Claims and Teachings - Ahmad The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 62
62 fourteen centuries had already elapsed from the death of Moses when Jesus made his appearance. Apparently the Jewish account claims the greater credit, but even if the Christian account is taken as the- true one, the resemblance in point of time marks out the present as the time of the appearance of the last Messiah. In fact the resemblance between the two systems, extends to every good and evil which is their lot. The Holy Quran says of the Jews ^+*> ^Jafje^ and elsewhere says of the Muslims in almost identical words & +*> **-* J$ the purport of the two verses being tha-t Almighty God said to the two people that after granting them kingdom and rule, He would then see whether they continued to walk in the paths of righteousness as a reward for which kingdom was granted to them or whether they departed from it. The expressions used here with regard to the Jews and the Muslims are almost exactly the same. This shows clearly that Almighty God has foretold that some of the Muslims would be exactly in the same position in which the Jews were and that they would be guilty of the same evils of which the Jews were guilty, meaning by the people their religious leaders. The closing verse of the Fatiha reveals the same purport for there too by a universal agreement of the commentators the words ^t^yos^) mean the Jews who came under the wrath of God on account of their rejection of Jesus. So also in authentic traditions it is plainly staled that the above words signify the Jews upon whom the Divine wrath was executed even in this world. To the truth of this point, the Holy Quran further bears witness in its statement, that the Jews were cursed by Jesus and hence the vengeance of heaven was brought down: upon them. All these considerations show conclusively that by the |*v^* Vj-^** are to be understood the Jews who had plotted to cause Jesus to die an accursed death on the cross. Now the