Life of The Promised Messiah (as) — Page 20
20 Regarding Sahibzadi Ismat, Nawab Mubarakah Begum ra narrates that Hazrat Amman Jaan ra told her: When your older brother—Mirza Bashir-ud-Deen Mahmood Ahmad—was born, Ismat was asleep. The maidservant woke her up and said, Wake up Bibi, your Bashir has arrived. Ismat probably remembered Bashir Awwal often after his demise. 18 The Promised Messiah as loved Mubarak Ahmad dearly. A day before his birth, the Promised Messiah as was told by revelation that the boy would die young. Accordingly, Mubarak Ahmad passed away at the age of eight. He is buried in Bahishti Maqbarah, Qadian. Mubarak Ahmad ra learned to read and write Urdu, and to recite the Holy Quran. He exhibited such signs of goodness and virtue in his childhood that people used to address him by the name wali [friend of Allah]. Hazrat Khalifatul-Masih II ra states that as chil- dren, they once wanted to raise hens. At the time, Mir Muhammad Ishaq ra, the brother of Hazrat Amman Jaan ra, and Bashir Ahmad ra, both kept hens. So, they would visit these pens and collect their eggs to hatch chicks; they ultimately hatched one hundred hens. They would leave early in the morning to open the pens. Then they would