Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume I — Page 246
! ! 246 An Address to Lajna Delivered by Hazrat Mirza Bashir - ud - D in Mahmud Ahmad, Khalifat - ul - Masih II ra On December 1 st , Lajna Ima’illah Qadian arranged a tea party in the honor of the respected Maulv i Abdur Rahim Dard MA, Missionary in England , and presented an address in his honor. After the address , Maulv i Sahib delivered a speech, a fter which Ha z rat Khalifa t - ul - Masih II ra gave the following discourse. Haz rat Khalifat - ul - Masih II ra stated : First , I would like to draw Dard Sahib’s attention to a responsibility I believe he has. Al though his time to speak has passed, he can however acknowledge in his heart the error of excluding women from the term ‘ Adamiyyat ’ [the Urdu word for humanity derived from the name Adam] in his speech. Women hold the same status in humanity as Dard Sahib doe s or we do. If huma n beings are called ‘ Adami ’ [human] because the y are the progeny of Adam, then Dard Sahib does not have a right to consider himself a n Adami [Urdu word usually connoting men] whilst exclud ing women from ‘ mankind ’. However, I also believe that women h ave contributed to this [mistake of considering themselves excluded from the t er m ‘ Adami ’] as well because they will say, ‘Observe p u rdah , for Adamis have arrived ,’ or other statements of this nature. As they exclude them selves from ‘ Adamiyyat ’ , therefore Dard Sahib has also erred in doing so. The matters discussed by Dard Sahib at this time could prove to be very beneficial , but there is one thing which is ignored by lecturers who make such exhortations, and that is that they always look towards the upper class of England and n ot towards the lower class or those who are impoverished. There is no doubt that the educated class of Europe is bette r off than the educated class here, b ut I have seen other groups of boys and girls whose hair is disheveled , and their faces are grimy and soiled. I have seen su ch children in Italy as well as in