Ahmadiyyat - The Renaissance of Islam — Page 196
196 AHMADIYY AT the Khalifa and the Central Association, and submitted them to the Khalifatul Masih with the request for an authoritative clarification of these matters. The Khalifatul Masih directed that these questions should be sent to certain leading persona- lities of the Community who should be asked to send in their replies by a certain date. He also directed that those to whom these questions were sent should present themselves at Qadian by 30 January for consultation on these matters. The date of the consultation was fixed for 3I January 1909. On receipt of these questions Khawaja Kamalud-din Sahib held a meeting of the Community in Lahore in his house and eXplained to them that the real successor of the Promised Messiah was the Central Association and that if this aspect was ignored the Community would face a great danger and the Movement would be ruined. He asked everyone present to subscribe to a written statement that the Central Associ- ation was the real successor of the Promised Messiah. With the exception of two members all others who were present subscribed to the statement. When the proceedings of this meeting became known in Qadian Shaikh Yaqub Ali Irfani Sahib, Editor of Al-Hakam, convened a meeting at his house i~ which a resolution was adopted upholding the supremacy of the Khalifa. Out of forty-two members who were present forty supported the resolution and only two dissented from it. When the delegates who had been summoned to Qadian arrived they were directed to spend the night in prayer seeking Divine guidance on the matters that were to be discussed the next morning. The morning service was led by the Khalifatul Masih in person and in the course of it he recited the eighty-fifth chapter of the Holy Quran. He was deeply moved when he recited the verse: 'Those who have involved the believing men and the believing women in doubt and confusion, and do not repent, will surely suffer the chastisement of hell and the chastisement of burning' (85. 1 I). He repeated this verse two or three times in tones that betrayed great grief and sorrow and the congregation were