Truth Prevails — Page 59
( 59 ) Evidently, no Muslim can take exception here, to say that a gradual revealment to the prophets, in regard to their exact position in the divine scheme of things, is something unworthy, unnatural, smacking of unseemly ignorance, or a dullness of the mind. In the earlier stages of development of their minds, relevant to the nature and scope of their missions, the prophets are made in a mould which shrinks back from self-praise, and self-assertion. So when they find themselves raised to a higher level than others, they do not easily take to it, on account of their strong sense of modesty, and they try to satisfy themselves in various ways by watering down the praise and esteem lavished on them, in their own Revelations, trying to explain away the firm adjectives as being, probably, mere figurative styles of expression, not intended to be taken very literally. But when they find that the Revelations persist, and insist, in this style and tone and expression, as an integral part of their mission itself, they accept the position assigned to them, and proceed to declare it, without any misgiving, or fear, that some people might be prone to take it as a sign of deliberate fraud, and an unscrupulous exploitation of the credulity beginning to be extended to them in sections of the society to which their mission is addressed. Moreover, in numerous instances, the gradual revealment is also a natural result of the gradual development of their own mind and calibre, as a process of the growth of their own personality, and a widening of their vision. At the time of the advent of the Promised Messiah, the belief prevailed among the mass of Muslims that no Prophet could be expected to be raised among them. But righteous servants of the Lord had generally held that, the rank and position of a Mohaddath was open for the Muslims, a Mohaddath also being an Ummati Prophet, in some respect. The advent of a Mohaddath has always been held possible among the Muslims; and since every Prophet, basically, is always a Mohaddath , the best and most perfect in this quality and eminence, the Lord ordained that the Promised Messiah should start the work of his difficult mission from the basic position of a Mohaddath. , which fact embraced, fundamentally, the position of a perfect Ummati Nabi , as well, which continued to receive an increasing emphasis and insistence, as the various aspects of the Mission came in full view, while the days rolled by. What the Promised Messiah did, as time went by, was no more than this that he gave up his tendency to water down the real and inner meaning of the term Nabi he had been taking as only figuratively intended, when applied to him. When the persistent quality of Revelations forced him to accept that he had been given the title of Nabi in clear explicit words, he found himself persuaded to declare himself as occupying a higher eminence than that of Jesus Christ; and he had to do this, in the teeth of his basic tendency in the direction of a deep-seated sense of humility of mind, to which any act of self-assertion had always been distasteful, and unnecessary. Here the Promised Messiah found himself dutybound to declare, openly and boldly, that he stood higher than Hazrat Isa, that he was openly and clearly a prophet being an Ummati too. When he found that the prevailing belief in regard to Nabuwwat was mistaken, and