Malfuzat - Volume IX — Page 59
27 December 1906 59 there is much greater ability in its people to accept the truth compared to [the rest of ] India. I had the opportunity to reside in Delhi and other places for many months, but they did not accept [me]. In contrast to this, people in the Punjab accepted me at a time when others did not, whereas I explained to them the proofs of my claim, presented before them the Quran and the Hadith, and Signs, but they did not accept (except the few that Allah desired). So this is the grace of God Almighty that He established this [Ahmadiyya] Jam a ‘at in this land. Additionally, this land had the right that this Jam a ‘at be established [in it] because it had suffered under the Sikhs for forty to fifty years. The chil- dren are not aware of those atrocities and difficulties. I also was a child at that time; therefore, I do not have full knowledge but the extent of knowledge I do have is that of an eyewitness. At that time, if the Call to Prayer was raised, its punishment was none other than the murder of the one that made the call, whereas these people know and see that when they blow the conch shell, etc. , we neither intervene nor harm them, but they had such opposition to the Call for Prayer that as soon as some- one raised the call, he was murdered. The place where I am standing right now was the seat of the governing officers. It was not so much the centre of government as it was a centre of cruelty. When British justice first began to exert its influence, one administrator lived here. 1 One of his policeman went to a mosque to offer Prayers. He asked the mullah to raise the A d h a n [Call for Prayer]. The mullah raised the Call in a suppressed voice. The officer said, ‘Why do you 1. From Badr : ‘Initially when British influence entered the Punjab, people were generally still unaware of this, and the governing officers were the same as be- fore. The sites of the courts also remained the same and here arrived a Muslim policeman from outside of Qadian and went to offer the Prayer in a mosque. ’ ( Badr, vol. 6, no. 3, p. 9, dated 17 January 1907)