Publications of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
Acknowledged Collections
By Qadiani
1879-1908 Roohani Khazain - main compendium of books
1881-1908 Advertisements
1880s - 1908 Speeches
1880s - 1908 [Letters]
By Lahori (in addition to Qadiani)
1908 [A Letter to Akhbar-e-Aam]
Un-acknowledged Publications (English)
1894 My Attitude Towards the British Government
1898 The Message or A Cry of Pain
1898 A Revealed Cure for the Bubonic Plague
1898 The Kashf-ul-Ghita
1902 A Warning to A Pretender to Divinity
Translation by Others
[The Aryas of Qadian and Us] (translation of "Qadian ke Arya aur Hum", by H.L. Saxena)
Literary Criticism
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's writing style can be summarized as meandering, convoluted, loquacious, and full of religious terminology. Very often, he starts with a well-thought of agenda for a book or booklet, but then gives in to repetition, polemics and personal attacks.
In one book, he wrote out the word 'curse' in Arabic 1000 times, arranged into neat rows and columns. Such repetition is not a recognized literary device in Urdu or Arabic literature.
His characterization of opponents was usually very harsh, including words like 'progeny of prostitutes', and prophecies about opponent's death and misfortune reached such a high pitch that at one time the government of India (British government at the time) had to intervene through the courts and get him to sign an agreement curtailing his prophecies about others.
Early on, Mirza defended his strong language as having a deterrent effect on the 'enemies of Islam'. However, none of his contemporaries ever praised Mirza's style of expression as having any artistic or persuasive power. He also had to defend criticism that his harsh style led to community tensions and the British Government of India had to take note of this on a number of occasions
Mirza published an [advertisement addressing concerns] about the use of a certain vulgar tone in his writing and his choice of harsh words for Eesa (Jesus Christ) and his mother, Mariam (Mary).
'Divine Origin' of Writing
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad says:
All my Arabic books are a type of Ilham since I wrote them under a special support from God. Sometimes I don't understand the meaning of some words and sentences unless I use a dictionary (Seeratul Mahdi, Narration No. 104)
I confess that all our books were written through the power of Allah
All the knowledge of the [promised] Messiah descends from heaven. He does NOT get any help from (the people of) earth. (RK, vol 5, Aina Kamalat-ul-Islam, page 409)
'Sultan-ul-Qalam'
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad named himself 'Sultan-ul-Qalam' (King of the Pen). This was intended to mean that his poetry and prose were far superior to that of humans and it is also related to the concept of the 'divine origin' of his writings.
This designation has been a source of humorous criticism of his writings as they are uniquely convoluted and incomprehensible.
However, his followers do take this designation seriously and their media teams often use this title in their names. For example, seehttp://www.mkausa.org/MSQ/MSQ-PC-2011-Highlights-Full
Challenges to Write in Arabic
Starting in about 1891, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claimed that God had taught him 40,000 consonantal roots of the Arabic language. He gave many challenges around his claimed mastery of Arabic, which included challenges of plain Arabic writing and [challenges of exegesis of the Quran].
An example is the "Fifty Rupees Challenge": Mirza Ghulam Ahmad challenged Muhammad Hussain Batalvi and others to distinguish his writings from the writings of renowned Arab authors. (Hujjat-Ullah p.7)
Plagiarism
He was dogged by charges of plagiarism during his life, and new research sheds new light on this aspect.
Some allegations were raised during his lifetime, especially by Mehr Ali Shah, which Mirza Ghulam Ahmad refers to in the book Nuzool-ul-Masih. His defence was mainly that they were [very few sentences] and that such borrowing was [common with other authors].