Hazrat Maulvi Nooruddin - Khalifatul-Masih I — Page 83
Hadrat Maulw i Nur-ud-D i n ra — Khalifatul Masih I SEEKER AND SOUGHT 83 proposal for the hand of S ughr a Begum, daughter of the late Su f i Ahmad J a n, a saintly personage of Ludhiana, originally of Delhi. The proposal was made and accepted, the formal ceremony was performed in February and the wedding took place in March 1889. The marriage proved happy and blessed, by the grace and mercy of God, and of the male issue of the couple four grew up to manhood, three of whom married in due course and were blessed with progeny. The daughter, Amatul H a’ i , on arrival at maturity, married the Promised Son of Hadrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as who had been born on 12th January, 1889. Hadrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as had, on 12th January 1889, under divine direction, announced the establishment of his Movement, and had set forth the conditions of initiation. Later he appointed 23rd March 1889, for the swearing in of his disciples at Ludhiana. Maulaw i N u r-ud-D i n ra was the first to make the pledge of spiritual allegiance to the Holy Founder as of the Movement. This meant a total and permanent commitment, which he carried out in the minutest detail in an exemplary manner. The whole of his life thereafter was an illustration of the true meaning of the pledge. After making the covenant of spiritual allegiance he returned to Jammu, but kept in constant touch with his spiritual preceptor through regular correspondence and frequent visits to Qadian, where he constructed a modest pied- à -terre of sun- baked bricks. In May, 1889, his mother died in Bhera in his absence. Eighteen years earlier when papers daily reported large numbers of casualties in the Russo- Turkish War, he had suggested to his mother that she, having eight sons and two daughters, all of whom, except himself, were married, might permit him to