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Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claimed to be the Mujaddid (revivor of Islam) of the 14th Islamic century, the promised Messiah (“Second Coming of Christ”) and Mahdi whom the Muslims were awaiting. He claimed to be a prophet within Islam albeit whose prophethood was a reflection of Muhammad and not independent of him. He also claimed to have appeared in the likeness of Krishna and that his advent fulfilled certain prophecies found in Hindu scriptures (though he held Krishna to be a prophet of God and a human being, rather than God or an incarnation of God). His claims were accepted by tens of thousands of his time but he was opposed and not accepted by the majority of the mainstream Muslims of his time.
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Mujaddid
In 1882 he claimed that he had been divinely appointed for the revival of religion and that he was the Mujaddid (reformer). This was the first time he claimed a divine office though he did not take any kind of pledge of allegiance and refused to do so stating that he had not been commanded by God until 1889 he published the following revelation:
In 1889 he declared that God had commanded him to found a community and began to take the pledge of allegiance from people where they will repent of their sins, accept his claim and promise to abide by certain conditions of joining his community.
Mahdi and Messiah
In 1891 Ahmad claimed that God had told him:
He declared that he was the Messiah and Mahdi and that Jesus Christ was not to return physically, having died a natural death.
In response to Islamic critics, Ahmad claimed that he came to revive Islam:
The likeness of Krishna
It is often mentioned that Ghulam Ahmad claimed to be the Hindu God Krishna. This claim is arguably the most misunderstood of his claims and most often misquoted. According to Ahmad, Krishna was not God but a prophet of God and the Sanskrit term Avatar synonymous with the terms Prophet and Messenger which are popular within the Middle Eastern religious traditions. He published various revelations which he claimed to have received informing him of this, one such revelation addressing him was:
In a lecture given in Sialkot in 1904 he declared that God had informed him that Krishna who had appeared among the Aryas thousands of years ago was indeed a prophet of God upon whom the Holy Spirit would descend from God but that later his teachings were corrupted and he began to be worshipped. Here he claimed that he was the avatar whom the Hindus were awaiting in the latter days and that he had appeared in the likeness of Krishna invested with the same qualities. and in his capacity as such he set out to explain and correct what he perceived to be the erroneous beliefs of the Hindus of his time such as the worship of many Gods and the transmigration of souls.
The second advent of Muhammad
The concept of the second advent of Muhammad within some aspects of Islamic thought is primarily based on the hadith Narrated by Abu Huraira:
Ghulam Ahmad preached that his prophethood was as a result of “complete annihilation in the love of” Muhammad and that his prophethood did not in any way infringe that of Muhammad’s because it was a part of and a continuation of Muhammad’s Prophethood, he claimed to be a reflection (Arabic: Buruz) and shadow (Arabic: Zill) of Muhammad and the second aspect of his prophethood, in that he only absorbed, reflected and exhibited the qualities and attributes of Muhammad, like the manner in which the moon reflects and exhibits the light of the sun. Thus he says:
Thus Ghulam Ahmad considered himself as spiritually inseparable from the person of Muhammad preaching a special affinity with him and claimed that God had addressed him as Muhammad and Ahmad. Hence, according to him the reason why Muhammad called the promised Mahdi by his own name and one from among the Ahl al-Bayt (people of the house of Muhammad). Ghulam Ahmad stated:
In his capacity as such he claimed that his mission was to lead and bring the followers of all previous prophets under the banner of the religion of Muhammad.