A Present to His Royal Highness - The Prince of Wales — Page 5
5 persons of Your Royal and Imperial ancestors, their Majesties Queen Victoria, King Edward and our present Sovereign, Your Gracious Father, in return for which it has never desired or solicited a reward. From its very birth this community has been loyal to the Government and its members have avoided every kind of disorder and disturbance. The Holy Founder of the Movement has laid it down as one of the fundamental conditions of initiation into the movement that every member must render perfect obedience to the Government established by law and should eschew all paths leading to revolt. In obedience to this injunction the members of this community have ever kept aloof from all kinds of agitation and commotion and have also exercised a restraining influence upon a large number of other people. Some years ago, those classes of the Muslims who were under the influence of the Ulema ( i. e. , theologians or priests), although they were peaceful in practice and did not obstruct the Government, did not approve of the doctrine that a Muslim could be a loyal and faithful subject of a non-Muslim Government; and as the Ahmadiyyah Community was not only peaceful in practice but believed in and inculcated the doctrine that it was obligatory to obey the established Government, its activities were resented by the non-Ahmadees, who were afraid that the result of the propagation of such doctrines would be that Muslims would lose their only weapon (meaning Jehad) by which alone they imagined they could defend Islam or make any progress. This among other causes led to the persecution of the Ahmadiyyah Community by this class of people, and their