Life of the Promised Messiah — Page 70
70 and people worship me. Allah the Exalted knows well that I do not give myself preference over others even in the slightest. In my opinion, there is no worse an idol worshipper and no one more wicked than an arrogant person. An arrogant person does not worship any God at all; in fact, he only worships himself. ” A Model of Respect His Holiness as refers to his followers with great defer- ence and respect, and mentions with regard the names of all who are both present or absent. I have heard countless times when His Holiness as is speaking to his esteemed wife, if some devotee of his must be named during the course of discussion, he refers to them with great respect, just as he would address the person if they were before him. He does not use the word ‘tu’, which is a disrespectful manner of address in Urdu, for any- one. As per his custom, he will state in his writings, ‘my honourable brother, Maulvi Sahib’ or ‘Maulvi Sahib, my brother, whom I love for the sake of Allah. ’ As such, in ordinary speech also, he will say: “My honour- able Maulvi Sahib was saying…” I have often witnessed ascetics and religious leaders consider it a dishonour to themselves and degrading of their status to refer to a disciple respectfully. A rude and disrespectful ascetic named Kesar Shah had a very brash son of twenty-four or twenty-five years of age who indulged in alcohol use