Ahmadiyyat - The Renaissance of Islam — Page viii
xii I NT ROD U C T ION appear within the dispensation of Islam, inasmuch as the door of divine revelation has long been closed in all faiths other than Islam, and the followers of all those faiths ~old firmly to the notion that divine revelation is no longer possible. Thus, the advent of a divinely inspired teacher is possible only in Islam. There has been general agreement amQng the Muslims that the Mahdi-Messiah would appear at the beginning of the 14th century of the Hegira correspondingly roughly to the last decade of the 19th century of the Christian era. Jesus had indicated that the signs of the time of his second coming would be earthquakes, plagues, epidemics, wars and rumours of wars and general tribulations. These signs have been manifested from the end of the 19th century onwards. Among several Christian denominations the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century have been considered as the time of the second coming of Jesus. These were expectations based upon a variety of general indications contained in prophecies mentioned in the scrip- tures and sacred writings of Christianity and Islam. The Holy Prophet, however, had announced a very clear and definite sign of the appearance of the Mahdi which it was not in the power of anyone to manufacture or -improvise. Darqutni, an eminent and recognized authority on hadees, had recorded that the Holy Prophet said: For our Mahdi there are appointed two signs which have never been manifested for any other claimant since the creation of the heavens and the earth. They are that at his advent there shall occur an eclipse of the moon on the first of its appointed nights, and an eclipse of the sun on the middle one of its appointed days and both will occur in the same month of Ramazan. The eclipse of the moon normally occurs on the 13th, 14th or 15th night of a lunar month, and the eclipse of the sun takes place on the 27th, 28th or 29th of the lunar month. The sign mentioned by the Holy Prophet, therefore, was that the moon would be eclipsed on the 13th night of the lunar