Ahmadiyyat or The True Islam — Page 346
346 answer, namely, that, as he had found the truth, he could not give it up. He also added that on the first Thursday after his death he would rise from the dead and come alive. Having despaired of the Sahibzadah Sahib’s making a recantation the Amir himself threw the first stone at him. This was the signal for a deluge of stones being hurled at him from all sides. The Sahibzadah Sahib, however, remained firm and steadfast and looked cheerful and happy. His head was at last shattered and, the neck having been broken, hung down on one side, but his persecutors continued to rain stones at him till his body was buried under a big heap of stones and the soul of this righteous servant of the Lord departed for ever from its earthly abode. Then the people went back to the city and a guard was appointed by the Amir to watch over the body of the martyr lest his friends should make an effort to remove it and give it a formal burial. Soon, however, came the punishment of God and the 'resurrection' which the blessed martyr had predicted came on all of a sudden. On the Thursday after his martyrdom cholera appeared in the city of Kabul in an epidemic form, and soon became very virulent. The visitation was both unusual and unexpected, and so many lives were lost that the people felt and admitted that the epidemic had come in fulfilment of the dying words of the martyr. There were some deaths even in the royal family. These events have been simply and briefly nar- rated by a European writer in his book, Under the Absolute Amir. The writer is Mr. Martin who was at the time Engineer-in-Chief at Kabul. He, being unfamiliar