Haqiqatul-Wahi (The Philosophy of Divine Revelation) — Page 555
EPILOGUE-SIGNS 555 I have provided a translation of all these couplets below each couplet, the reading of which will clarify that I had engaged in a mubahalah [prayer duel] through them with Sa'dullah. And just as he had sought my death during his own lifetime by way of the mubahalah in his book Shahab-e-Thaqib ["The Piercing Flame'], so did I, challenging him, seek from my God the death of whichever one of us two is the liar, within the lifetime of the one who is truthful. This is why in the eighth couplet given above, I have said that, O Sa'dullāh, you have given me immense pain; thus, if you did not die a shameful death—that is, if in accordance with the aforesaid mubahalah, you fail to die a death marked by frustration during my own lifetime—I would be proven to be a liar. And in the fourth couplet, it also has been indicated clearly that Sa'dullah would die of the pneumonic plague. The term tanah indicates the term ṭā'un, that is, plague, and najlā' in Arabic means a vast wound. And this indeed is exactly what happens in the case of pneumonic plague, the lung becomes sore and bursts, resulting in a vast lesion. Even more remarkable is the fact that this prophecy was made when there was no trace of the plague in this country. This is, indeed, an example of the utmost depth and profundity of the knowl- edge of the Omnipotent and Omniscient God, that He intimated the very nature of Sa'dullah's death at a time when this entire country was free from the plague. The prophecy of God Almighty contained in the foregoing poetic verses indicated that Sa'dullah would die in disgrace and humiliation in my very lifetime. The prophecy was fulfilled in its entirety and the pneumonic plague did away with him completely in a few hours and he passed away from this world in the very first week of January 1907. But here the question naturally arises as to why such a prophecy was made and why patience was not exercised in the face of such abuse? The answer is that Sa'dullāh had published his prophecy about my death and about the apostasy and disintegration of my Jama'at four years before this prophecy in his book Shahāb-e-Thāqib. In this book he had written categorically that this man is a liar and an impostor