Ahmadiyyat - The Renaissance of Islam — Page 148
148 AHMADIYY AT towards you, withdraw from such company exchanging greetings of peace. If you are persecuted or reviled be mindful that you should not meet stupidity with stupidity, for otherwise you will be accounted in the same category as your opponents. God Almighty desires that you should become a Community that should set an example of goodness and truthfulness for the whole world. Hasten to exclude everyone from your company who sets an example of evil, and mischief, and provocation, and ill-behaviour. He who cannot dwell among us in meekness, goodness and piety, using gentle words and comporting himself in ways of good conduct should depart from us quickly, for God does not desire that such a one should dwell among us. He will die miserably, for he did not adopt a good way. Be alert, therefore, and be truly good-hearted, and gentle, and righteous. You will be known by your regular attendance at Prayer services and your high moral qualities. He who has the seed of evil embedded in him will not be able to conform to this admonition. Your hearts should be purified of deceit, your hands should be innocent of wrong, your eyes should be free from impurity and there should be nothing inside you except truth and sympathy for mankind. I trust that my friends who dwell with me in Qadian will set a high example in respect of all their faculties. I do not desire that among our pious Community there should be anyone of suspicious conduct or to whose behaviour any exception might be taken, or who should be inclined towards disorderliness or should suffer from any other kind of impurity. Ifwe hear any complaint against anyone that he deliberately disregards the obligations due to God Almighty, or keeps company which indulges in mockery or nonsense, or is guilty of any kind of misconduct, he will be immediately excluded from the Community and will no longer be able to remain with us. . . . A harvest that is prepared with labour and ripens, also contains some weeds that have to be cut down and burnt; such is the law of nature from which our Community cannot be exempt. I know that those who are truly the members of my Community have been bestowed hearts by God Almighty which naturally hate evil and love goodness, and I hope that they will set a good example for people [Tableegh Risalat, Vol. VII, pp. 42-5]. The world is a passing panorama. If a person does not exert himself fully to carry out a good work at its proper time he cannot