Deliverance from the Cross — Page 125
His love of the Holy Quran was so well known and was so fervently expressed that one of his bitter opponents often recited his verses in praise of the Quran in his own public addresses. He proved himself a great champion of Islam and effectively established its superiority in every respect over all other faiths. He issued challenge after challenge to the representatives of other faiths in support of his claim of the superiorityof Islam but none of them dared to take them up. He founded a community, the members of which have made it unique in respect of their living faith in their Creator and in making the winning of His pleasure the motive and purpose of their lives, at a time when the general trend, particularly among the so-called advanced peoples, is to turn away from God and to repudiate Him. In one of his revelations he was designated the Champion of God in the mantles of the prophets, and every moment of his life justified that designation. At the time of his advent Islam appeared to be fighting a rear-guard action against the assaults of all the other faiths, more particularly of Christianity, especially in India, where the Christian missionaries carried on a most offensive campaign against Islam in which they made subtle use of the prestige then enjoyed by the British, and thus Christian, government of India. Once, however, Hazrat Ahmad embarked upon the defence of Islam on the basis of the Holy Quran, the exuberance of Christian missionaries soon began to subside and 125