Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume I — Page 145
! ! 145 are often required? In India, a n appeal for donation s was made by the Turkish Khilafat. There are Muslims in India who can individually contribute millions of rupees , but despite this , their total collection could not exceed over ten or twelve - hundred thousand. The outcome of this was that if their donations went towards the Khilafat , there was little money left for their local endeavors. Thus , the Central Khilafat Committee w as forced to divert funds from the Angora Fund for local expenditure. Now , compared to other institutions, our community has the least amount of funds and members. In Punjab alone , the number of Ahmadis is less than the janitors which reside here. As far as funds are concerned , there are small nations, such as the Bhabar s [ Bhabar are a caste of people in South Asia] , in which some individuals alone have more money than our whole community combined. However, despite this, just witness how extraordinary God Almighty’s mission is for our community. I t is said that there are nearly seventy or eighty million Muslims in India , and the [donation for the Turkish Khilafat ] was a matter of their survival. This was not the case with our donations. The appeal for the London M osque, albeit an essential and blessed one, did not mean that we would be destroyed if the London M osque was not built. Similarly, the appeal for the Berlin M osque is beneficial, but it does not signify that if this mosque is not built , our community will disintegrate. However , according to them the ir appeal was such that, if they were unsuccessful , they would have be en annihilated. Despite this , they we re unable to collect even a hundred thousand rupees. In comparison, our community, which is not even one hundredth their size , is able to donate a hundred thousand rupees for the London M osque with in a few days. I believe that if this was a matter of life and death, then this tiny community could even collect twenty million rupees. W e would be unable to collect more, not because we do not wish to do so, but because there would be nothing else to give. Our only limit to c ollecting a sum of money in matter s of life and death, no matter how big, would be the fact that there would remain nothing else to give, not because we did not wish to give more. For all that would remain, would be our lives and even that we would not hesitate to sacrifice. Anyone who has any sense or intelligence should ponder how