Claims and Teachings - Ahmad The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 65
65 priests of old. The hard-heartedness and evils of the Jews would be witnessed in them and, therefore, though in name they would be the followers of the Holy Prophet, yeb on account of their rejection and persecution of their Messiah, they would be called Jews. If then the Muslims would turn into Jews and inherit their vices, it is necessary that one of them should also be made the Messiah, for it a disgrace to the Muslims that all dishonor and evil should fall to their lot, while glory and blessings should be reserved for an Israelite. The prayer taught in the Fatiha is in fact a prophetic prayer and clearly signifies that a Messiah would be raised among the Jews, and that some of them would become Jews on account of their persecutions of the Messiah, and that, therefore, every Muslim should pray that at'the appear- ance of the Messiah, he may not be numbered with the Jews. It should also be remembered that the wrath of God which is spoken of in the verse of the FatzJia referred to above, indicates the punishment that overtook the Jews in this world, for the punishment in the next will be dealt out to all unbelievers alike and, therefore, in respect of that punishment all men who undergo it, are under the wrath of God. In the verse under discussion, however, only those Jews are spoken of who persecuted Jesus and being cursed by him were punished even in this life, at first by a destructive plague and afterwards at the hands of Titus. According to the prophetic prayer of the Fatiha, the Muslims must follow the same course and meet the same fate. In other words it foretells that a Messiah will appear among them after the manner of the first Messiah, i. . , he will not take up the sword, but propogate the true religion by heavenly signs and pure teachings, and that when he will be persecuted by the Muslims, the wrath of God will overtake them in the form of the plague and the words of prophecy that had been announced