The Detroit Address

Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad

Jun 2018 · Islam International Publications Ltd

About this ebook

The United States has been plagued with issues of racial tension since its inception and the issue of racial inequality continues to be at the heart of unrest within the country. The Detroit Address is a Friday Sermon delivered by Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad(rh), the Fourth Khalifah of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, on October 16th, 1987, in Detroit to the members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. In it, he pinpoints factors that have caused racial tension in some communities in the United States, and presents Islam’s longstanding rejection of the notion that any one race if superior to another.

The root cause of tension between Pakistani and African American Ahmadis is found to be an inferiority complex in some members of the Community. Giving the example of the people of Nuh(as) [Noah], Ahmadis are warned that failure to change their ways and adopt mutual love and compassion between one another will result in an unfortunate fate for both themselves and their nation. He admonishes the American members of the Community to break the chains of societal and psychological oppression by urgently re-examining their way of life in light of the character of the Holy Prophet of Islam(sa).

Ratings and reviews

Talks about humbleness, inferiority complex, and how America can rise out of racial problems through following the true teachings of Islam.

About the author

Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad (1928–2003), a man of God, Voice articulate of the age, a great orator, a deeply learned scholar of phenomenal intelligence, a prolific and versatile writer, a keen student of comparative religions, the spiritual head, being the fourth successor of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (the Promised Messiah and Mahdi), to which august office he was elected as Khalīfatul Masih in 1982.

Besides being a religious leader, he was a homeopathic physician of world fame, a highly gifted poet and a sportsman. Though he had no formal education in philosophy and science, he had a philosophical bent of mind and tackled most difficult and abstruse theological-philosophical questions with great acumen and ease and his intellectual approach was always rational and scientific.