Blessings of Khilafat — Page 13
13 ignorant of the Arabic language. According to the Arabic language, Khalifah is he: 1. who succeeds someone, 2. who is succeeded by someone, and 3. who issues commands and orders and gets them executed. In addition to this, Khulaf a ’ are of two types. The first type are those who succeed someone after his death. Second are those who work as subordinates to someone during his lifetime; for example, a viceroy who serves as Khalifah to the king. Now, should someone say that since the viceroy has nothing to do with religion, he cannot be a Khalifah to the king, he would certainly be in error, because the king of whom the viceroy happens to be a Khalifah is possessed of only a worldly government. The viceroy is a Khalifah to the king only in matters related to the worldly government, and not in matters of religion. This is a clear-cut argument which some people have failed to understand, or perhaps they simply do not want to understand it. Resemblance with Earlier Khilafats Again, such people also raise the objection that since the Promised Messiah as came in the image of the Messiah of the Israelites, his Khulaf a ’ should also resemble the Khulaf a ’ of the Messiah of the Israelites. But should we accept their point of view, we will have to contend that there should not be any Khulaf a ’ after the Promised