Noah's Ark: An Invitation to Faith — Page 104
HAZRAT MIRZA GHULAM AHMAD (AS) abandoned the Torah and as is their belief even today, they held that the oral tradition was a judge over the Torah. As such, they possessed many traditions which stated that their Promised Messiah would not come until Elijah physically descended from heaven. Thus, they were gravely misled by these traditions and because of their dependence on them, were unable to accept the interpretation of the Messiah that John the Baptist had come in the spirit and likeness of Elijah, and as a spiritual reflection of his character. The very reason they stumbled was because of their oral traditions and ultimately they squandered their faith on account of them. It is also a possibility that they misinterpreted the contents of these traditions, or that these narrations were subject to human interpolation. The Muslims are perhaps not aware of the fact that the Jews who rejected the Messiah were the Ahl-e- Hadith of their time. They raised an uproar against him, issued an edict of disbelief against him and declared him to be a disbeliever. They further slandered him by saying that he rejected the books of God because God had prophesied the second coming of Elijah, but this man sought to misrepresent the prophecy and applied to it a far-fetched interpretation without any evidence. ' The Messiah was not only declared a disbeliever When the edict of disbelief was issued against Jesus, peace be upon him, Paul was also from the party that rejected him. Later, however, he promoted himself as an apostle of the Messiah. During the lifetime of the Messiah, this man was 104