The Victory of Islam — Page 15
H H A A D D R AT M IR Z A GHU L A M AH M AD R AT M IR Z A GHU L A M AH M AD 15 maladies. 1 To ward off evil by marking it as a target and shooting it with the necessary arrows of admonition, and to restore dete - riorated morality to its true shape and position by treating it like a limb dislocated from its joint, is a cure that requires being face- to-face in the presence of the sick and is not possible in any other setting. This is the very reason that God Almighty sent so many thousands of Prophets and Messengers and enjoined [people to seek] the honour of being in their blessed company, so that the people of every age—acquiring eyewitness precedents first- hand and beholding their life as the embodiment of the Word of God—might strive to emulate them. If being in the company of the righteous had not been amongst the requirements of reli - gion, then God Almighty could have revealed His Word by some other means without sending Messengers and Prophets, or He could have limited the affair of Messengership to just the very beginning of time, forever terminating the future succession of Prophethood, Messengership, and revelation. However, the pro - found wisdom and sagacity of God Almighty did not approve of this at all; in times of need—that is, whenever the love of God, His worship, righteousness and purity, and other essential mat - ters suffer a decline—holy people, receiving revelation from God Almighty, have been appearing throughout the world in the form of exemplars. These two decrees are mutually dependent, that if God Almighty is drawn towards the reformation of human - ity for all times to come, then it is absolutely essential that such 1. Due to the length of the footnote, it has been moved to pages 61 – 72 as a stand-alone section for the ease of readers. [Publisher]