Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume II — Page 15
15 During the last war [ World War II ] , a British man by the name of Bashir Orchard, became Ahmadi. On his first trip to visit me in Qadian, his thoughts were of the view, ‘ I will invent a new religion. ’ He said that he had studied Islam and had found many good points and his study of Hinduism had also yielded some fine teac hings. He wanted to fin d a new way where he could combine the good points from all religions. I continued to explai n to him , but he was not satisfied. Sometime after he left Qadian, I received a letter from him saying that he had accepted Islam. I was surprised , as he had not been satisfied with any one religio n. Later , wh en he came to visit me, he told me the whole story. He said, “While I was living in Qadian, I did not realize the significance of the atmosphere in the duration of my stay. During my seven t o eight day s’ stay in Qadian, I did not consume any alcohol, but when I reached Amritsar , I felt the desire to drink. There , I met up with some English friends and went to a dining hall wh ere my friends ordered alcohol and so did I. It then occurred to me that I had refrain ed from dr inking alcohol for the past seven to eight days and it had not bothered me, so there would be no harm in refraining from it for a few more days. Therefore , I cancelled my order. T his was the first change which occurred within me. After that , I consistently avoided dr inking. When I went back to the army, my English friends made fun of me and said , ‘ W e will see how long you can avoid drinking. ’ Their challenge strengthened my resolve not to drink and gradually my desire to drink faded away. I realized that this blessing of foregoing alcohol was enti rely due to my stay in Qadian. I then began to study Islam and Ahmadiyyat more intently and its tru th became apparent to me, and I accepted Islam. ” Then he [ Bashir Orchard ] was transferred to Rawalpindi. There , his British friends consistently hassled him and attempted to turn him back by various means, but by the grace of Allah he became more and more steadfast in Islam. He began to regularly offer Sal ā t and even grew a beard. At this, the English people began to give him an even hard er time. At times, they would ridicule his p rayers and at other times, they would object to his beard. They would even pick fights over food. Finally , he left his job and dedicated his life in the service of Islam. Now he is preaching Islam in England and he only receives food and clothing [from the Jama'at]. The present state of this person is that he wakes regularly for tahajjud [voluntary prayer observed before dawn] p rayers, is regular