Claims and Teachings - Ahmad The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 50
Time fixed by the Holy Quran as to the second advent of the Messiah, The signs mentioned in Quran and Traditions. The Revelations of the Muslim Saints We will now consider the time of the advent of the Messiah as fixed by the Muslims. la this case we have several very important considerations which conclusively settle the question of time. In the first place, the Holy Quran describes the Holy Prophet as the like of Moses in the chapter entitled Al-Muzammal thus claiming the fulfilment of the prophecy of Deut, 18: 15-18 in his person. In another chapter entitled the " Light," it pro- mises that from among the followers of the Prophet, successors will be raised to him "like unto" the successors raised to Moses. These two resemblances, the likeness of the Founder of the Muslim Law to the Founder of the Israelite Law, and the like- ness of the successors of the one to the successors of the other, clearly demonstrate that as a Messiah terminated the chain of the successors of Moses, a Messiah would also appear to termi- nate the chain of the successors of the Holy prophet. The prediction of the advent of a Messiah in this manner clearly indicates several resemblances between the two Messiahs of which we are at present concerned only with the resemblance in time. The distance of time between Moses and Jesus is 14 centuries or according to the Jewish account 13 centuries. It was, therefore, necessary that a Messiah should have appeared in the fourteenth century after the Prophet and this brings to us the present time. What is needed is only a resemblance, and the view that the present is the time for the corning of the Messiah is strongly corroborated by other considerations. The Quran has wisely fixed certain signs for the advent of the Messiah so that all men might know from their fulfilment