Literal interpretations
can be misleading

Editorial, January 2026

More than a hundred years ago, an elderly stranger told his story to a renowned Indian physician and Islamic scholar, His Holiness Maulawi Nuruddin (1838-1914), the first caliph of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. It is recorded in the biography he related, Mirqat-ul-Yaqin (The Ladder to Certainty). The story illustrates the manifest dangers of literal interpretation. The elderly stranger naratted his story as follows.More than a hundred years ago, an elderly stranger told his story to a renowned Indian physician and Islamic scholar, His Holiness Maulawi Nuruddin (1838-1914), the first caliph of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. It is recorded in the biography he related, Mirqat-ul-Yaqin (The Ladder to Certainty). The story illustrates the manifest dangers of literal interpretation. The elderly stranger narrated his story as follows.

“When I hear of a cleric, I become quite frightened and
disturbed. The reason is that, at the time the British arrived in
the area, a Muslim cleric was giving a speech. My father went to
hear the speech, and I accompanied him. I was seated next to
my father. I was quite young at the time, but I had developed
understanding.

“During the course of his speech, the Muslim cleric said that the source of the river Nile was a mountain on the moon. Someone from the audience said that the moon passed over their heads, but not a drop of water fell from it, and neither did the Nile River appear to be flowing down from there. On hearing this, the cleric exclaimed, “He is an infidel. See that he does not escape.” Mayhem ensued. Zealots attacked him from all around with hands and shoes and beat him unconscious and close to death. “The incident generated a great hate for Islam in me. I left the place immediately and went straight to a priest and asked him to take me into Christianity and send me far away from such a place right away. I have had no news of my father since then.

“I learned English. I read all the Christian literature and became a fine priest. I preached Christianity for a long time and became a mission officer.

“One day, a Briton came to see me. He had been a commissioner, an administrator, and had eventually become a judge. He showed me a magazine. The magazine reported that the source of the River Nile had been discovered. How industrious were the British! Many had wasted their lives trying to discover the source of the Nile. Generations of many families passed away in the search. Finally, it was found that the Nile originated from the Mountain of the Moon, a mountain always covered with snow. “I took the magazine from the Briton, excused myself from his company, and went inside my home. I thought of my father, and I wept and cried, and called out, ‘God! I became a Christian because of a Muslim Cleric, and now I have become a Muslim because of a Christian.’”

The Muslim Cleric had misunderstood a statement of the Prophet of Islam that the Mountain of the Moon was the source of the Nile and had taken it literally. Many statements in religious scriptures are metaphorical and should be interpreted as such, seeking heavenly guidance. These statements include past stories and future prophecies including the prophecies concerning the second coming of Jesus, the end of the world and the life after death, both in Islam and in Christianity.

Syed Sajid Ahmad

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