Through Force or Faith? — Page 297
Chapter 7 — Novelty in the Teachings of Muhammad 297 three different modes by which God communicates His response; namely, through clear verbal revelation; by showing dreams and visions; by veiled revelation ( S u rah ash-Shūr a , 42:52). This is the most effective method of assurance that encourages man. This is why there always have been individuals in Islam in every age with whom God spoke as He had spoken in the past with Moses and Jesus (peace be on them); and He provided the most convincing proof of His own existence by saying: ْۤيِنَّنِا اَنَا ُهّٰللا ۤاَل َهٰلِا ۤاَّلِا اَنَا Verily, I am Allah; there is no God besides Me ( S u rah T ā Hā, 20:15). In this age, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani as , the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, has claimed: I will be guilty of doing great wrong to my fellow beings if I were not to declare at this stage that Divine bounty has bestowed upon me the status which I have just defined and has honoured me with the kind of converse the features of which I have just set out in detail, so that I should bestow sight upon the blind and should guide the seekers of the One Who has been so far lost, and should give to those who accept the truth the good news of the Holy Fountain of which many speak but which few find. ( The Philosophy of the Teachings of Islam, p. 132, Islam International Publications Ltd. , 1996) This bounty of God is still continuing.