With Love to the Muslims of the World — Page 31
31 before the advent of the Holy Prophet Muhammad sa , as the Holy Qur’an declares: "And Muhammad is only a Messenger. Surely, all Messen- gers have passed away before him. " (3 : 145) therefore, as promised, Jesus as , Son of Mary as has to be a figurative name or a title given to the Imam Mahdi him- self. This kind of usage occurs in all languages. If someone, in his literary aptitude shows close similarity to Gogol, it will be no wonder if people start showering him with the title of Gogol. T HE E XPECTED M ESSIAH AND I MAM M AHDI ARE O NE AND THE S AME P ERSON So, according to Ahmad i interpretation, the old Jesus as being dead, it is only the Imam Mahdi who would also perform the task entrusted to Jesus as. In this connection, amongst other arguments, the Ahmad i s point out to a Hadith of Ibn-e-M a jah which informs us: That is to say, Mahdi and ‘ I s a as would not be two separate persons. ( Ibn-e-M a ja, Kit a bul Fitan, Babu Shiddatizzam a ni ) K H A TAMUN N ABIYY I N There are many other differences of course, invariably based on differences of interpretation. But, to close this discussion, we quote, last but not least the difference which has been so much exploited for some time past, i. e. ,