Khilafat Centenary Souvenir 1908-2008 — Page 32
Khilafat Centenary Ju st as there are twelve instances of stars m entioned in the ph ysical heaven, si milarly there will be twelve divine refo rm ers or twelve stars in the spiritual fi rm ament of Islam who wi ll keep its li ght burnin g after the sun h as set. After the first three best centuri es of Islam will have passed, resul ti ng in a 1st Century Umar Bin Abdul Aziz 2"d Century Imam Shafi A hmad Bin Humbal 3rd Century Abu Sharah Abdul Hassan Al Ashari 4th Century Abu Abdaidullah of Ne shapur Qazi Abu Bakr Bagilani 5th Century Imam Al-Ghazali 6th Century Al-Sayyad Abdul Qadir Jilani 7th Century Imam lbn Taimiyya Khwaja Mueenuddin Chishti 8th Century lbn Hajar Asqalani Seleh Bin Umar 9th Century Imam Suyuti 10th Century Muhammad Tahir Gujirati 11th Century Al-Sheikh Ahmad of Sirhand Mujaddid Alif Thani 12th Century Shah Wal i Ullah Muhaddath Deh lv i 13th Century Syed Ahmad Barelvi 14th Century Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as spread of spiritual darkness over the whole world, these reformers will b ear witness to the trut h of Islam , the H oly Qur'a n an d the H oly Pro ph et ••w. T he question that naturally arises is was Islam unprotected after Khilafat- e- R ashida? It h as previously been proved that, after the death of the Pro ph ets, their successors came to safeguard their books and teachings. In the same way, Allah Almighty managed to safeguard the teaching of the Holy Qur'an through His mujaddideen. In addition, Allah gave gl ad tidings of the appearance of the Promised Messiah and Mahdi as. In the following Hadith, the Holy Prophet saw has prophesized about Khilafat in the pattern of Prophethood: "O, Muslims, this Prophethood will remain with you as long as Allah wishes it to remain. Then it will come to an end, to be replaced with Khilafat which will be in the pattern of P rophethood and will remain as long as Allah wills. Then this Khilafat will also come to an end. The rulers who are cruel to peop le will replace them for as long as Allah wills. Then this period will also come to an end. Then there will be the rule of usurpers, and that period, too, will come to an end. After that, Khilafat on the pattern of Prophethood will re- emerge. " After saying this, the Ho ly Prophet saw did not make any further comments. (M usn ad Ahmad quoted by Mishkat in Ch apter Inzar-wa-Tahzir) T he Promised Messiah as also