Selections from the Writings of the Promised Messiah — Page v
PREFACE The Ahmadiyya Muslim community, a worldwide Movement in Islam, was founded in 1889 at Qadian, India. Its Founder, Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, claimed to be the Promised Reformer whose advent was awaited under different names and titles by the adherents of various religions. The Hindus awaited Krishna; the Christians awaited the Messiah; the Buddhists awaited the Buddha and the Muslims awaited the Mahdi as well as the Messiah. Under divine guidance, Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad made the revolutionary disclosure that there was to appear only one such Reformer representing all these Promised Ones, whose mission was to ultimately bring mankind into the fold of one universal religion. He also maintained that the Promised Reformer was to appear, not in an independent capacity, but as a subordinate to the Holy Prophet of Islam, Hadhrat Muhammad Mustafa, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. He believed Islam to be the final and complete code of life for all mankind and hence his claim that the awaited Reformer had to appear in Islam as a subordinate prophet to Hadhrat Muhammad Mustafa, peace be upon him. His advent, he declared, would finally usher a golden era of one universal religion which for ages man had dreamt of and yearned for. In 1889, he was commissioned by Allah to lay the foundation of a community which would pursue the goals and objectives of his advent. And hence on the 23rd of March, 1889, by accepting the Oath of Allegiance, he formally initiated the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community at Ludhiana, a small town in Punjab, India. On partition of India, the Headquarters of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community were shifted to Pakistan where the Community built a small town, Rabwah, to be used as its v