The Miracle of Ahmad — Page 12
12 HADRAT MIRZA GHULAM AHMAD of the fact that God had so emphatically declared me to be the Promised Messiah in Barāhīn; I continued to hold the traditional belief regarding the second coming of Hadrat 'Isā. Then, after as many as twelve years had passed, the time finally came for the real- ity of the matter to be made clear to me and Divine revelations began repeatedly to apprise me of the fact that I indeed am the Promised Messiah. In short, when the revelation of God in this regard reached to their maximum-and I was commanded فاصدع بما تؤمرthat is 'Proclaim openly that which you are commanded' and many Signs were granted to me and my heart was filled with manifest conviction; only then was it that I preached this message to the people. In fact, such planning on the part of Almighty God was to serve as proof of my truthfulness and a Sign of my innocence and simplicity. Had this scheme been initiated by a man with its roots in human planning, I would have claimed to be the Promised Messiah during the very days when Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya was published. But God caused me to overlook the [true purport of the] revelation recorded in Barāhīn-e-Ahmadiyya and I failed to realize that it called me the Promised Messiah. This happened due to my innocence, and this forms a great proof of my truthfulness. If this is not true, I urge my opponents to tell me why I did not make the claim for twelve long years while I had already been declared to be the Promised Messiah in Barāhīn-e-Ahmadiyya and why did I write words that clearly contradicted divine revelation recorded in Barāhīn? Is it not worth considering how events unfolded? Is it not dishonesty on the part of those people that they quote the words of Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya where I have mentioned the sec- ond coming of Hadrat 'Isā [Jesus] as a commonly held traditional