Hazrat Maulvi Nooruddin - Khalifatul-Masih I — Page 238
FINAL ADMONITIONS Hadrat Maulw i Nur-ud-D i n ra — Khalifatul Masih I 238 may witness with my own eyes that you are a practical illustration of the Divine command: Take fast hold, all together, of the rope of Allah, and be not divided. I repeat, let him who is present listen and convey it to others, shun contention. After I die you will have many occasions for contention. Perhaps you imagine that I have become Khal i fa easily like Ab u Bakr ra. You have no notion of the reality, nor can you conceive of the burden of responsibility that has been placed upon me and the anxiety that it occasions me. It is the pure grace of God that I have been enabled to carry the burden. Not one of you can estimate it correctly, let alone carry it. Can he who has to look after hundreds of thousands sleep in comfort? Standing in this mosque, with the Quran in my hand, I call God to witness that I had not the least desire at any time to become a spiritual preceptor. But no one knows God’s design. He did whatever He willed. He united all of you at my hands, and He Himself, and not any of you, invested me with the robe of Khilafat. It is my duty to honour and respect it. I do not desire from you money or anything else. I do not care whether any of you offers me greetings or not. Up to April last I used to pass on your personal offerings to me to Maulaw i Muhammad ‘Al i , but someone misled him and he said these offerings belonged to the Anjuman and he, as Secretary of the Anjuman , was their custodian. Thereupon I stopped sending him these monies, out of regard for the pleasure of Allah, to see what would they do about it. Those