Fazl-e-Umar — Page 151
Fazle Umar 151 Khalifa’s comprehensive supervision and a continuous flow of advice and directions contributed very largely towards keeping everyone alert and keen on doing his best. Though this was an essential task and its successful performance was a great achievement, yet it was only ancillary and adjectival to his main responsibility, for the discharge of which he strove hard day and night. That responsibility was to maintain the Community at the highest level of activity, both in respect of self improvement and in respect of striving to carry the message of Islam to wider and wider circles by putting forth all the needed effort and making all the required sacrifices. For this purpose he called in aid all his great talents; he had recourse to continuous advice, exhortation and admonition; he set a high and shining personal example and spent a good part of his nights in supplication to the Divine, without Whose Grace and Mercy nothing could possibly be achieved. P ROM OT IO n OF T H E w E L FA R E OF T H E w HOL E OF M A n K I n d Yet that was not all. His horizon was not limited to the Community. His lord and master, the Holy Prophet [saw] , was in the words of the Holy Qur’an: “mercy for the universe” (Ch. 21:V. 108). His father, the Promised Messiah [as] , was a perfect reflection of the Holy Prophet [saw] ; the prophecy set out in the announcement of 20 February 1886, concerning his own coming into being, described him as a sign of Divine Mercy. His beneficence, therefore, comprehended the whole of mankind. He was keenly interested in promoting the true welfare of all Muslims wherever they might be, as they were the Ummat of his lord and master, the Holy Prophet [saw] , however much mistaken they might be in some of their beliefs and doctrines; he was also keenly interested in promoting the true welfare of all his fellow countrymen, of whatever caste or creed, and in promoting the true welfare of all his fellow human