Life of Ahmad — Page 824
REMOVES A MISCONCEPTION as 824 Prophet—in one respect a Prophet and in the other an ummat i. ' ( H aq i qatul Wa hi ). So long as he thought that it was necessary for a Prophet to bring a law of shariah or attain to prophet- hood directly and independently, Ahmad as denied being a Prophet and believed that he could not be superior to Jesus as , who was a Prophet of God. But when he changed his conception on account of the numerous revelations he received from God, he considered himself a Prophet and as such he had no hesitation afterwards in declaring his own superiority over Jesus as. It is needless to point out here that this change of conception on the part of Ahmad as did not in any way affect the work entrusted to him. He fully understood his mission and did, right from the very beginning, what he was required to do by God. He was a Prophet of God and did the work of a Prophet from the very beginning. All that happened was that until 1901 he shared the wrong popular belief about prophethood, just as he had shared the wrong popular belief about the ascension of Jesus as to heaven in body. In both cases it was only when God pointed out the mistake to him that he corrected his views. Let me deal here briefly with a few of the misconceptions that prevail about prophethood: (1) It is concluded from a Quranic verse (Al-Ni s a’ 4:65) that a Prophet should not be the follower of anyone. There is no doubt that a Prophet is sent by God so that he should be obeyed and followed by the