Ahmadiyyat - The Renaissance of Islam — Page 342
342 AHMADIYY AT London and, in an address to the Community in a meeting in which all the branches of the Movement in Britain were represented, gave a brief account of the impressions he had gathered in the W es~ African countries that he had visited, and stressed the great need of pressing forward in West Africa. He announced a scheme that he had conceived under Divine direction, of expanding the activities of the Move- ment in West Africa through the establishment of a substan- tial number of schools and hospitals which were the great need of the people of West Africa. He mentioned that the programme that he had in mind for the next three years would require an ouday of one hundred thousand pounds sterling and called upon the Community to furnish a substan- tial portion of that amount as early as possible so that there should be no delay in launching the programme. The Com- munity in Britain responded with promises of fifty-one thousand pounds, of which eleven thousand pounds were contributed within ten days. The total amount pledged by the Community for the Nusrat Jehan Scheme as the pro- gramme was named, far exceeded the hundred thousand pounds which was the original target. But this was only the financial requirement. Teachers, physicians and surgeons were needed for the schools and hospitals that were to be set up in West Africa. The response of the Community in that respect also proved quite adequate. On his return to Rabwah the Khalifatul Masih described some of his impressions of West Africa in the course of his Friday sermons. For instance, he said in his very first sermon: I stand before you today to announce to you the bounties of my Beneficent Lord. It is not possible to express in words the manifes- ta,tions of the Greatness and the Majesty of God Almighty and of the dignity of the Holy Prophet, peace be on him, that my companions and myself experienced in West Africa. When we arrived in that part of the world we had no idea how lovable are the people of that region and,how their hearts and bosoms throb with the love of Allah and of Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, peace be on him, and of his great spiritual son, the Mahdi. My first