Life of Ahmad — Page 322
FIRST AHMADIYYA CONFERENCE as 322 A chosen one of God can be distinguished in the above manner. So Ahmad as challenged his opponents in all these four ways. He suggested that a competition should take place at Lahore, which was the capital of the Punjab. A special body should be set up by the contending parties for this purpose. All questions were to be settled by a majority of votes. The parties should be required to submit their claims and statements to this body for one year and detailed acknowledgments thereof should be issued to the parties with dates. Each and every revelation and prophecy made by any party should be submitted to this body in writing with the signatures of four persons and it should be entered into its registers with full particulars and date along with the signatures of at least five of its members. The fulfilment of each prophecy would be duly ascertained and entered in the registers in the same way with attesting signatures of the members. It would be the duty of this body to hold this record as a sacred trust and to undertake on oath that everything would be treated as strictly confidential until the time when the results were to be announced at a public meeting. To test the acceptance of prayers, Ahmad as further suggested, this body should publicly invite the most afflicted ones of any faith to send in their names and full particulars. Allowing a month or any other suitable period for this purpose, a complete list should be prepared of all such people and then they should be divided among the contending parties by casting lots.