Ahmadiyya Movement — Page 55
55 known him (i. e. , the Promised Messiah) since his childhood. He has so persistently helped and served Islam with his time, money, pen, tongue and personal example that the parallel of this cannot be discovered during the last thirteen centuries of Islam”. This unparalleled purity of life and character displayed by him is a strong proof of the truth of his claim. He was a believer in verbal revelation and claimed that God spoke to him in words. Had he claimed merely to be inspired, there would have been room for the suggestion that he was mistaken in his claim. As, however, he claimed to be the reci- pient of verbal revelation, the only alternative to the truth of his claim was that he was either a deliberate impostor or a madman. But the whole of his life furnishes a conclusive refutation of either of the latter hypotheses and we are, therefore, forced to the conclusion that his claim was perfectly true. Another very strong proof of the truth of his claim is that all revealed books are agreed, that an impostor is not permitted to flourish. The Bible says: “But the prophet which shall presume to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. ” (Deut. xviii. , 20. ) Again:. “Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that prophecy in My name and I sent them not, yet they say, sword and famine shall not be in this land; by sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed. ” (Jeremiah xiv. , 15). And again it is written: “And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, ‘Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the Lord’ “ (Zechariah xiii. , 3. ) Similarly, the Holy Quran says: — ; < ; ; < B ; ; 0 ; a ; ; ; < ; ;. 9 < b 9. ; 5 ; < & 9 2 < B 9" ; B < 9 @ 3 < 91 ; % < ; Y ; ; & ; 2 < B9 ; < @ 3 < 91 ; < ; c ; ; ; - @ d