Life of Ahmad — Page 181
as SUSPICIONS OF CO-RELIGIONISTS 181 broadcast invitations throughout the world by means of leaflets published for this purpose; he had explained the significance and importance of this method; he had promised rewards and undertaken to pay damages. He had reduced the period of test from one year to only 40 days, but no one came forward to give him a fair trial. As an alternative, he was now making prophecies in the name of God; and he claimed that the Creator of the universe was in most intimate touch with him, that it was He Who spurred him on in his work and who was his entire and sole support. He was actuated and filled with the Divine presence. To him it seemed the only effective way of establishing the superiority of a religion, but the more he emphasized this aspect of Islam, the more complicated became the situation. Righteous people, no doubt, gathered round him from all parts of the country, but the result on the whole did not seem to him to be very encouraging. Consequently, he reviewed the whole of his policy. The attitude of Muslims also appeared to him somewhat suspicious. His friends wrote to him sympathetic letters in which they suggested that it would be better if he did not lay so much stress on his prophecies and Heavenly signs. Some of them went so far as to assert that foretelling the future did not after all conclusively prove that he was from God. It was possible, they intimated, for every man to foretell the future more or less in a conjectural way, irrespective of his faith. They thought Islam did not gain much by this manner of