Guidance for Perceiving Minds — Page 30
h a d rat Mirza ghulam AHmAD as 30 will despise them, thinking them to be escorts or slaves who have been adorned for sale after being enslaved. They do not pray reg- ularly, and their desires have become a hurdle and obstacle in their paths. If they do pray, they pray at home like women, and they do not attend mosques like the pious. How can they come to the mosques if they do not part with the cup of wine, nor leave the filth of their drinking companions, nor bear to hear a word of exhortation? Pride incites them to arrogance and conceit, and they rage with anger and jealousy. The most honourable people in their eyes are those who make their condition beautiful and praise them and their deeds. Likewise, their morals became cor- rupted as a result of constant wine drinking, that the vine tree uprooted them from being sons of the nobles. What remained of their concerns was that they should have a lofty palace, pleasant food, and tangy drink. No sound of their troops can be heard, and for this reason calamity and loss befell them. They were skinned like sheep being sheared, and they were trimmed like branches. They were taken like animals, and cut down like twigs. They lost their state and emirate, just as a garment falls from a saddlebag. When Allah saw their immorality and debauchery, their injustice and falsehood, and their ingratitude, He subdued them through a people that climbed over their walls and everything that was high, took possession of what their fathers had owned, and hastened forth from every height. And this decree was bound to be carried out. You read it in the Quran, but you do not pon- der. Priests followed in their footsteps, misleading the people, and deceiving them, luring them into their false religion with money, women, and everything they embellish. So, the foolish people sell the faith of Allah for loaves of bread, women, and other desires,