The Essence of Islam – Volume I — Page xxv
Introduction of His continuous bounties, which I find impossible to count. . My father died the same day after sunset. This was the first day on which I experienced a sign of Divine mercy through revelation concerning which I cannot imagine that it would ever cease to have effect during my lifetime. . I had the words of the revelation carved on a semiprecious stone and set in a ring, which I have with me securely. Nearly 40 years of my life passed under the care of my father, and with his departure from this life, I began to receive Divine revelation continuously. . XXV [Kitāb-ul-Bariyyah, Rūḥānī Khazā'in, Vol. 13, pp. 192-195, footnote]. This was Hadrat Mirzā Ghulām Aḥmad's first experience of Divine revelation. As he has himself observed, he was 34 or 35 years of age at that time. . As time passed, this experience multiplied progressively and gained in volume and scope, comprising Divine assurances of security, progress, support and success, and became studded with grand prophecies and Divine signs. . On his father's death, Haḍrat Mirzā Ghulām Aḥmad became entitled to half of his father's property, but he left the management of the whole of it in the hands of his elder brother and was content with the meagre and austere provision that his brother made for his maintenance. . The world was not his major concern and all his interest and attention were concentrated on communion with the. Divine and winning His pleasure. . His father had arranged his marriage at an early age, but even the responsibilities of marriage failed to wean him away from the pursuit of that which he had made the purpose of his life. From his first wife, he had two sons,. Mirzā Sultān Aḥmad and Mirzā Faḍal Aḥmad. Under. Divine direction, he married a second time, in 1884, into