The Need for the Imam — Page 44
44 him any harm—travelled to Qadian with a respected friend of mine to see me. He recounted before me a number of revelations he said he had received. I was very much pleased to know that God Almighty had honoured him with revelations. However, in the course of narrating his revelations, he related to me a dream in which he had said with regard to me, 'Why should I pledge Bai‘at at his hand, it is he who should pledge allegiance to me!' From this I learnt that he did not believe me to be the Promised Mes- siah, and that he was unaware of the true concept of Im a mat. Therefore, sympathy on my part demanded that I should write this booklet in order to explain to him the doctrine of true Im a mat and to spell out the importance of Bai‘at. I have already written at length about the true Imam who is entitled to accept Bai‘at , now I will say something about the true concept of Bai‘at. The term Bai‘at is derived from Bai‘ , which means a transaction carried out by mutual agreement, in which something is bartered for another. The sine qua non of Bai‘at is that one who enters into it, sells his being, with all its wherewithal, at the hands of a spiritual guide, in order to acquire in exchange the knowledge of spiritual verities and perfect blessings which lead to Divine knowledge, salvation and fa- vour of the Almighty. This shows that repentance is not the sole object of Bai‘at , for a person can have