Ahmadiyyat - The Renaissance of Islam — Page 223
CHAPTER ELEVEN At the time of his election as Khalifatul Masih II, Hazrat Sahibzada Mirza Bashirud Din Mahmud Ahmad was 25 years of age. In the eyes ofa worldly person he was utterly unsuitable for the discharge of great and heavy responsibili- ties of the exalted office to which he had been called by the almost unanimous voice of the members of the Movement, His health had always been delicate; he had during his younger days suffered from severe granulation in his upper eyelids which for long periods prevented his reading or writing anything. Consequently his attendance at school had been most irregular and he was not able to qualify even as a matriculate. On the religious side his instruction had been confined to being taught the translation of the Holy Quran and elemen- tary knowledge of ahadees. It is true that he had had the in- estimable privilege of having been instructed in these matters by Hazrat Khalifatul Masih I, who, instead offorcing anything upon him, encouraged him to think for himself and thus helped him and guided him to educate himself and to develop his God-given faculties in the most beneficent manner. At the time when he was elected Khalifatul Masih, the financial resources of the Sadar Anjuman Ahmadiyya had been reduced to almost nil. Though, with the exception of possibly half a hundred people, all those who were present at Qadian on 14 March 1919 had made the covenant of Ba}iat with him, yet it was not known what the reaction of the Community at large would be to the question that Maulvi Muhammad Ali Sahib had raised in his tract. It was expected that on the whole the reaction of the Community would be favourable to the Khalifa-elect, but the dissident group had announced that they had the support of 95 per cent of the Community. ~t had yet to be seen how far their claim was 223