Ahmadiyyat - The Renaissance of Islam — Page 357
THE RENAISSANCE OF ISLAM 357 default in his conduct which might raise a doubt concerning his claim that he was favoured with constant communion with God. The revelation vouchsafed to him was replete with prophecies having the widest range, pertaining to all spheres of life, and everyone of them has been fulfilled according to its purport and at its due time. He founded a Community, the members of which were required to illustrate in their lives all the social, moral and spiritual values inculcated by Islam, and of which the highest example was furnished in the life of the Holy Prophet of Islam, peace be on him. The members of the Movement have been drawn from every walk of life; they are practical men pursuing the whole range of beneficent activities permissible in Islam. They are not cranks, recluses or ascetics who reject the normal values of life; they have set enviable examples of full, successful and highly beneficent lives. The distinguish- ing feature of their lives is the upholding of the moral and the spiritual above the material and the physical in a pattern of beneficent co-ordination. As taught by Islam, they believe that the faculties and capacities bestowed upon them by God Almighty are a precious bounty and should be beneficently developed and exercised at their proper time and occasion, and not to be suppressed or stultified. They believe that everything bestowed upon man has a beneficent purpose which should be sought to be achieved and fulfilled at the highest level. The moral and spiritual code to which they seek to conform imposes no handicap upon them. Indeed it enables them to live their lives at a high level of beneficent activity, much above the average standard of life of those around them, judged by a true standard of beneficence. There have, by the grace and mercy of God, appeared among them men possessing high eminence in almost every sphere of human life. The most outstanding instances of the moral and spiritual revolution that is worked in the lives of the members of the Movement as a result of the teachings, exhortations and example of the Holy Founder of the Movement and his