Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 676
THE PLAGUE take serious note of him. 'A new warrior has risen for the defence of Islam,' was the clamour everywhere. . The Muslims of the subcontinent were astir with joy and hope. Till the entry into the arena of this new champion of the Muslim cause, Islam was the least ably defended of all the combatant religions. Meteoric was his rise to fame among the Indian Muslims when the first few volumes of his monumental work Brahin-e-Ahmadiyyah were published. Glowing tributes were paid to him by eminent. Muslim scholars of that time. Leading articles were published in his praise by the Muslim press. But it was not to last long. . The situation changed dramatically when he pronounced, one day, that God had revealed to him that. Jesusas, son of Mary, was dead. He died many long years after his deliverance from the cross like any other human prophet. In his name and in his spirit and style it was he,. Mirza Ghulam Ahmadas who had been raised as the. Messiah of the latter days, to fulfil the prophecies of the second advent of Jesusas. A fuller discussion on this will follow in Part VII. For the present it should suffice that his fame had reached heavenly heights before he made this claim. But the first thing that claim cost him was that fame which turned overnight into notoriety. His name was still known from end to end in the vast subcontinent of India among the people of Islam, but no longer with honour and dignity and with hopes and aspirations. The hunter of the enemies of Islam became the most hunted person by the very Muslims whose battles he had fought. All his friends turned into foes, all his well-wishers wished him dead rather than accept the death of Jesus Christas and his spiritual rebirth among the Muslims. He was maligned and vilified and abused and opposed with such frenzy as the subcontinent of India had not witnessed before. It was at 634