The Devotion of Life — Page 425
425 with the love of God. Thus, before these children are grown enough to be turned over to the Jama’at, their parents must adorn them in a way which will be acceptable to God and will fulfil their desire to offer an extraordinary gift to God. ” ‘Waqifeen’ in Different Periods “Among the ‘waqifeen’ offered to the Jama’at in different periods in the past, there were those mature ‘waqifeen’ who had the good fortune to be well trained and who would have been in spirit ‘waqifeen’ anyway even if they had not formally offered themselves for ‘waqf’. They were the children of the Promised Messiah’s as Companions or his early followers who were brought up well and who were, by God’s blessings, adorned with good habits. This group was very successful in every aspect of life. Then a time came when amongst the children offered for ‘waqf’ were children who were brought up unsupervised by their parents and when they were handed over to the Jama’at, the parents expected the Jama’at to attend to their moral training. This raw material was often flawed when presented to the Jami’a Ahmadiyya, and was very difficult to imbue with the spirit of ‘waqf’. Stealing and dishonesty were some of the reasons for expelling some boys and bad habits which one does not associate with righteous Ahmadis, let alone with ‘waqifeen-e-zindagi’. It seems that parents had offered their children whose moral training had been