Invitation to Ahmadiyyat — Page 279
279 and a good number out of them met their death by it; so much so that a European writer, who was unaware of the prophecy, made particular mention of it in his book. A second difficulty that may be raised about the prophecy is that it contains the words tuzba ha n , i. e. two would be slaugh - tered, but it so happened that one was strangled to death and the other was stoned. The description, therefore, would seem not to apply to their deaths. Such objections arise from a lack of thought and deliberation. The Arabic word ذبح means to cause the death of something regardless of how it may come about. In the Holy Quran, we have many examples of this use of the word ذبح. In the narrative of Hadrat M u s a as , the Holy Quran says: 7 َنْوُحِّبَذُي ْمُكَءٓاَنْبَا َو َنْوُيْحَتْسَي ْمُكَءٓاَسِن [Pharaoh’s people] slaying your sons and sparing your women. It is evident from history that the Egyptians did not slaughter the Israelite males. Instead, the midwives were ordered to kill all male children born in Israelite homes, and when the midwives hesitated to do so, the Pharaoh ordered the children to be thrown into the river. 8 Moreover, the Arabic Lexicon T a jul-‘Ur u s says that at least one meaning of ذبح is ‘to destroy’. 9 Hence, it is wrong to object that Sahibzadah was stoned and not slaughtered, because the word ذبح applies to killing regardless of the method employed.