Malfuzat – Volume III — Page 284
284 Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Messenger, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, while my opponents give precedence to the statements and self-invented principles of those people who have made no claim to have formulated their principles for the critical analysis of the Hadith on the basis of revelation or inspiration from God. If it is true that there is some other criterion to judge the Hadith, aside from the Quran and Sunnah, which has been established purely by human wisdom and reason, I would ask that why then should the Hadith presented by the Sunnis and Shias not be equally accepted; why does one sect reject the other? No one is able to give me an answer to this question. There is a more significant point than what has been mentioned above. Maulvi Muhammad Hussain has declared in his Isha’at-us-Sunnah that in determining the authenticity of a narration, those who experience divine visions are not bound by the principles established by the scholars of Hadith for the critical analysis of Hadith literature. In fact, on certain occasions, they can adjudge an ‘authentic’ Hadith to be weak, or a 'weak Hadith to be authentic, because they receive intimation directly from Allah Almighty or the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. When this is the case, would the Promised Messiah—who was destined to come as the Arbiter—not have the right to determine the authenticity of the Hadith in this manner? Would he not be the recipient of God’s grace? Would he be deprived of the grace of the Holy Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him? If he was not to possess this ability, then what use or benefit would come from such an Arbiter? Therefore, when these people begin to mix and confuse the Hadith, one must remember to sift them in light of the Quran and Sunnah. In our district, there was an official by the name of Hafiz Hidayat Ali. I would often have the oppor- tunity to meet him. On one occasion, he said that he was studying the books in which the advent of the Messiah and Mahdi has been mentioned, and thousands of signs have been recorded in these books. Since it is unlikely that each and every one of these signs will be fulfilled, he said that he apprehended that this would cause discord among the people, because they will not accept until all of these signs are fulfilled in totality, but it is obvious that each and every sign will not be fulfilled at once. In reality, his insight turned out to be correct. Such is the case today. The people reject me. p. 259