Truth Prevails — Page 148
( 148 ) Mahmud Ahmad presented the Promised Messiah as a Prophet, under reliable reports in the Hadith. So there is here no question involved of any change in belief. Next Mr. Faruqi has quoted a passage from Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II, in 1914: “In regard to Nabuwwat , I desire to tell you that all Ahmadis believe the Promised Messiah is only a Zilli Nabi. However, since, at the present time, there is a tendency to present the Promised Messiah in a position greatly reduced, the contingency demands that his rank and position should be made clear. Apart from this, I myself do not like that the word Nabi should be indiscriminately used, with such frequence not because he was not a prophet, but because there is a need to safeguard against some people, at some future time, coming to extract from it a sense and content of Nabuwwat-i-Mustaqilla. But this is only a matter for a short time, and even at that, a remedial measure. ” (Letter addressed to Mohammad Usman Sahib of Lucknow) On this point Mr. Faruqi has hastened to remark that a position taken up as a more or less temporary remedial measure, in a particular contingency, has solidified into a hard reality. In 1953, an agitation was started against the Ahmadiyya Movement, accompanied by violent disorder in some places, which brought martial law. (Truth Triumphs, page 53) The passage by Hazrat Khallfatul Masih II, to which reference is made here, is quite clear in its wording and sense that even in the days of his Khilafat he took the Promised Messiah only as a Zilli Nabi. He held, however that Zilli Nabuwwat also is a kind of Nabuwwat : a Zilli Nabi , also, is a kind of Nabi. In referring to the Promised Messiah, it was enough to speak of him as the Promised Messiah; but since the Lahore Section was taking considerable pain to present the Promised Messiah in a manner which implied a derogation in his real position, it was an urgent need of the time that his position as a Nabi should be mentioned repeatedly, so that the danger of a confusion arising at some future time should be eliminated, and the misunderstandings created by the Lahore Section should be cleared. Otherwise, as a precautionary measure to describe the sense and substance of Nabuwwat in some other terms involved no harm. The Promised Messiah himself has set down an Ilham in the following manner: “A Prophet came to this world, but the world accepted him not. ” On this he has given a note: “One reading of this Ilham is also that ‘A Warner came to this world’; and this is the reading set down in Barahin. To avoid mischief, this second reading was not set down. ” ( Tazkira , page 108, with reference to epistle of August 7, 1899, as reproduced in Alhakam August 17, 1899, page 6)