The Descent of the Messiah — Page 9
HADRAT MIRZA GHULAM AHMADAS ty has been afflicted with the boil of the plague, which is hard to recover from. Besides, if the editor of the Paisa Akhbar had any interest in honesty and truthfulness, he should have shown the poster or the announcement in which I supposedly said that the plague would never visit Qadian and it would not experi- ence even a single case of the pestilence. Contrarily, in the book Dafi ul-Balā'-five thousand copies of which were published- the following statement appears clearly in the footnote on page five: "Among the types of plague the most dreadful type is the one called Tāʻun-e-Jarif-meaning, the sweeper-from which peo- ple flee from place to place and die like dogs. The situation is beyond the limits of human tolerance. (It destroys at least one- tenth of the population, devours half of it, or takes three-fifths. ) Thus, this divine revelation contains the promise that this con- dition will never affect Qadian. This revelation's interpretation is provided by another revelation: لَوْلَا الْإِكْرَامُ لَهَلَكَ الْمُقَامُ Meaning that, had I not held this Movement in high re- gard then I would have destroyed Qadian as well. Two points are gleaned from this revelation: (1) First, it would not matter if Qadian were to experience an incident, on rare occasions- which is within the bounds of human tolerance, does not wreak havoc, and does not induce a panic-driven exodus because such an extremely rare occurrence amounts to nothing. (2) Second, it is necessary that a devastating plague must break out in those cities and villages which, in comparison with Qadian, house the extremely rebellious, wicked, oppressive, corrupt, immoral, and the dangerous opponents of this Movement (unless they repent), to such a degree that people will lose their senses, and run in 9