In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of mashiach, messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a mashiach is a king or High Priest traditionally anointed with holy anointing oil.
In Islam, Jesus is believed to be the penultimate prophet and messenger of God and the Messiah sent to guide the Children of Israel with a book called the Injīl.
MirzāGhulām Aḥmad was an Indian religious leader and the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam. He claimed to have been divinely appointed as the promised Messiah and Mahdī—which is the metaphorical second-coming of Jesus (mathīl-iʿIsā), in fulfillment of the Islamic prophecies regarding the end times, as well as the Mujaddid of the 14th Islamic century.
Ahmadiyya Islam considers Jesus (ʿĪsā) as a mortal man, entirely human, and a prophet of God born to the Virgin Mary (Maryam). Jesus is understood to have survived the crucifixion based on the account of the canonical Gospels, the Qurʾān, hadith literature, and revelations to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Having delivered his message to the Israelites in Judea, Jesus is understood to have emigrated eastward to escape persecution from Judea and to have further spread his message to the Lost Tribes of Israel. In Ahmadiyya Islam, Jesus is thought to have died a natural death in India. Jesus lived to old age and later died in Srinagar, Kashmir, and his tomb is presently located at the Roza Bal shrine.
The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement for the Propagation of Islam, is a separatist group within the Ahmadiyya movement that formed in 1914 as a result of ideological and administrative differences following the demise of Hakim Nur-ud-Din, the first Caliph after Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Members of the Lahore Ahmadiyya movement are referred to by the majority group as ghayr mubāyi'īn and are also known colloquially as Lahori Ahmadis.
The Ahmadiyya Caliphate is a non-political caliphate established on May 27, 1908 following the death of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, who claimed to be a Prophet, a Messenger, the promised Messiah and Mahdi, the expected redeemer awaited by Muslims. It is believed by Ahmadis to be the re-establishment of the Rashidun Caliphate that commenced following the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The caliphs are entitled Khalīfatul Masīh, sometimes simply referred to as Khalifa. The caliph is the elected spiritual and organizational leader of the worldwide Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and is the successor of Ghulam Ahmad. He is believed by the Community to be divinely ordained and is also referred to by its members as Amir al-Mu'minin and Imam Jama'at. The 5th and current Caliph of the Messiah of the Ahmadiyya Community is Mirza Masroor Ahmad.
Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi, known reverentially as Ala Hazrat, was an Indian Islamic scholar, theologian, jurist, preacher, poet from Bareilly, British India, considered as the founder of the Barelvi movement and the Razvi branch of the Qadri Sufi order.
Al-Masih ad-Dajjal, otherwise referred to simply as the Dajjal, is an evil figure in Islamic eschatology who will pretend to be the promised Messiah and later claim to be God, appearing before the Day of Judgment according to the Islamic eschatological narrative. The word Dajjal is not mentioned in the Quran, but he is mentioned and described in the Hadith. Corresponding to the Antichrist in Christian tradition, the Dajjal is said to emerge out in the east, although the specific location varies among the various sources. The Dajjal will imitate the miracles performed by Jesus Christ, such as healing the sick and raising the dead, the latter done with the aid of demons. He will deceive many people such as weavers, magicians and children of fornication.
Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad was the second caliph, leader of the worldwide Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and the eldest son of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad from his second wife, Nusrat Jahan Begum. He was elected as the second successor of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad on 14 March 1914 at the age of 25, the day after the death of his predecessor Hakim Nur-ud-Din.
Mirza Ghulam Aḥmad was a religious figure from India, and the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. He claimed to be the Mujaddid of the 14th Islamic century, the promised Messiah, and the Mahdi awaited by the Muslims in the end days. He declared that Jesus (Isa) had in fact survived the crucifixion and later died a natural death, after having migrated towards Kashmir and that he had appeared in the likeness of Jesus.
Messiah Foundation International is a spiritual organisation formally established in 2002 to promote the Goharian Philosophy of Divine Love. MFI is the successor of RAGS International, a spiritual organisation founded by Pakistani spiritual leader Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi in 1980. The organisation claims to be a syncretic fulfilment of Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Hindu prophecy, with Shahi depicted as the messianic figure of many religions, given the title of Mehdi, Messiah, and Kalki Avatar as well as the generic "Awaited One" prophesied by other religions.
Younus AlGohar is a British co-founder of Messiah Foundation International, a spiritual organisation which advocates for Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi mystical teachings and claims he is the Messiah (Mahdi). He authored the books Mysterious Horizons – Beyond God (2007), and Nisāb-e-Mehdi نصا ب مہدی (2010).
The Kalki Avatar Foundation is a spiritual organisation and the sister organisation of Messiah Foundation International. It was founded in 2000 by Younus AlGohar under the guidance of Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi, and bases its principles on his teachings. The Kalki Avatar Foundation's goals include raising awareness of the spiritual sciences, promoting divine love and tolerance among all peoples, and propagating the belief that Shahi is the awaited Kalki Avatar. Although headquartered in London, United Kingdom, the organisation operates in Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, Japan, and South Korea as well. The organisation is particularly active in Sri Lanka.
Ahmadiyya, officially the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community or the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at, is an Islamic revival or messianic movement originating in British India in the late 19th century. It was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908), who claimed to have been divinely appointed as both the Promised Mahdi and Messiah expected by Muslims to appear towards the end times and bring about, by peaceful means, the final triumph of Islam; as well as to embody, in this capacity, the expected eschatological figure of other major religious traditions. Adherents of the Ahmadiyya—a term adopted expressly in reference to Muhammad's alternative name Aḥmad—are known as Ahmadi Muslims or simply Ahmadis.
Prophets in Islam are individuals in Islam who are believed to spread God's message on Earth and to serve as models of ideal human behaviour. Some prophets are categorized as messengers, those who transmit divine revelation, most of them through the interaction of an angel. Muslims believe that many prophets existed, including many not mentioned in the Quran. The Quran states: "And for every community there is a messenger." Belief in the Islamic prophets is one of the six articles of the Islamic faith.
Akhundzada Mohammad Abdul Ghafoor Hazarvi was a Muslim theologian, jurist, and scholar of ahadith in Pakistan. He was active in the Pakistan movement, member of Council of Islamic Ideology. He was the companion of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and separatist leader Maulana Zafar Ali Khan and was active in the independence movement of Pakistan against the British Raj. He was a Sufi of the Chishti Sufi order and the founding member of the religious Barelvi Sunni strain political party Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP). He became its president in 1948. He was also a political figure in Pakistan and was the first recipient of Nishan-e-Imtiaz by the President of Pakistan. He was also the chairman of Majlis-e-Tahaffuz-e-Khatme Nabuwwat, an organisation opposed to the Ahmadiyya Movement that waged a campaign against Mirza Ghulam Ahmed's claim of prophethood.
The Ahmadiyya branch in Islam has relationships with a number of other religions. Ahmadiyya consider themselves to be Muslim, but are not regarded as Muslim by mainstream Islam. Mainstream Muslim branches refer to the Ahmadiyya branch by the religious slur Qadiani, and to their beliefs as Qadianism a name based on Qadian, the small town in India's Punjab region where the founder of Ahmadiyya, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was born.
