Haqiqatul-Wahi (The Philosophy of Divine Revelation) — Page 256
256 HAQIQATUL-WAḤI-THE PHILOSOPHY OF DIVINE REVELATION brought here and it still smells of musk. It is displayed in a glass frame in a corner of my Baitud-Du'a' [A small chamber in the house of the Promised Messiah as where he used to pray]. It is obvious that had this enterprise been a mere fraud perpetrated by an impostor, why would the blessed martyr receive revelations about my truthfulness while he was living such a long distance away, and why would he see repeated dreams while he was even unaware of my name? Only God informed him concerning me that the Promised Messiah had appeared in the Punjab. It was then that he began to investigate the news coming from the Punjab, and when he learnt that, indeed, a person in Qadian, District Gurdaspur, Punjab, does claim to be the Promised Messiah, he hastened towards me, leaving everything behind, and stayed here for about two months. Upon his return, he was arrested on the report of wicked inform- ers. After his arrest, when he was told to meet his wife and children, he replied, 'I need not meet them anymore. I entrust them to God. ' When the verdict was delivered that he would be stoned to death, he said, 'I shall not remain dead for more than forty days. This was a reference to what is written in the Scriptures that a believer is brought to life a few days, or at the most forty days, after his death and is raised to Heaven. This is the same controversy that continues to persist between me and my opponents regarding the rafa' [ascension] of Ḥaḍrat ‘Īsā, peace be upon him. In keeping with the Book of God, I believe in his spiritual ascension, whereas they believe in physical ascension, in contravention of the Book of God and in defiance of the God's injunction: قُلْ سُبْحَانَ رَبِّي هَلْ كُنْتُ إِلَّا بَشَرًا رَّسُولًا. And they say that I am the Dajjāl [Antichrist] because it is written that 1. Say, 'Holy is my Lord! I am not but a man sent as a Messenger' (Sūrah Bani Isra'il, 17:94). [Publisher]