Claims and Teachings - Ahmad The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 69
69 and to declare what is false and erroneous in each sect's belief. In the prophecies relating to his advent, he is described as " the i Judge" and this shows that at his advent every sect shall have in its code of beliefs a certain amount of error mixed with truth. / Therefore it is a serious error to think that unless all the pro- posed signs are fulfilled, the claimant to Messiahship cannot be accepted. If some of the signs are fulfilled, it would follow that the traditions speaking of the others, which are not fulfilled, are fabrications and must be rejected. The Jews who accepted Jesus- or our Holy Prophet acted upon this wise rule and, there- fore, they were saved. They had to reject a very large mass of ^ tradition and then they found the truth. It was sufficient for them that many of the appointed signs had been manifested, and the truth of the claimant was further made clear by the Divine assistance which was granted to him. In fact such light has been thrown upon every side of the question of my claim to Messiahship that it shines out like the meridian sun. The Holy Quran has decided the question that Jesus died a natural death and that he would not come again into the world. As to traditions, a hundred thousand of them cannot be given any credence against the verdict of the Quran, and if they contain any statement which is at variance with the Holy Quran, they must be rejected as spurious and fabricated. The Holy Quran has also decided that the successors of the Holy Prophet would be raised from among the Muslims that there would be a likeness between them and the successors of Moses, the last one only in each system coming in fulfilment of promise given beforehand. The two most authoritative works on tradition, Bokhari and Muslim, also speak of the Promised Messiah being from among the Muslims. The Quran and the authentic traditions are, therefore, both in agreement as to the Promised Messiah