Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya Part V — Page 381
APPE N DI X to B AR Ā H Ī N-E-A H M ADIY YA — PART F IV E 381 scholar, which I have with me in which he makes a great clamour to denounce Hadrat ‘ I s a , may peace be upon him, and calls him, God for- bid, a great liar, a disbeliever, and heretic and appeals to people and says: ‘Be a judge and consider that whereas God had given the infor- mation in His book—as is written in Malachi, which is declared by the author to be authentic and from God—that the Promised Messiah of the Jews would not come until the Prophet Ily a s comes to the world again having descended from the heavens; and it is acknowledged that the Prophet Ily a s has not yet descended from the heavens—whose descent in advance of the Promised Messiah is essential—how, then, can we accept him as the true Promised Messiah? Are we to ruin our faith or turn away from the Torah? What should we do? And when the Prophet Malachi has told us, having received revelation from God Almighty, that it is necessary that the Promised Messiah must not be born among the Jews until Prophet Ily a s returned to the world accord- ing to the promise of God, how can this man be the Promised Messiah for Jews?1 ٭ And [he further says that] since we received the news of 1. ٭ It is the belief of the Jews that there are two Messiahs: (1) One is that Messiah of the earlier advent, for whom there is the precondition that Elijah would come to the world before him. This is the Messiah who Jesus claimed to be, but the Jewish scribes did not accept this claim and said that this claim was contrary to the categorical dictates of the Book of God, the reason being that Elijah, as told by the book of God, did not return to the earth from heav- en. Hadrat ‘ I s a told them again and again that such texts are metaphorical in nature and that the Elijah referred to here was the Prophet Ya h y a. But, since the Jews were strict literalists they did not accept this explanation and, for this very reason, they still do not accept Hadrat ‘ I s a to this day and vilify him. (2) The second Messiah awaited by the Jews is the one regarding whom they believe that he would appear at the end of the sixth millennium. Therefore, there is much consternation among the Jews these days, since, according to the lunar calendar, the sixth millennium since Adam has ended and now the seventh millennium is underway, and that Promised Messiah has not yet come. The Christian scholars also held the same belief that the second coming of their Messiah would take place at the end of the sixth millenni- um. They too are in despair now as the sixth millennium has ended. At last, having despaired, they have expressed the view that the Church itself should