Truth Prevails — Page 150
( 150 ) Allah had called Hazrat Mirza Sahib a Nabi. His answer was: “yes”. Another question was when did Mirza Sahib, for the first time, call himself a Nabi ? His answer was “to the best of my memory, he claimed in 1891 that he was a Nabi. ” On the basis of this reply Mr. Faruqi says: “From 1891 to 1900 makes a period of nine years; according to Mian Mahmud Ahmad Sahib, the Promised Messiah did not quite understand his own position in regard to his Nabuwwat , although, according to him, the Lord God had told him that he was a Nabi. ” Our reply is that Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II has held that the Promised Messiah was a Nabi from the very commencement of his claim in 1891 that he was the Promised Messiah, though at the time he interpreted this word to mean a Mohaddath , or a Nabi in parts. But the conception of his claim which he gave out prior to 1901, since, in fact, it was in reality Nabuwwat itself, which he took as Mohaddathiat , he wrote at the end that “Nabuwwat had no meaning more than this that the elements mentioned above should be found in it. ” (Tauzih-i-Maram, page 19) So even in 1891, the Promised Messiah described the content of his claim by calling it Nabuwwat ; but for some time he continued to interpret it only as Mohaddathiat , under an impression that a man could not really and truly be a Nabi , if he was an Ummati of a previous Nabi. In point of fact therefore, the Promised Messiah was a Nabi from the earliest commencement of his ministry, and this is the view held by Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II, all along. ( Haqiqatun-Nabuwwat , page 53) Again, it was in the light of this conception in regard to the Nabuwwat of the Promised Messiah that Hazrat Khalifatul Masih stated quite plainly: “The kind of Nabi he had been formerly, he remained that kind of Nabi for ever afterwards. ” ( Haqiqatun-Nabuwwat , page 36) Then again he writes further on: “Just from the day he became the Promised Messiah, from that very day he was a Nabi ; and God Himself had said he was a Nabi. ” ( Haqiqatun Nabuwwat , page 38) Therefore Hazrat Khalifatul Masih’s reply before the Inquiry Commission, in the light of his careful study of the question, and in the light of his own belief and conviction, was quite correct that, to the best of his memory, the Promised Messiah first claimed in 1891 that he was a Nabi. In regard to this question, the Promised Messiah himself has written: “Wheresoever I have disclaimed Nabuwwat or Risalat , it has been in the sense that in an independent and permanent way I am not the bearer of any new Sharia ; nor am I an independent and confirmed Nabi , free of any obligation owed in any quarter, for any spiritual benefit received. But in the sense that from my own master I have