The Essence of Islam – Volume IV — Page 23
Status of the Promised Messiahas 23 and has admitted me to the rank of those who have been favoured with bounties. [Nūr-ul-Haq, Rūķānī Khazā'in, Part 1, vol. 8, pp. 38-39] میں وہ پانی ہوں کہ آیا آسماں سے وقت پر میں وہ ہوں نورِ خدا جس سے ہوا دن آشکار 16 [Brāhīn-e-Ahmadiyyah, Part V, Rūķānī Khazā'in, vol. 21, p. 145] I cannot say what I have done that has made me the recipient of this divine favour, but I feel my heart involuntarily drawn towards God Almighty with such deep loyalty that it cannot be restrained by any other consideration. So all this is pure Divine bounty. I have never submitted myself to rigorous physical discipline, nor have I subjected myself to hard exercises like some contemporary Şufis, nor did I undertake retreat in complete mystic solitude. Nor, indeed, have I done anything by of asceticism which is contrary to the practice of the Holy Prophetsa, or which may be objectionable according to the Word of God Almighty. Indeed, I have always felt ab- horred by the fakirs and those who introduce all sorts of innovations in faith. However, during the lifetime of my father, when his death was approaching, it so happened that I saw in a dream a holy man who was elderly and had a pure countenance, and he pointed out to me that it is the tradition of the family of the Holy Prophetsa to observe some days of fasting in 16 I am the water that has descended from heaven at its due time; I am the Divine light, which has illumined the day. [Translator]