Life of Ahmad — Page 39
as BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD 39 1849. The Board of Administration carried on till 1853, when a chief commissioner was appointed for the province. With the advent of British rule in the Punjab, almost the entire estate of Mirza Ghulam Murtaza was confiscated. A pension of Rs. 700 per annum was granted to him and his brother, and they retained their proprietory rights over Qadian and the neighbouring villages. And thus was established the resemblance between Ahmad as and Jesus as in so far as neither inherited possession of the ancestral estate. Ahmad’s as father subsequently spent thousands of rupees in an endeavour to recover his jagirs, but all his efforts proved of no avail. This disappointment continued to affect him till the last day of his life. Ahmad as says: 'My father, on account of his many disappointments, remained always pensive and sad. He had spent close upon Rs. 70,000 in going to courts of justice, and contesting cases which were bound to be fruitless, because the lands which belonged to our forefathers had long passed out of our possession and the recovery of them was but a forlorn hope. The disappointment, with its consequent sorrow and grief, made a maelstrom of the life of my father, and the sight of his pitiable plight helped me to work a holy change in my own life, because the misery of his life reminded me of that immaculate life which was free from all