Defence Against the Plague and a Criterion for the Elect of God — Page 30
Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad 30 moon and the sun would be eclipsed at the time of my appear - ance, and a terrible plague will befall the land. This is my sign ; each and every opponent—whether he lives in Amroha or Amritsar, whether in Delhi or Calcutta, whether in Lahore, Golra, or Batala—if any of them should swear on oath that their area of residence shall remain free from the plague, then it will surely be swept up by the plague, for they would have commit - ted insolence against God Almighty. And this matter is not confined to Maulav i Ahmad Hasan. In fact, the time has now come for a broader confrontation with the heavens. All those who consider me a liar, such as Shaikh Muhammad Husain Bat a lv i , who is a well-renowned maulav i ; Pir Meher Ali Shah of Golra, who hinders many from the path of God; ‘Abdul-Jabb a r, Abdul-Haqq, and ‘Abdul-W ah id Ghaznav i , who belong to the community of Maulav i Abdullah and are hailed as recipients of divine revelation; Munshi Ilahi Bakhsh, the accountant, who by way of opposition to me has made a claim to divine revelation and has raised Maulav i Abdullah to the status of a sayyid, 1 without feeling any aversion towards such a mani - fest falsehood; and similarly, Nadh i r Husain of Delhi, who is of a cruel temperament and was the first to issue a fatwa of disbelief against me. All of the aforementioned people, at a juncture such as this, should seek to preserve the honour of their revelations and faith, by publishing an announcement that the place of their dwelling 1. Literally means ‘chief ’ but is used in Islamic terminology to refer to the descendants of the Holy Prophet Muhammad saw through his daughter Hadrat F at imah ra. [Publisher]