Hakeem Noor-ud-Din

Hakeem Noor-ud-Din (also spelled Hakim Nur-ud-Din; حکیم نور الدین; 8 January 1834 – 13 March 1914) was a close companion of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement, and his first successor and first Ahmadiyya caliph since 27 May 1908.

Royal Physician to the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir for many years, his extensive travels included a long stay in the cities of Mecca and Medina in pursuit of religious learning. Noor-ud-Din was the first person to give bay'ah (pledge of allegiance) to Ghulam Ahmad in 1889 and remained his closest associate and confidant, leaving his home in Bhera and setting up permanent residence at Qadian in 1892. He assisted Ghulam Ahmad throughout the course of his religious vocation, himself authored several volumes of rebuttals in response to criticisms raised by Christian and Hindu polemicists against Islam and was instrumental in arranging some of the public debates between Ghulam Ahmad and his adversaries. After Ghulam Ahmad's death, he was unanimously chosen as his successor. Under Noor-ud-Din's leadership, the Ahmadiyya movement began to organise missionary activity with small groups of Ahmadis emerging in southern India, Bengal and Afghanistan, the first Islamic mission in England was established in 1913, and work began on the English translation of the Quran. His lectures on Quranic exegesis and Hadith were one of the main attractions for visitors to Qadian after Ghulam Ahmad. Many prominent scholars and leaders were his students, including Muhammad Ali and Sher Ali, who were themselves Quranic commentators and among the earliest translators of the Quran into English, and Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud who succeeded him as caliph.