Deliverance from the Cross — Page 119
before he put forward his claim, was equally blameless and praiseworthy. This is borne out by the testimony of those who knew him in his younger days. It is well established that from his early youth he was devoted to the study and practice of the eternal verities and that the entire purpose of his life had been to win the pleasure of God. In his daily life he set an example of the highest moral virtues. Even at the height of the opposition to him after he had announced his claim, his bitterest enemies were not able to point to the slightest blemish in his personal life before and after his claim. Another test is that God reveals that much of the unseen as He wills to His Messengers, as is said: 'He is the Knower of the unseen; and He reveals not the hidden to anyone, except to him whom He chooses from among His Messengers'. (al-Jinn, 72:27-28) This means that God communicates to a prophet as much of that which is hidden as He wills. In other words, the truth of a claimant to prophethood might be judged from the prophecies that he makes on the basis of the knowledge of the hidden that God bestows upon him. Those prophecies are not the vague and uncertain predictions of astrologers and soothsayers but possess a majesty and a certainty which distinguishes them clearly from mere conjecture and prognostication. The Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement made many prophecies, a large number of which found fulfilment 119