Claims and Teachings - Ahmad The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 195
195 gence in all its phases. Such is my claim to Promised Messiah- ship. Its truth shines forth from whatever point of view it is considered. My claim to being sent by God and of being the recipient of Divine revelation, dates from a period of over 27 ^\ years; and it was published in my book entitled the Barahin-i~ I Ahmadiyya about twenty-four years ago. Such a long and conti- nuous aeries. ; of lies is inconceivable. However great a liar a person may be, he canoot be guilty of concocting a falsehood extending over such a lengthly period of time and effecting the whole world. Moreover Almighty God does not assist an impos- tor. Consider a person who with every new sun concocts anew falsehood and fabricates a new lie, forges words and prophecies and pretends that it is an inspiration which he has received from God, or the Word of God thai has come down to him as a reve- lation from the Almighty, while God knows that he is a great liar and impostor in what he says every day, consider if God would grant assistance to such an accursed being, if he would make him and his followers flourish and increase for long years and frustrate the designs and plans of his enemies to bring him to naught. Yet for 27 years, I have been receiving the assistance of God without any intermission and the number of my followers has constantly increased notwithstanding the hardest opposition. Do not these facts point me out as the true one ? There is another argument which settles. conclusively the truth of xny claim. Twenty-four years previous to this at a time when I was quite unknown to the world and lived in the corner of solitude, Almighty God revealed to me certain prophecies concerning my future life which were at that very time and under those very circumstances published in the Barahin-i- Ah- madiyya which I was then writing. Addressing me Almighty God thus spoke to me : "0 my Ahrnad, thou art according to my //