Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya Part IV — Page 32
BarĀhĪn-e-a H madiyya — Part Four 32 dead—were free from the kind of sleight of hand perpetrated by these conjurors. These doubts have not arisen only in our age; rather, it is quite possible that similar questions may have originated at the time of their occurrence. For instance, it is written in the Gospel of John, chapter 5, verses 2 to 5:1 Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When [Yas u‘ ] Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. Obviously, when a person who denies the prophethood of Hadrat ‘ I s a [ Jesus] and his miracles reads this passage of John and discovers the ancient pool in the land of Hadrat ‘ I s a, which always had the peculi- arity that a single dip could heal every kind of illness—no matter how severe—the strong suspicion would inevitably arise in his mind that if Hadrat Mas ih [the Messiah] did, in fact, perform any wondrous miracles, he would have certainly done so by using the water from this pool. Many examples of such precedents have always been found in the world, and exist even today. Logically it is quite correct and stands to reason that if the blind, the lame, etc. were cured by the hand of Hadrat Mas ih , then he must have hijacked the prescription from this very pool 1. In the King James Version, these verses are John 5:2–7. [Publisher]