Life of Ahmad — Page 590
PLAGUE as 590 22nd, 1898, in which the coming Eid ul-Adha, the second of May, was fixed as the day on which Ahmadis should gather at Qadian. In response to this call a large number of people reached Qadian on Sunday, May 1st. Z uhr and ‘A s r prayers were offered in the Masjid Aq sa , after which Ahmad as consulted the gathering as to whether a reply should be written to the Christian publication, Ummah a tul Mu’min i n , or a memorial sent to the Government as the Anjuman H im a yat-e-Islam, Lahore, had done. Maulaw i Abdul Kar i m ra read out the memorial which Ahmad as had written to counteract the Lahore Anjuman’s memorial. It was resolved then that the memorial should be sent to the Lieut. Governor (It was sent on May 4, 1898). After this 17 men took Bai‘at at the hands of Ahmad as , the Promised Messiah. At the end Maulaw i N u r-ud-D i n ra addressed the gathering and the meeting was closed. The plague meeting, as it was called, took place the following morning. A thousand people, who came from places ranging from Peshawar to Patiala, gathered together at about 8 o’clock under the old banyan tree which can still be seen across the bridge on the eastern side of the town. It was a wide open space in those days and all the people sat in peace under the vast cool shade as far as it spread. Maulaw i Abdul Kar i m ra led the Eid prayers, in the second Rak‘ a t of which a long and earnest supplication was made to God to save the people from the coming