Life of Ahmad — Page 427
as PROPHECY ABOUT A THIM 427 the fact could be brought to light. God had told him expressly that A thim had turned towards the truth and A thim was trying to evade the real issue and was giving the public a different impression. There was no other witness except God; the only way, therefore, in which Ahmad as could establish the truth was to bring A thim face to face with God in the open. If Islam was all fraud and Christianity was the only true religion and A thim was perfectly convinced of it, there was nothing to stop him from declaring it under oath, however severe and solemn it might be. He should have dared the whole world to be a witness for Chris- tanity. The early disciples of Jesus as suffered martyrdom and they did not refuse to be the witnesses of Jesus as. Why was A thim afraid? Why did he not come forward to declare before God that the Founder sa of Islam was a liar and that he had always believed it so? Ahmad as offered him huge sums and entreated him, but he did not budge an inch. The God of Ahmad as could not tell him a lie. If A thim had come forward, He would have seized him by the throat and punished him in an exemplary manner. But He is Merciful and does not punish people unless it is absolutely necessary in the interest of love and truth. The only answer that A thim made was that he wrote in the N u r Afsh a Ĕ , dated October 10th, that he would not take an oath unless a judicial court of the country summoned him to do so. The other excuse that he put forward was that his religion did not allow him to take an oath. He also made an admission by