The Essence of Islam – Volume IV — Page 65
Status of the Promised Messiahas 65 ers Kafir. At such a time of dissension, the Muslims were in need of an Arbiter. God has, therefore, sent me as one. [Kitāb-ul-Bariyyah, Rūḥānī Khazā'in, vol. 13, pp. 254-257, footnote]. My status is not that of an ordinary Maulavī, but my status is that of Prophets. Accept me as one who has come from heaven, and all the altercations and dissensions which have divided the Muslims will at once be resolved. Whatever meanings are attributed to the Holy Qur'ān by him—who has come as an. Arbiter and as a commissioned one of God-will be its true meaning and whichever Hadīth he affirms as true will be a true Ḥadīth. [Malfūzāt, vol. 2, pp. 140-141]. It is set out in an authentic Ḥadīth that he who fails to recognize the Imām of his age will die the death of ignorance. . . . This direction of the Holy Prophetsa entails that every seeker after truth should continue to seek the true Imām. . . . The question arises: Who can be called the Imām of the age, and what are his characteristics, and in what respect is he to be preferred to other recipients of revelation and dreams and visions? The answer is that the Imām of the age is the person whose spiritual training is undertaken by God Almighty Himself Who invests his nature with such guiding light as enables him to overcome all philosophers and logicians of the world in every kind of debate. He refutes the subtlest criticism of every description so well by his God-given power, that one is compelled to admit that he has come into