Hazrat Maulvi Nooruddin - Khalifatul-Masih I — Page 161
Hadrat Maulw i Nur-ud-D i n ra — Khalifatul Masih I STATUS OF KHALIFA 161 resulted from the fact that he was now both Khal i fa , and thus Supreme Head of the Community, and President of the S adr Anjuman. Ironically this adventitious combination was taken advantage of by the majority group in the Anjman to confuse the issue. They began to boost the Presidency of the Anjuman as the real source of authority rather than the Khilafat. As early as December 1908, in their addresses at the Annual Conference, some of them stressed the need of perfect obedience to S adr-e-A‘l a (Supreme President) and full conformity to his wishes. In the minutes of the proceedings of the Anjuman the directions of Hadrat Khalifatul Masih ra were referred to as the directions of the President. This anomaly was resolved when in 1910 the Khal i fa -President resigned the Presidency on the ground that the two offices were not compatible, and directed that Sahibz a da Mirz a Bash i r- ud-D i n Ma h m u d Ahmad should be President of the Anjuman. But by that time the question of supremacy between the Khal i fa and the Anjuman had already come to the surface. After this explanatory digression we shall go back to the beginning, Maulaw i Muhammad ‘Al i , who subsequently became Am i r of the dissident group, had not been persuaded that upon the death of the Promised Messiah as it was obligatory upon him to swear allegiance to Hadrat Khalifatul Masih , as he wrote afterwards: "The Promised Messiah as died in Lahore. When his body arrived in Qadian, Khaw a ja Kam a l-ud-D i n told me in the garden that it was proposed that Hadrat Maulaw i N u r-ud-D i n ra should be his Successor. Then he told me that it was also proposed that all Ahmad i s should swear allegiance to him. On this I observed that