Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya Part III — Page 225
Sub-Footnote Number One 225 relate to matters of faith. About eight or nine years ago I heard that a priest had predicted that, within three years, Hadrat Mas ih would descend from the heavens to help the Christian priests. Another priest from Bangalore made a similar prediction which I read in Mansh u r-e- Muhammad i or some other newspaper. However, the three years have long passed, and no one has seen Mas ih descending from the heavens. Thus, these predictions turned out to be just as wrong as the predictions of a certain astrologer who had predicted that the world would end in November 1881. It should be clear that I do not deny that a priest could have had a dream about the descent of the Messiah, but what I maintain is that most of the dreams of these priests have turned out to be false on account of their denial and animosity towards Hadrat Kh a tamul- Anbiy a’ , and any odd dream that comes true is unclear and doubtful. If we were to suppose that the above dream about the Messiah falls into this second category, it would mean that the Messiah in the dream symbolizes some perfect beings within ummat-e-Mu h ammadiyyah [the followers of Muhammad saw ]. As it has been a long-established experience that whenever a Christian sees a dream that the Messiah is about to return to revive the faith, or a Hindu sees a dream about the coming of an avatar to make the dharma [religion] flourish, all such dreams—if they happen to be true—invariably point to the coming of a follower of Muhammad [saw] who will appear at his appointed time to reform and strengthen the Faith. Since such a person inherits the light of all holy men, he appears in the imaginative faculty of the imperfect and confused minds in the form of someone whom, according to their creed, they consider to be very holy, perfect, a model of truthfulness, and their guide. In short, the dreams of Christians and Hindus most often turn out to be baseless, completely untrue or ambiguous. In view of all this, it becomes evident that the experience of true dreams, in their abundance and perfection, and their perfect disclosure of matters of great import, is a phenomenon specific to ummat-e-Mu h ammadiyyah, to the exclu- sion of all other faiths. The reason why all others are excluded is that