Hazrat Maulvi Nooruddin - Khalifatul-Masih I — Page 261
Hadrat Maulw i Nur-ud-D i n ra — Khalifatul Masih I FINAL ADMONITIONS 261 had no more than a temporary, if at all any, effect upon the hard core dissentients. Indeed they appeared only to stiffen their obduracy. It is true that the bulk of the community, being duly alerted and warned, was safeguarded against the cunning wiles of the small, but influential, intransigent minority; and that was a truly great achievement. Yet it is a pity that a parting of the ways was not altogether averted. The leadership of the dissentients was concentrated in Lahore. As the health of Hadrat Khalifatul Masih ra continued at best indifferent, and then began to suffer a decline, the dissentient group began active preparations to meet the inevitable crisis. The first overt step they took was that they started the publication of a paper from Lahore which they named Paigh a m-e- S ul h (Message of Peace). The first issue was published on July 10, 1913. Hadrat Khalifatul Masih ra became a subscriber but later refused to receive it and was so outraged by its policies and performance that he dubbed it Paigham-e-Jang (Message of war). From time to time professions of loyalty to the Khalifatul Masih ra were published in it, but they lacked conviction. A regular campaign of denigration of Sahibz a da Mirz a Bashir-ud-Din Ma h m u d Ahmad ra was carried on. It was feared that despite his youth he would be the choice of the community as Successor to Hadrat Khalifatul Masih ra , who made no secret of the high esteem in which he held the Sahibz a da ra. The distinctive beliefs and doctrines of the Movement, as set forth by the Promised Messiah as , repeatedly endorsed by Hadrat Khalifatul Masih ra and hitherto subscribed to by the leading dissentients themselves, began to be systematically eroded and watered down with a view of winning popularity with the mass of the orthodox.