Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya Part IV — Page 186
BarĀhĪn-e-a H madiyya — Part Four 186 Word in that very age. God’s Perfect Word, comprising God’s true shariah, however, is never sent down at any other time even though there be hundreds of thousands of people who are God-fearing and pious, and possess a high degree of holiness and virtue. It is true that some of the virtuous people are honoured with divine communion and discourse; this, however, occurs at the time that Allah’s wisdom deter- mines that a true need has arisen for such communion and discourse. The difference between these two types of needs is that the revela- tion of God’s true shariah is needed at a time when the people of the world, because of misguidance and error, have turned away from the right path and a new shariah is needed to guide them to the right path, which can effectively remove the prevailing afflictions, completely dis- pel their darkness and obscurity through the light of its perfect and decisive exposition, and provide whatever remedy is needed to cure the evil state of the age with its powerful message. But the converse and dis- course with auliy a ’ull a h [friends of Allah] is mostly not in response to such grave need and may, on some occasions, be aimed only at bestow- ing upon the wal i [friend of Allah] the robe of patience and steadfast- ness in an hour of tribulation and travail, or to convey some piece of good news to him at a time when he is overcome by grief and sorrow. But the Perfect and Holy Word of God Almighty, which descends upon Messengers and Prophets as I have just explained, descends at the time of its true need, when creatures of Allah urgently need its revelation. In short, true need is the real reason for the descent of the Word of Allah. As you see when darkness envelops the night entirely, and light completely fades out, you perceive at once that the beginning of the new month is nigh; in the same way, when utter darkness of mis- guidance takes a firm hold of the world, sane reason perceives that the appearance of the spiritual moon is near. Similarly, when drought plays havoc with the lives of people, the wise feel that the descent of the rain of mercy is very close. In his physical law also, God has assigned cer- tain seasons for rain—that is, the months in which Allah’s creatures are in need of rain. From the rain that descends during those seasons, it