Invitation to Ahmadiyyat — Page 151
151 knowledgeable and worldly-wise Muslims were predicting its imminent demise and the prevailing circumstances were certainly pointing in this direction. Christianity was growing rapidly and it was feared that Islam would vanish from the face of the earth within a century. Muslims were suffering such losses against the Christians that, let alone the Muslims who had converted to Islam relatively recently, even the descendants of the Holy Prophet s as , the Syeds, were starting to abandon Islam in their thousands and turning Christians. They even started publishing vituperative lit - erature against Islam and its Holy Founder s as. They would ascend the pulpits and utter vile and heart-rending criticism of the Holy Prophet s as. Muslims were becoming so demoralized that even the Hindus—a hitherto dead religion that had never ventured into missionary work and was ever on the defensive—took courage and the Ary a Sam a jists launched a campaign to convert Muslims to Hinduism. The scene was pitiful indeed, almost like vultures gathering on the dead body of an expert marksman. Previously they would not venture anywhere near him for fear of his skill but they now preyed upon his flesh. Some Muslims writers who used to stand up in the defence of Islam, gave up trying to do so and instead started saying that Islamic injunctions were meant for the age of ignorance and should not be criticised in view of modern knowledge. At this time of despondency and continuous external onslaught, Hadrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as took it upon him - self to defend Islam. His very first attack proved so effective that the enemy was left stupefied. He wrote a book entitled Bar a h i n- e-Ahmadiyya in which he stated in detail the arguments for the truth of Islam and challenged the opponents of Islam to come