Hazrat Ahmad — Page 39
HADHRAT AHMAD 39 and thus demonstrated the superiority of British to Roman justice. . A Proposal of Peace. During these days the Promised Messiah published a notice under the name of 'Peace is better' in which he submitted to the. Muslim divines a proposal to the effect that they should desist for a period of ten years from molesting him and should leave him free to fight the enemies of Islam. As they asserted he was an impostor then he was sure within that period to meet with discomfiture; on the other hand if he was righteous in his claim, they would be spared the divine chastisement which invariably overtakes those who set themselves in opposition to the righteous. The Muslim divines, however, did not choose to agree and preferred that he should rather fight them than the enemies of Islam. . In October 1897 he went to Multan to appear as a witness in a case. During the return journey he halted for some days at Lahore. . Here as he passed through the streets, people abused and reviled him. I was with him during the journey and being only eight years of age, I could not understand the reason of this popular hostility towards him. I wondered why it was that wherever he passed people jeered and whistled at him. . I happen still to recall one remarkable instance. I noticed a man, one of whose forearms was missing and a cloth was wrapped round the stump, standing on the steps of Wazir Khan's mosque. . He had also joined the crowd in their shouting with the rest 'Fie!. Fie! the Mirza has fled!' meaning that the Promised Messiah had disappeared from the field of contest. I was so struck with the spectacle that I put my head out of the carriage window and kept looking at him for a considerable time. From Lahore the Promised. Messiah returned to Qadian. . A Great Service to the Cause of Public Peace. The same year the plague appeared in the Punjab and while the other religious leaders opposed the measures which government had adopted for arresting the spread of the epidemic, the Promised. Messiah gave them his firm support. He informed his followers that there was no harm in adopting the measures. Rather it was the command of Islam that every means should be adopted which was likely to safeguard public health. By this declaration he rendered