton was swift. The move to Spaxton probably took place within a few days or weeks after Pigott’s confrontation with the mob. Rehan’s article even supports this position, as he himself states:

With a quick move to Spaxton now established, let’s consider what was happening in India the next summer.

On August 23, 1903, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad issued his announcement entitled, “Predictions concerning Pigott and Dowie” within which Pigott is specifically indicted. Undeniably, Pigott was still in the crosshairs of Ahmad’s death-prophecy. A full nine months on.

Are we really to believe that by August 1903, Pigott was still living it large in Clapton where he continued to make professions of divinity for public consumption? This is what Rehan’s timeline and argumentation implies. If Pigott had gone quiet by August 1903, then why did Mirza Ghulam Ahmad bring him up again if the prophecy’s conditions had already been “forfeit”?

No doubt, the sequence of events described in Rehan’s article lack rigor and proper citation. His article needs a clear dating of distinct events. Such rigor would help bring to the surface the very nonsensical sequencing upon which he has built his case.

Relying on Malfoozat.

Rehan’s article makes heavy use of statements attributed to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. For the most part, these are sourced from Malfoozat, which is a collection of second-hand reports put to paper half a century after the death of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Malfoozat was first published in the 1960s. 

We have no authenticated sources dating back to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s own lifetime for these same statements. The entries cited in Malfoozat by Rehan Qayoom present hitherto unknown criteria which fundamentally and conveniently alter the plain reading of the prophetic announcement against Pigott issued in November 1902.

The alleged challenge of mubahila issued to Pigott is nowhere to be found in sources contemporaneous to the events. In fact, the mubahila narrative subverts the very picture presented by the authenticated material that we do have.

As shared earlier, Marmuzah made this very point:

Considering such a statement only appears 33 years after Piggott’s death (which is itself many years after Mirza’s death), and is not written by Mirza, while also being in opposition to stuff that *was* written by him, it seems like a fabrication to cover up an obvious failure.

— marmuzah مرموزة (@marmuzah)

October 31, 2018

[archived screenshot]

All of the after-the-fact patching up of events comes to us courtesy of Malfoozat, including the fabled mubahila issued to Pigott. These crucial bits of evidence are never to be seen in authenticated contemporaneous sources; documentation that would by definition have been published prior to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s death in 1908.

If I am mistaken, I invite readers to provide their best evidence to correct my suppositions. Provide an authenticated source from the period and I will happily amend this article.

Continuing with an examination of Malfoozat, the incident attributed to April 27, 1903 is particularly strange. It conveys that Pigott was very much on Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s mind well after Pigott had already withdrew from public life.

Remember, Pigott’s proclamations of divinity in public hadn’t been uttered since September 1902.

If refraining from public proclamations of divinity were indeed enough to exculpate Pigott from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s death prophecy of November 24, 1902, why was it that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was still obsessing over Pigott in April 1903? Even worse, why was Pigott even on Ahmad’s radar in August 1903?

Using Rehan Qayoom’s reasoning, shouldn’t Mirza Ghulam Ahmad have already reconciled that Pigott’s retreat had now suspended the entire prophetic warning concerning Pigott’s death within his lifetime? Shouldn’t Mirza Ghulam Ahmad have published an update to this prophecy stating that Pigott had turned a new leaf, and that Pigott would thus be spared as long as he continued to be a good boy?

Deploying Occam’s razor, a most probable explanation emerges as to why Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s documented pronouncements didn’t include these updates, and why instead, they read as they do.  

1. Repentance was the only condition offered to Pigott as an escape—see the original warning pronouncement from November 24, 1902.

2. No repentance was anticipated from Pigott—see the November 20, 1902 entry in Tadhkirah.

   therefore:

3. Pigott’s imminent death was eagerly awaited—see the announcement from August 23, 1903 and the reprinting of its key statements by the Review of Religions magazine in their April 1907 issue. These further corroborate the supposition that as late as April 1907, the Jama’at believed that Pigott’s death before Ahmad’s was still very much in play.

The Announcement: Predictions concerning Pigott and Dowie.

The further we proceed into Rehan Qayoom’s article, the more it appears to have been an aborted rush job originally hoping to be a response to critics. Near the end of the article we encounter walls of Urdu text spanning two and a half pages with no explanation. We subsequently encounter walls of text in English, presumably the translation.

Neither of these walls of text have been titled. Only by reading the entire English text can its author and date be determined. We learn that the author is none other than Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and that this is the announcement from August 23, 1903 concerning Pigott and Dowie.

The bibliographical footnote (number 20) in Rehan’s article identifies the source. Strangely, it makes no mention of “August 23, 1903” nor does it give the title, “Predictions concerning Pigott and Dowie”. Here are the layers of references which it does provide:

The long passage in English provided by Rehan’s article appears to be the only version of the August 23, 1903 announcement available in full. It looks to be an unofficial translation from Urdu into English; possibly rendered for us by Rehan Qayoom himself. None of the text is an exact match, however, as compared to passages of the same found in the April 1907 issue of the Review of Religions.⁴³

Incidentally, this newly provided translation reveals something rather unexpected as regards the Jama’at’s historical archive.⁴⁴ It seems that the Jama’at may no longer have an official English translation of this pivotal announcement in their own archives. This announcement apparently did receive wide publication in American newspapers, though. Those newspapers would not have been given Urdu manuscripts to translate on their own prior to publishing.⁴⁵

In any event, Rehan Qayoom has now provided us with an informal translation to stand in for the original. We’ll work with that.

Before we make use of this full version of the announcement, it’s worth evaluating how it compares with the pieces we do have, authenticated from the early twentieth century. Consider this passage taken from page 120 of the April 1907 issue of the Review of Religions.⁴⁶

Notice the clause, “who shall be brought to destruction within my life-time”? Now take a look at how that same idea comes across in the translation provided by Rehan Qayoom’s article:

It’s not as clear, but upon closer inspection, the two translations do in fact, line up. They both tell us that Pigott will die within Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s lifetime.

With a copy of the August 23, 1903 announcement now in hand, several interesting observations come to light:

1. No mubahila condition for Pigott was mentioned. Not one, not once.

2. No possibility of Pigott escaping destruction is mentioned. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad appears even more confident that Pigott’s destruction in his lifetime is a foregone conclusion. After all, Pigott has yet to repent.

3. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad feels strongly that Pigott—someone who has been silent for almost a year—is still worthy of destruction before his own eyes. Silence and retreat appear to have made no difference for Pigott in the eyes of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the person who actually wrote this prophecy and who would know what it means.

4. The acceptance of a mubahila is still awaited in Dowie’s case. As such, Dowie is spared threats of imminent punishment. At the time (August 1903), Dowie hadn’t yet annoyed Mirza Ghulam Ahmad enough that Ahmad would have unilaterally activated the mubahila against him, although that time would later come.⁴⁷

Recall that at this point, Dowie merely claimed to be Elijah—the human precursor to the return of the actual Messiah. In contrast, Pigott claimed to be both the Messiah and the “the Lord from heaven”.

It makes sense that in August 1903, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s wrath for Pigott had eclipsed his displeasure with Dowie. It makes sense that Dowie’s punishment was conditional upon acceptance of a mubahila while Pigott’s punishment was already awaited as a forgone conclusion which could only have been averted with a full and complete mea culpa—the kind of thing that often happens when one decides to repent.

How to Write a Better Prophecy.

In critiquing Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s prophecy regarding Pigott, I offered to demonstrate how a much better prophecy might be worded:

Would you like me to re-write that prophecy/warning tract to demonstrate for you the simple additions of clarity that would have avoided our entire back and forth? The clarifications Allah’s inspiration didn’t feel fit to provide?

You can then tell me which rendering is better.

— Reason on Faith (@ReasonOnFaith)

January 2, 2019

[archived screenshot]

Just as the Better Qur’an project seeks to demonstrate how the Qur’an could have been a much better book, the warning proclamation to Pigott could also have been much improved. How might it have been phrased had Mirza Ghulam Ahmad truly sought to provide us with a clear sign?

In fact, the addition of just a single paragraph could have radically improved the entire prophecy. Recall the proposed enhancement offered earlier:

Now ask yourself, why didn’t God instruct Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to frame his warning proclamation this way? What would have been lost had these statements been included in the original Pigott prophecy?

Conclusion.

The mark of valid and sound prophecy is the clarity with which people understand what constitutes success and what constitutes failure.

The failure of the Pigott prophecy to be anything but clear is evident from the challenge I posed to Ahmadi Muslims defending the prophecy:

Absolutely. So I’d encourage people to consider what you’ve not answered:

If Pigott died in 1907, you would have still claimed grand success. You wouldn’t have lamented that the prophecy failed. MGA’s ‘prophecy’ was therefore, utterly useless.

— Reason on Faith (@ReasonOnFaith)

January 2, 2019

[archived screenshot]

In fact, the Jama’at should have been horrified in seeing The Sunday Herald of Boston of June 23, 1907 publish the earlier statement of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad that:

The Jama’at should have scrambled to issue a correction if they believed that the death of Mr. Pigott in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s lifetime was no longer to be expected because Pigott had backed off and neither had he accepted the four-year-old mubahila. But the Jama’at did not issue such a statement of correction. The Jama’at never stepped in to clarify that these bold words no longer applied.

Why didn’t the Jama’at clarify that the death prophecy was no longer active? I asked Umar Nasser this very same question, posed as a challenge.

Straw man. No one has claimed Pigott’s life was great at any point. That you have to resort to that diversion indicates itself, that your position is weak. Show me one publication of MGA’s which indicates that the prophecy has been temporarily deactivated.

— Reason on Faith (@ReasonOnFaith)

January 1, 2019

[archived screenshot]

The Jama’at should have stepped in to explain that the prophecy was suspended and that it would only be reactivated if Pigott resumed making God-the-Father claims in public and accepted his mubahila all while Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was still alive.

Can anyone show us such a correction from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad or from the Jama’at to this effect, authenticated as being written prior to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s death?

Can you imagine the reaction from Ahmadi Muslims if Pigott had died in 1907, before Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s own death? Can you honestly assert that Ahmadi Muslims would be dismayed and would not be claiming victory, but that instead, Ahmadi Muslims would be admitting a prophetic opportunity was lost because the conditions of the Pigott prophecy weren’t met?

In this article, we’ve seen how various Ahmadi Muslim apologists have attempted to explain why Pigott didn’t die before Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. The variant speculation is itself evidence that there’s no coherent defense of this prophecy. It’s been a continued evolution of post hoc rationalization. An embodiment of the the throw everything against the wall to see what sticks method of apologetics.

Rejection and Rationality.

Let’s now bring this back to Tahir Nasser’s assertion made at the end of my conversation with his brother:

Though you have a lovely veneer of reasonability in discussion – which I appreciate – once I have dug deeper with you I have found irrationality. The above conversation is a case in point. Your argument was roundly proven false at every turn and you still raised objections

— Tahir Nasser (@TahirNasser)

January 6, 2019

[archived screenshot]

Such statements reaffirm my experience with the religiously indoctrinated: their beliefs often come with an overconfidence that blinds them to legitimate criticism.

In this article, I have put forth in more detail, my objections to Umar Nasser’s various points and to flaws more generally with the entire Pigott prophecy as espoused by other Ahmadi Muslim apologists.

I leave it for readers to decide for themselves who, if anyone, was being irrational here.

1. When someone else claims to have received revelation, it is in fact, hearsay for the rest of us.
2. Feel free to post additional thread links in the comments to this post if there are key exchanges you feel were missed, and I’ll add them here.
3. For more on this point, readers are directed to Umar Nasser’s guest appearance on Imam Farhan Iqbal’s podcast, the Conviction Project. These concepts come up in about the last 10 minutes of that conversation.
4. I’ve only ever read literature from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community on Dowie, so there may in fact be some legitimate issues with that prophecy, but exploring that prophecy is not a focus of this article.
5. Some orthodox Muslims of late nineteenth century India believed it was a Muslim’s moral duty to invade adjacent non-Muslim lands should Muslims have the military power to do so. In contrast, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad rebuked such Muslims in the opening chapter of his book Jesus in India.
6. Ahmadi Muslim apologists cannot appeal to the death-prophecy announcement of November 24, 1902 for this. Instead, they’ll point to the November 20, 1902 entry in Tadhkirah which states, “…his end will be doomed and he will be afflicted with God’s chastisement.”
7. If you’ve read any of his other works, such as Ahmadiyyat: The Renaissance of Islam, you’ll know that he’s a brilliantly skilled writer in English, among his many other talents.
8. This explanation is courtesy of Tahir Nasser.
9. At the time of this writing, English translations of these discourses are not generally available, excluding transient, on-the-spot informal and unofficial translations. There are some topical excerpts available, but nothing cover to cover (as yet) in English.
10. Even in Muhammad Zafrulla Khan’s 1978 publication, Ahmadiyyat: The Renaissance of Islam, pp. 178-179, we are given a summary of the case of John Hugh Smyth-Pigott, and told of a “challenge”. The challenge referred to is simply an excerpt from the November 24, 1902 warning announcement. We’re told that, “if Mr Piggot accepted the challenge God would humiliate him and demonstrate that his claim was false.” No citation is provided for that assertion, however. It’s definitely easy for even a devoted apologist to miss.  [archival screenshot]
11. The scenario up until this point is actually true. The next part is the hypothetical bit.
12. The phrase Ahmadiyyat…zindabaad is an exclamatory slogan often shouted out in public gatherings whenever the crowd feels particularly moved, inspired, victorious, etc.
13. In fact, Pigott also ignored Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. This Indian Messiah seemed much more fixated on other people than anyone in the West was on him.
14. As stated in a hypothetical letter that no one has published and which has only been referred to in material published decades after Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had already died.
15. This article was published in the August 1984 edition of The Review of Religions and is available on alislam.org
16. For the original wording in Dowie’s Leaves of Healing publication, see page 306 of Leaves of healing. v. 12 (1902-1903).
17. See Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s Announcement of August 23, 1903 for details (“Predictions concerning Pigott and Dowie”).
18. Also known as the fishing for data fallacy.
19. Shorthand, in this context, for leaders of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
20. See the subtopic Levels of Divinity.
21. Since it would have to be sent to and read by Pigott, and so that newspapers in the West could document the challenge, as they did in the case of Dowie.
22. On June 23, 1907, The Sunday Herald of Boston reprinted the Pigott death prophecy snippet from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s August 1903 announcement.
23. With some digging, this could be traced in Urdu publications from the Jama’at. It wouldn’t surprise me if this footnote from Maulana Jalal-ud-Din Shams first appeared decades after Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s death.
24. Taunton is a town neighboring Spaxton. Both are located in the county of Somerset.
25. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad died in 1908. Malfoozat was compiled in 1960.
26. If there is such a publication, it would only be admissible had it been published prior to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s own death.
27. The tendency for religious apologists to rationalize post hoc necessitates that we pay special attention to the conditions under which a prophecy can be deemed a failure.
28. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad even mocked Dowie as a coward for this, stating that Dowie didn’t have the courage to just go ahead and claim messiahship himself. See the August 23, 1903 for this charge.
29. Muslim Television Ahmadiyya
30. The dissertation is entitled Deluded Inmates, Frantic Ravers and Communists’: A sociological Study of the Agapemone, A Sect of Victorian Apocalyptic Millenarians.
31. In the early 2000s — see the publishing of this pamphlet on wiki.qern.org.
32. Registration with the British Newspaper Archive is required in order to access. Your first three retrievals are complimentary.
33. You’ll find a link to the article on the YouTube video of Asif Basit interviewing Dr. Schwieso for MTA as mirrored on The Tahir Archive channel. (screenshot)
34. Source: The Sydney Morning Herald, September 16, 1902.
35. Pigott made his claim to divinity as the second coming of Christ on September 7, 1902 in London. See Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty, and the Mad-Doctors in England, by Sarah Wise, page 419. (archival screenshot)
36. The list of blasphemous appellations cited by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in his warning proclamation include: “the Lord of the whole earth,” “the Lord from heaven,” “the Judge of all men,” and “alive for evermore.”.
37. The Abode of Love was the name of Pigott’s enclave in Spaxton. You can read excerpts of Pigott’s exploits from Donald McCormick’s book, Temple of Love. Excerpts of that book are available online.
38. You’ll find this exact phrasing near the end of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s November 24, 1902 announcement entitled, A Warning to a Pretender to Divinity.
39. This announcement was made in Clapton, which is a part of the city of London in England.
40. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s death prophecy entitled, “A Warning to a Pretender to Divinity” was published on November 24, 1902
41. If Rehan Qayoom or anyone else is able to provide evidence for exactly when Pigott took up residence in Spaxton, that would indeed, be instructive.
42. A Warning to a Pretender toDivinity, published on November 24, 1902
43. In fact, we can make comparisons of Rehan Qayoom’s provided translation with the screenshots from the April 1907 issue of the Review of Religions. When we do, we soon learn that the grammar, punctuation, and formatting of this new translation are all quite poor. The version cited in the Review of Religions was much more polished.
44. Assuming that is, that Rehan Qayoom reached out to the Archives department for this documentation in the first place. He may not have.
45. For example, at the bottom of page 119 of the April 1907 issue of the Review of Religions magazine, we are told that this announcement was published with “vast circulation of the notice in America”, citing the New York Commercial Advertiser. Rehan Qayoom’s footnote mentions the same.
46. Here, the Review of Religions article itself cites a passage that was published in the New York Commercial Advertiser.
47. Unilateral activation did come later since Dowie ultimately never did accept the challenge and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claimed it was now “on” regardless, given that Dowie had upped the ante with his arrogance.