Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 685
THE PLAGUE an outstandingly large proportion. The death rate among the non-Ahmadis who died of the plague stood far higher by comparison to the very rare cases of Ahmadi deaths in the same villages. . Had this claim of the Ahmadiyya Press been wrong, the antagonist press must have played it up and capitalized on it. That it did not happen should be reasonably treated as strong indirect external evidence, by default. . Another irrefutable proof in favour of the Ahmadiyya claim is the fact of exceptionally accelerated growth of. Ahmadiyyat during the years of the plague. The figures which were regularly published in the Ahmadiyya organ AlḤakam, presented an enormous rise in the rate of conversion to Ahmadiyyat during this critical period. No denial of these figures was ever made by the nonAhmadiyya press. They were figures of real people occupying real villages and towns. Why did not any section of the antagonist press give Al-Ḥakam the lie and publish counter evidence? Such are the times when silence speaks louder than words. . The fact that Ahmadiyyat spread far more rapidly during 1898-1906, the years of the plague in the Punjab, is indelible. According to the periodically published data in. Al-Hakam, by the year 1902, the number of Ahmadis had risen from some tens of thousand to a hundred thousand. . By the year 1904 the Ahmadi population had swelled to two hundred thousand. By 1906, the year when the plague finally beat a retreat, the number of Ahmadis had risen to four hundred thousand plus. . I 'N VIEW OF THE ABOVE, it should be borne in mind that had the prophecy of the Promised Messiahas been proved wrong, Ahmadiyyat must have been wiped out from the face of the earth. After the plague had taken its full toll, whatever number of Ahmadis were spared must have been 643