Truth About the Split — Page 181
181 (iii) That the prophecy about Ahmad in Chapter Saff of the Holy Quran relates to the Promised Messiah as and not to the Holy Prophet sa. In dealing with these charges, I wish in the first instance to state that it is altogether wrong to say that people accepted my Bai‘at under any misconception regarding my views. My principles and beliefs had been published long before I was elected to the office of Khalifa. My views on the question of the prophethood of the Promised Messiah as had been expounded in a lecture I delivered in 1910. This lecture was duly published in the organs of the Ahmadiyya Movement. They were also to be found in other writings of mine. I had also published a tract on the subject of the Kufr of those who did not accept the Promised Messiah as , and, in the words of Maulawi Muhammad Ali himself, I had in 1913 once again announced that those who did not believe in the Promised Messiah as were kuffar. In the presence of so many repeated declarations, how can it be said that people entered my Bai‘at through a misconception? It is true that there are a few who first entered my Bai‘at and then renounced it. But, on the other hand, more than a hundred times their number have later replaced these defections. When I was elected there was only an inconsiderable number who accepted my Bai‘at.