Advice for Missionaries — Page 10
Hazrat Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad 10 RELATIONSHIP WITH PEOPLE It is important for a missionary to see themselves as someone who is in the service of others. Many people have endured a great deal of suffering because of their failure to understand this. At times, people consider this to mean that missionaries should work like servants [and be given menial responsibilities]. This is not the case. However, this misunderstanding has given birth to such maulanas who are tasked with washing the bodies of the deceased; tending to the sick; and working the fields during the harvest. Their services are utilised as though they were little more than common labourers. On the other hand, there is the case of pirs who sit upon their charpoys in such an [intimidating way], that none dare to sit before them. Hafiz Sahib used to tell us that people would come and prostrate in front of his father who was a well-known pir. On one occasion he asked his father as to why when they themselves went to the mosque they prostrated only to God, and yet when people came to them they lowered themselves in their presence. At this, his father gave him a long lecture. Therefore, it was the former set of circumstances which gave birth to the kind of maulawis who could