ABDUL LATIF SHAHEED IN AFGHANISTAN: AN AHMADIYYA PROPHECY

Afghanistan

In addition to the article below, we have collected 18 signs in favour of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. The list is available on This Link

In the mid-1990s, Tony Blair initiated his campaign to become the next British Prime Minister. In the lead up to the elections, Blair would open his conferences with the popular song, 'Things Can Only Get Better'. Blair's use of this title was a not-so-subtle critique of the previous government, which Blair claimed was holding the country back.

The mid-1990s may have been tough in Britain, but halfway across the world in Afghanistan things were much, much worse. Older Afghans at the time must have looked back on their lives and wondered why their country seemed to be a place in which 'Things Can Only Ever Get Worse'. Few realised that the constant deterioration of the Afghan nation began with a revelation more than a hundred years old.

The Revealed Prophecy

Two goats will be slaughtered and all that are upon the earth are mortal. We shall show them Our Signs in the universe and in their own selves, and shall show them the punishment of the disobedient. (Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, Tohfa-e-Baghdad, 1893)

Years after its' publication, the meaning of this revelation remained unclear. That changed in the early 1900s, when the king of Afghanistan became enraged on learning one of his nation's most preeminent Muslim scholars had accepted Islam Ahmadiyya at the hand of Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. The scholar, Abdul Rahman Shaheed, was executed on the orders of the furious king.

Shortly thereafter, another scholar, Abdul Lateef, journeyed from Afghanistan with the intention of performing Hajj. A Christian Englishman who worked as the Afghan government's Engineer-in-Chief wrote a memoir, describing the events that followed:

One of the chief and most influential of the moullahs in the country started on the Haj in the beginning of that year and while going through India he heard of a holy man who preached the second coming of Christ. The moullah went to see this man, of whom many wonderful things were told by the natives. The words of the self-styled prophet were so convincing that the moullah was converted and came to believe in the man.  

One day, it being known the moullah was going on the Haj, "the prophet" took the moullah into an inner room and there, the moullah afterwards stated the two visited Mecca and he saw himself one of the multitude of pilgrims at the holy shrine.  Whether mesmeric or other influence would account for this hallucination of the moullah is a matter for conjecture, but even death could not shake the moullah's belief that he had been to Mecca and that his guide was a true prophet.  

So the king, when he heard of all this, sent word to the moullah to return and the moullah did so, preaching the new religion as he came, and as soon as he was well within the boundaries of the country, he was made prisoner and brought to Kabul. Here he was examined by the king, but the king could find in the moullah's clever replies nothing against the true religion which would make him an infidel and therefore worthy of death, for a Mussalman who becomes an apostate must be stoned to death.  

He was then sent for examination to Nasrullah Khan, but the prince could not convict the man on his own, so a jury of twelve of the most learned moullahs was convened and even their examination of the accused could elicit nothing on which the man might be killed and they reported this to the King. But the King said the man must be convicted and so he was again sent to the moullahs, who were told that they must sign a paper, saying the man was an apostate and worthy of death. Again, the majority of the moullahs made the affirmation that he was innocent of anything against their religion, but two of the moullahs gave their verdict of death. The man was condemned by the King and stoned to death.  

Before being led away from the king's presence to be killed, the moullah prophesied that a great calamity would overtake the country and that both the king and the prince would suffer. About nine o'clock at night the day the moullah was killed, a great storm of wind suddenly rose and raged with violence for half an hour and then stopped as suddenly as it came. Such a wind at night was altogether unusual so the people said that this was the passing of the soul of the moullah. Then cholera came and according to the former outbreaks another visitation was not due for four years to come and this was also regarded as part of the fulfillment of the moullah's prophecy, hence the great fear of the king and the prince and it accounts for the prince losing control of himself when his favourite wife died. (Frank A. Martin, Engineer in Cheif to the government of Afghanistan, Under the Absolute Amir, p202-204, 1907)

Abdul Lateef Shaheed's martyrdom occurred on July 14th 1903. An unusual fear-inducing storm occurred and in September 1903 cholera suddenly broke out.

Hadhrat Abdul Lateef Shaheed r.a.

It took a period of time for news of the martyrdom of Abdul Lateef Shaheed to filter back to India, but by October 1903 Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had published a response which included the following divine prophecy:

The land of Kabul shall suffer the consequences of this brutality. Prior to this tragedy there had also occurred the murder of Mian Abdul Rahman, one of my followers, on which God had kept quiet, but He will not overlook this brutality and the terrible consequences of this event shall be witnessed. It has been reported that after the killing of the deceased martyr by thousands of stones, an epidemic of cholera broke out in Kabul and a great number of people, including prominent men and dignitaries of the state and a number of the King's relatives, perished. But that is not all. This was a most merciless murder which has no parallel under heaven. Alas, what a pity! What has this ignorant King done? He has brutally killed such an incomparable, innocent and righteous man and has ensured his own ruin. O land of Kabul! you are a witness to the heinous crime committed on your soil. O miserable land! you have, in the sight of Allah, been condemned as you are the scene of this most atrocious crime. (Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, The Narrative of the Two Martyrdoms, 1903)

As recorded in the earlier extract from Martin's memoir, the king and the prince had already witnessed and acknowledged the fulfillment of Abdul Lateef Shaheed's revealed prophecy regarding their own suffering, when the prince lost his favourite wife to cholera just two months after the martyrdom. Now, another prophecy had been revealed to Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, of even greater magnitude. He stated 'that is not all', 'terrible consuquences of this event shall be witnessed,' 'in the sight of Allah' the land of Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, had been 'condemned' and would continue to 'suffer the consequences of this brutality' and that the king 'has ensured his own ruin'.

The King of Afghanistan, the Prince and their family

The two leading figures in plotting the martyrdom of Abdul Lateef Shaheed, according to Martin's aforementioned account, were the king and the prince. From Martin's account, it seems Abdul Lateef Shaheed received revelations by which he prophecised the coming punishment and suffering of both the King and the Prince.

This Afghan king was called Habibullah Khan and the prince was his brother and heir, Nasrullah Khan. Over a period of years, Habibullah Khan became increasingly unpopular with the Afghan public until finally in 1919 he was assassinated aged 46. 

Habibullah Khan

His brother, Nasrullah Khan, inherited the throne, but his end was no better. Within a week of becoming king, Nasrullah Khan was overthrown by his own nephew and was imprisoned before being assassinated in 1920, also aged 46. 

Nasrullah Khan

Nasrullah Khan was replaced as king by Habibullah's son Amanullah Khan. Amanullah himself was overthrown in 1927 and spent the rest of his life in exile. He was replaced by his brother, who abdicated a week later to be replaced by a cousin called Mohammad Nadir Shah. Mohammad Nadir Shah lasted until 1933, when he was assassinated by the gunshot of a disgruntled citizen. He was succeeded by his son Mohammad Zahir Shah who ruled until 1973, when he was ousted in a coup. The monarchy was then abolished and so ended the continuous public suffering of the descendants of the king and the prince.

Post-Monarchy Afghanistan

The end of the monarchy brought little respite to the beleaguered Afghan people. Having suffered from years of civil wars, Afghanistan now felt the full force of perhaps the most powerful country in the world at the time, when in 1979 the USSR (Russia) invaded. The war lasted ten years and according to some estimates more than 2 million Afghans were killed, with millions more injured or displaced. These statistics are made even more terrifying when we consider that in the same year the war broke out a census showed that the population of Afghanistan consisted of 15 million people.

More than 1 in 8 Afghans were killed in the Soviet war. 

USSR Tanks in Afghanistan

The war with the USSR lasted almost ten years. After it ended in 1989, Afghanistan collapsed into another seven years of civil wars. In 1996 the Taliban ceased control and set up an 'Islamic Republic'. The Taliban's appalling human rights violations are well documented: they are reported to have repeatedly committed genocides, at times executing as many as 4,000 people and particularly targeting Muslims of other sects.  They would slit the throats and skin the bodies of their victims and were almost in a constant state of civil war with other Afghan tribes. They murdered foreign diplomats and harboured and support international terrorists such as Osama bin Laden.

Modern day Afghanistan

Tony Blair did eventually win the 1997 General Election and - for a while at least - his policies did seem to make Britain 'only get better'. However, he certainly could not help Afghanistan 'get better'. Instead, in 2001, Tony Blair, American president George Bush, and a coalition of nations invaded Afghanistan. The war that followed killed thousands of Afghans and 11 years on fighting continues. Amnesty International's 2012 report on the conflict summed up the situation as follows:

The ongoing armed conflict between the Afghan government and its international allies on the one hand, and the Taleban and other armed groups on the other, led to record levels of civilian casualties, prompting Amnesty International to reiterate its calls for the International Criminal Court to investigate suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity. According to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), 3,021 civilians were killed in the conflict during 2011, with armed groups responsible for 77 per cent of civilian deaths. The judicial authorities, the police and the Afghan National Army routinely committed serious human rights violations. Arbitrary arrests and detentions continued, with systematic use of torture and other ill-treatment by the intelligence services. Afghans, particularly women and girls, were deprived of their rights to health and education. Violence against women and girls was widespread and went unpunished, particularly in areas controlled by insurgents. Women reporting cases of gender-based violence received little redress. (Amnesty International, 2012)

Coalition Troops in Afghanistan

Another human rights charity was equally scathing:

Ten years after Taliban rule, Afghanistan’s rights situation remains extremely poor. Armed groups routinely engage in extortion and violence against communities, while the Taliban continues to conduct attacks that indiscriminately or intentionally harm civilians. The situation for women’s rights is particularly bad, with threats and attacks by insurgents on women leaders, schoolgirls, and girls’ schools, and police arrests of women for “moral crimes” such as running away from forced marriage or domestic violence. Plans by the international community to decrease aid in coming years raise the risk that a bad human rights situation could become worse. (Human Rights Watch)

The CIA world fact-book report into the condition of Afghanistan is simply sickening:

Afghanistan is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking; Afghan boys and girls are trafficked within the country, in forced prostitution, in forced labor in carpet-making factories, and in forced domestic service; forced begging is a growing problem in Afghanistan; Afghan boys are subjected to forced prostitution and forced labor in the drug smuggling industry in Pakistan and Iran; Afghan women and girls are subjected to forced prostitution and forced marriages; women and girls from Iran, Tajikistan, and possibly Uganda and China are reportedly forced into prostitution in Afghanistan. (CIA World Factbook, 2011)

Meanwhile, the world has discovered how those who set up the so-called 'Islamic Republic' continue to fund their activities:

Afghanistan's economy depends heavily on the drugs trade. The country supplies over 90% of the world's opium, the raw ingredient of heroin. International bodies and governments say the drugs trade is helping to fuel the Taliban insurgency, which is estimated to receive up to US$100m a year from the trade. (BBC News, 2012)

Afghanistan doesn't limit itself to only exporting heroin; according to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, it is also the third highest consumer of heroin worldwide. Amnesty International reports that in the age where westerners expect to live beyond 80, Afghans expect to live to 48. The list of atrocities and problems within this country goes on and on and on. 

Things Can Only Ever Get Worse. 

In addition to the article below, we have collected 18 signs in favour of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. The list is available on This Link