Fazl-e-Umar — Page 119
Fazle Umar 119 guilty of contempt of the office of Khalifa. ” He expatiated on the status of the Khalifa and the nature and quality of the obedience due to him, so that no doubt was left in anyone’s mind with regard to what the pledge of allegiance entailed. The speech opened the eyes of the delegates. The conspirators had the disap- pointment of seeing their clever scheme swept away like fortifications built in sand by children at play on a beach. Hadhrat Khalifatul Masih [ra] then called upon Maulvi Muhammad Ali and Khawaja Kamal Uddin to renew their pledge of allegiance. He suggested that they should go apart and consult with each other whether they were willing to do so. He also called upon one or two others to renew their pledge. 79 All of them complied and the meeting came to an end. But Maulvi Muhammad Ali and Khawaja Kamal Uddin bubbled with suppressed rage. They took the pledge of allegiance only outwardly because they stood fully exposed. 80 C L ASH O v E R T H E HOU SE OF M AU L v I H A K E E M F A Z A L dI n Khawaja Kamal Uddin learnt a deep lesson from these two mistakes. After this greater reverse he called off the publicly exposed campaign altogether and devoted himself to a task comparable to running a tunnel under enemy lines to blow them up with dynamite. Maulvi Muhammad Ali, however, with a more irritable temper and a sensitive skin that felt even the casual caress of the wind as a deliberate pinprick continued to clash with Hadhrat Khalifatul Masih [ra]. He could not forget an injury to his vanity how- ever slight and knew not how to bide time as his friend did. In his capacity as secretary Majlis-i-Motamadeen Sadr Anjuman, he began to obstruct Hadhrat Khalifatul Masih [ra] in the affairs of the Community. The clash over Maulvi Hakeem Fazal Uddin’s