Claims and Teachings - Ahmad The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 252
252 are connected with the preservation of life. Briefly, they areas, follows: The savage inhabitants of the deserts of Arabia, whofcould ' hardly distinguish right from; wrong, conceived a hatred towards Islam in its earliest day and became its bitterest enemies. The reason of this hatred may be easily conceived. When the Unity of God and the Islamic truths were preached openly to idolatrous Arabs and convincing argument aganist idol worship were im- pressed upon their minds and they were told how degrading it was for the noblest of God's creatures to bow submission to stones, they found themselves usable to meet the adherents of the new faith upon argumentative ground. The exposure led to a motion in favour of Islam among the more reasonable of them. The ties of relationship were cut asunder, the son parted from his parents and brother from his brother. This exasperated them the more and they saw plainly that if their fathers' ; false religion was to be saved, excessive measures must be taken to stop the ingress into the new religion. The new convest to Islam ; were therefore violently persecuted and no efforts were spared to blocked the way to the new faith. Those, acquainted with early Muslim history- know full well what barbarous and cruel treat- ment was ineted out to the early converts, and. how many were murdered in cold blood. But these harsh measures did not pre- vent people from the acceptance of truth, for even a superficial glance is enough to convince a man of the reasonableness and purity of Islam as against idolatory. At length when the impla- cable foes of Islam saw that severe persecution availed but little and that their ancient religion was threatened to be swept away in the current of muslim reason, they planned ; tbe death of the Prophet himself. But their designs were frustrated. Almighty God saved His Messenger and took him to Medina. The unbe-