Fulfilment of a Grand Prophecy - Hazrat Ahmad’s Challenge to John Alexander Dowie — Page 45
Fulfillment of a Grand Prophecy. THE INTER OCEAN, Chicago, Sunday, JUNE 28, 1903; Vol. XXXIL Number 96 "Will Dowie Fight this Duel?". Who is a liar? Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian,. Punjab, India wants to know, and he believes he can get the truth out of John Alexander Dowie. The. Hindoo has challenged the Zionite prophet to a duel to death and Dowie has turned up his nose at the. Oriental prophet and refuses to say a word. . The man of Punjab is not a joker and he wants. Elijah the Restorer to know it. He seeks the Zion potentate to fight to the finish and he has named prayer as the weapon. . Furthermore, Mirza, who claims to be the. Promised Messiah has laid down the rules for the deadly combat, and he demands that Dowie either" shoot or give up the gun". . Dowie has not accepted the challenge. He has not said that he will not. His followers say he hasn't time for any Punjabians, and that he has enough to do in preparing to swoop down upon wicked New York in October, when he intends to scrub the territory between the Bowery and the Bronx. pray that. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is jealous of the Illinois. Messiah. He says some one is a liar and that he can prove it. And he intends doing it by prayer - a duel of prayer. He wants Dowie to stand up and whoever of the pair is a liar may perish instantly. . Mirza has not named his seconds or the place of combat, but he wants a thousand men to back him up, and he is willing to give John Alexander an equally fair showing. . Mirza is a Muhammadan, and he is by no means an ordinary prophet. He is not a banker, nor a real estate agent and a builder of cities, nor a lace maker. . He hasn't been very prosperous as a Messiah. . Qadian isn't as profitable a field of religious enterprise as Chicago, and Dowie has the Ilendeo eclipsed when it comes to being a commercial. Messiah. While Dowie is wearing a gorgeous purple robe and carrying a staff that reaches two feet above his bald poll, Mirza has only a castoff overcoat, a pair of white broaches, and a bamboo cane. . And in the matter of whiskers, Mirza is consider47 ably handicapped. Dowie's chin is decorated with a snowfall that reaches to his watch chain, while the. Mohammedan boasts only a straggling black beard that hardly hides his collar button. But he sports a puffed and knotted turban that looks as religious if it does not outshine Dowie's hairless pate. . Dowie is long on prayer; in fact, his orisons ascend almost continually, but according to Mirza. Ghulam Ahmad, they are not good prayers, and do not reach very high. Here is where Mirza expects to get the best of the captain of the Zion City baseball club. He says Dowie is a liar, and he is going to pray to Almighty to strike down the liar. The Zionites declare this is unfair, and that Mirza would not be fighting on the square, for he would only be praying for the demise of his rival and would not be asking the Almighty to judge between them. . Mirza, in his challenge, does not say he is willing to come to Zion City. He favors long distance prayers, and believes he can undo Dowie by the wireless method as easily as if he had him at his side. . The Muhammadan does not pose as a gleaner of shackles, but he does a large following. He tells the. Chicago prophet that he has 100,000 devotees at his heels, and gives Dowie to understand he is no common exhorter. He has heard that Dowie . . . The. Muhammadan and he wants to know why. . Mirza claims he was sent here for the reformation of the world exactly at the time fixed by calculations he has made on the biblical prophecies. . After this he says to the chief Zionite: "You should remember that this challenge does not proceed from an ordinary Muhammadan. I am the very Messiah, the promised one, for whom you are anxiously waiting". This is not according to Dowie's calculation. . Mirza then goes on in this wise: "Between Dr. Dowie's position and mine the difference is this, that Dowie fixes the appearance of the Messiah within the next twenty-five tears, while