Claims and Teachings - Ahmad The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 376
376 bufe must have more or less tasted the fruit of this. Dear country- men, long experience and repeated trials have proved that to speak disrespectfully of the holy leaders of other people and to hurl invectives at them is a poison which not only undermines the body, but also destroys the soul and thus carries a two-fold ruin in its wake. A country cannot enjoy peace when the dif- ferent races inhabiting it find fault with the religious leaders of each other, and two comrnupities cannot live in harmony with each other when one or each of them speaks insultingly of the spiritual guides of the other. One must have his feelings stirred up when one hears one's Prophet or Leader openly insulted. Particularly Muharnmadans are a people who without calling their Holy Prophet God Or a son of God believe him to be greater than all other righteous men that were born of a woman. So it is in, no case possible to live on peaceful terms with a true Muslim unless the Holy Prophet is invariably spoken of in respectful terms. We, the Muharnmadans, on our part, never speak disres- pectfully of the Prophets of other people. On. the other hand, our belief is that all the other Spiritual Leaders of people who ever lived on this earth, who were accepted as true Prophets by millions of men, who won the respect of a large portion of the human race and who have been held in esteem for a long period of time, were the true Prophets of God, the above circumstances alone constituting a sufficient evidence of their truth with us- If they had riot been sent by God, they would not have found ac- ceptance with millions of men. God never grants bo others the honour which He gives to His chosen ones. If an impostor sits in the seat of the elect of God, he is soon brought to naught. It is on the basis of this principle that we regard the Yeda8 as from God and believe the rishis to be holy and sacred person-