The Heavenly Sign — Page 22
22 Nish a n-e- A sm a n i ‘ I s a as has indeed descended, and God's promise was bound to be fulfilled. I will lay out the prophecies that I had promised to do. Keeping to the chronological order, I think it will be appropriate to first relate the prophecy of Ni‘matull a h Wal i along with the prophecy of the Holy Prophet sa , and then the prophecy of Mi an Gul a b Sh a h as it was related by Mi an Kar i m Bakhsh. Ni‘matull a h Wal i lived in the suburbs of Delhi and is famous as one of the renowned saints of India. With reference to his D i w a n , 560 Hijra is believed to be the time of his appearance. The date of the publication of the book which contains this prophecy is Mu h arram , 25, 1868. Thus, forty-one years have elapsed since these verses were published. These verses are included in the booklet Arba'in F i A h w a lil Mahdiyy i n published on the date already mentioned. And, as I have already said, the object of including these verses in the booklet was to try and establish Sayyid Ahmad Sahib as one of the Mahd i s. Undoubtedly, people have greatly erred in understanding the A ha d i th that mention the prophecy of the Holy Prophet sa about the coming of a person named Mahdi. In general, it has been erroneously assumed that the word 'Mahdi' invariably refers to 'Muhammad son of ‘Abdull a h' who has been mentioned in some A ha d i th. But a careful study reveals that the Holy Prophet sa has foretold the coming of several Mahd i s. One of them has been called