With Love to the Muslims of the World — Page 35
35 indicates that there shall be no such prophet who shall intro- duce a different Sharia. But whenever there appears a prophet, he will follow my Sharia. " (Fut uha t-e-Makkiyyah vol. 2, p. 3) T HE S TATUS OF I MAM M AHDI IS THAT OF A P ROPHET In the light of the above, if one genuinely desires to understand the Ahmadiyya point of view, it will further help to visualize the position and status of Imam Mahdi in Islam. If he is to be raised and commissioned by God as Imam of the latter days, and if by virtue of the same, no one is permitted to reject him, then, in essence, this is subordinate prophethood. Prophets, one may recall, enjoy two distinctions over the rest of mankind: 1. They are always directly appointed by God. 2. Rejecting them is a grave sin in the sight of God. Hence, in the final analysis, the Ahmadiyya belief in the status of Imam Mahdi cannot be considered, even by the farthest stretch of imagination, to be in violation of the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat of the Holy Prophet Muhammad sa. Of course there are some other differences of minor nature for which one has to study the Ahmadiyya literature. A H MADIYYA I NTERPRETATION IS BASED ON L OGIC AND R EASON The demarcation line will always remain to be the same between the Ahmadiyya and non-Ahmadiyya theology. The non-Ahmad i s insist on literal acceptance while Ahmad i s interpret religious terms in the metaphorical and