Dhurriyatul baghaya

Dhurriyatul baghaya

In Aina-e-Kamalat-e-Islam (1893), Ghulam Ahmad claims that Muslims everywhere view his books with love and accept his claim. He makes one exception, and the Arabic phrase he uses to describe those who reject him is the subject of this page:

The key words read: إلا ذرية البغايا الذين ختم الله على قلوبهم فهم لا يقبلون (illa dhurriyatul baghaya alladhina khatama Allahu 'ala qulubihim fa-hum la yaqbalun).

Translation:

These are books which every Muslim looks upon with the eye of love and affection, and benefits from their insights, and accepts me and affirms my claim, except the offspring of baghaya, upon whose hearts God has set a seal, so they do not accept.

(Ruhani Khazain, Vol. 5, pp. 547-548, Aina-e-Kamalat-e-Islam)

Baghaya (بغايا) is the plural of baghiyy, the ordinary Arabic word for a prostitute or an unchaste woman. The Qur'an uses it in this sense when Maryam says she has never been baghiyy (Qur'an 19:20), and when her people tell her that her mother was not one (Qur'an 19:28). Read plainly, the phrase calls those among the Muslims who reject Ghulam Ahmad the children of prostitutes. The Qadianis' own English translation of the book, published in 2025, renders the passage differently:

Official translation:

These are the books which are viewed by all the Muslims with the eye of love and compassion, from which they take benefit, and by which they accept me and testify to my claim; except for the progeny of the rebellious whose hearts have been sealed by Allah, and thus they do not accept it.

(The Mirror of the Excellences of Islam [English translation of Aina-e-Kamalat-e-Islam], p. 524)

The "offspring of baghaya" have become the "progeny of the rebellious". The root b-gh-y does carry the sense of transgression, and rebels in Arabic are called bughat. Baghaya, however, is the plural of baghiyy, not of baghi, and the English removes the meaning a reader of the Arabic would take from it. It might be argued that the phrase is an idiom for rebellious or wicked people, but the translations printed with his other Arabic works do not support that reading.

The same word, or its singular, appears in several of those works. There, the translations printed beneath the Arabic make its meaning plain, and where an official English translation exists, it says the same:

1. 'Kharaab aurtain' (corrupt, immoral women)

View Urdu Transliteration

Aur janna chahiye ke har yak shakhs jo walad-ul-halal hai aur kharab auraton aur Dajjal ki nasl mein se nahin hai, woh do baton mein se ek baat zarur ikhtiyar karega...

(Ruhani Khazain, Vol. 8, p. 163, Nur-ul-Haq)

Official translation:

...offspring of licentious women or the seed of Dajjal...

(Light of Truth [English translation of Nur-ul-Haq], p. 275)

The Arabic here is the same phrase, dhurriyatul baghaya, and it is set directly against wuld al-halal, those of lawful birth. The contrast is between legitimate and illegitimate birth, not between the obedient and the rebellious. An official Qadiani translation accordingly renders it "offspring of licentious women". Set beside "progeny of the rebellious" in The Mirror of the Excellences of Islam, the difference lies in the translation, not in the Arabic.

2. 'Badkar aurat' (a woman who commits evil acts; the singular, baghiyyah)

View Urdu Transliteration

Aur tu ne badkar aurat ki tarah raqs kiya...

(Ruhani Khazain, Vol. 12, p. 235, Hujjatullah)

3. 'Bazaari aurtain' (women of the bazaar, a euphemism for prostitutes)

The key words read: والتشوق الى رقص البغايا (wa al-tashawwuq ila raqs al-baghaya).

View Urdu Transliteration

Aur shauq karna bazari auraton ke raqs ki taraf...

(Ruhani Khazain, Vol. 16, p. 49, Khutbah Ilhamiyah)

Official translation:

...loose women...

(The Revealed Sermon [English translation of Khutbah Ilhamiyah], p. 26)

4. 'Zanaan-e-fahisha' (lewd women; Persian, in Lujjat-un-Nur, published after his death)

The key words read: وقد كثرت البغايا لشقوة الناس في هذا الزمان (wa qad kathurat al-baghaya li-shiqwati al-nas fi hadha al-zaman), with the Persian beneath: bara-e badbakhti-e mardum zanaan-e-fahisha darin zamana bisyar shuda and.

(Ruhani Khazain, Vol. 16, p. 438, Lujjat-un-Nur)

Official translation:

It is due to the wretchedness of people these days, that prostitutes have grown in number and the tradition of veiling has declined.

(The Ocean of Light [English translation of Lujjat-un-Nur], p. 109)

Commentary

The translations printed with his Arabic works leave little doubt about how the word was understood. Whether in Urdu or Persian, each renders baghaya as unchaste women, and where official English translations exist, they follow suit: "licentious women", "loose women" and "prostitutes".

The exception is Aina-e-Kamalat-e-Islam. In Khutbah Ilhamiyah and Lujjat-un-Nur, the word describes prostitutes themselves, and the English translates it plainly. In Nur-ul-Haq and Aina-e-Kamalat-e-Islam, the phrase dhurriyatul baghaya is used as an insult about the birth of his opponents. In Nur-ul-Haq, where those opponents are Christians, the official English keeps "offspring of licentious women". In Aina-e-Kamalat-e-Islam, where they are Muslims who rejected his claim, it becomes "progeny of the rebellious". Why the translators chose differently cannot be shown from these sources, but the one place where the insult is softened is the one where it falls on Muslims.