With Love to the Muslims of the World — Page 46
46 Khulaf a ’. He combines in his person religious, administra- tive and spiritual functions. There is a very strong bond of spiritual love between him and members of the Jam a‘ at from all over the world. E XTRAORDINARY P ROGRESS OF A H MADIYYA J AM A ‘ AT Ahmadiyya Muslim Jam a‘ at, despite all the hostility and gigantic efforts to obstruct its passage has progressed in the last 100 years so rapidly and widely that one is left with wonder and amazement. Hadrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian raised a lone voice when he was commissioned by God on 23rd March 1889 to invite mankind to Islam and to rejuvenate and revive the Muslims and under divine guidance to rectify their beliefs and practices. These errors of belief and practice had strongly infiltrated into the Muslim umma particularly in the 13 th century since the demise of the Holy Prophet sa. Some of the major tasks assigned to him as Imam Mahdi were to revive the spirit and quality of Muslim faith and practice and to resolve their differences under divine guidance. In a short span of 100 years ending on 22nd of March 1989 that one man had grown into 10 millions according to some estimates and the Jam a‘ at had spread and got firmly rooted in 120 countries of the world. This reminds one of a promise given to him by God in the early days of his ministry when the world at large seemed to have rejected him. That promise gave him assurance: ‘I shall cause thy Message to reach the ends of the earth’