Blessings of Khilafat — Page 36
36 will come to an end. To me such ordeals cannot cause a movement to die. Instead, they give the Movement a new life. Blessed is he who understands this salient point. The number of God’s beloveds grows even further when they are caused to suffer under divine Will. Haven’t you ever observed a gardener? When he cuts off some branches of a tree, the tree begins to develop even more shoots. Similarly, God has cut off certain branches of the Ahmadiyya Movement—not to cause it to be dried and withered, but to cause it to thrive even more than before. Therefore, never think that this trial would make people believe that the very Movement is false, because the trial is, in fact, showing the opposite. It is proving that the prophecies of the Promised Messiah as have been fulfilled. Should a Prophet fall ill and his opponents become glad that now the Prophet would die, whereas the Prophet shows them a revelation of his and declares his illness to be a sign of his truth, making it known to his opponents that he had already been informed by God about his illness and that he would recover from it—in such a case, the incident of his falling ill would not blemish the claim of his Prophethood at all; rather, it would strengthen his claim further. Hence, when we had been foretold about this ordeal, it did not hinder our progress in any way. In fact, through this trial, God has vouchsafed to us the swords of strong and incontrovertible arguments, so that we can continue to hasten our enemies to their demise. Conflict was Bound to Occur This conflict was bound to happen, please consider: