Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya Part V — Page 410
B AR Ā H Ī N-E-A H M ADIY YA — PART F IV E 410 a manifest and tangible favour that has been bestowed upon them and not given to others? O wretched and unfortunate people, this favour is none other than divine converse through which knowledge of the unseen is attained, God’s support is manifested, and the succour of God bearing the testi- mony of revelation from Allah is experienced, and it is through this tes- timony that such people are recognized. There is no other distinction apart from this. And when you yourself believe that God hears prayers, then why, O heedless of faith and blind of heart, can He not speak if He can listen! And if listening does not denigrate His status, then why should it be unworthy of Him to speak to His servants too? Otherwise, you will have to believe that as divine revelation has been sealed up now for some time, so too, for the same time, God’s power of hear- ing has also been sealed; that God is now among the deaf and dumb, God forbid! But can any sane person believe that in this age God does indeed listen but that He does not speak, for then the question would arise as to why He does not speak. Has his tongue been stricken with some disease while his ears are safe from suffering any illness? When it is the same God and the same people, and the needs for the perfection of faith are the same, indeed they are more acute today on account of the hold that atheism has taken on people’s hearts, and there is as much need for God to speak as there is to listen, then how is it that He still has the power to listen but the power to speak has become dormant? What a pity that twenty-two years of the 14th century [of the Islamic calendar] have passed—and so much time has elapsed since I made my claim that those who were in wombs at that time are now themselves parents of young people—and yet you do not realize that I am true. And you keep saying that you do not believe in me because it is written in our a ha d i th that thirty dajj a ls [deceivers] will come. O unfortunate people! Have only dajj a ls fallen to your lot? You have already been trampled from every side like a field that has been decimated by a stranger’s cattle at night. Your inner conditions have deteriorated terribly, and the external attacks have also reached their