The Descent of the Messiah — Page 15
HADRAT MIRZA GHULAM AHMADAS ing people he will fictitiously kill by the plague. Another example of this type of deception is that he has as- cribed the death of the watchman named Nathu to the plague, even though the poor fellow died quite a while ago after suffering from fever, which is recorded as the cause of death in his offi- cial medical records, just like that of Maula the watchman. Is it possible that Government officials were given false information? There is no doubt that there are always cases of fever because of the [summer] heat, and so has there been fever in Qadian this time, and it is estimated that more than a hundred people may have contracted it. I myself and some of my children had it for a couple of days, as did some students in the school and many oth- ers in the village. Owing to the large number of cases, a couple of people even died of fever. Some of them had been suffering from it for a few months while others died of typhoid. As far as I know, out of more than one hundred people who suffered from fever, only two or three failed to recover from it. Would it be right to call it the plague? Pray, have some shame! Have there never been cases of fever in the summer before? The fact is that even before there was any sign of the plague, as many as thirty people are known to have died in Qadian from typhoid. By the grace of God, these numbers have now decreased significantly. In short, these are minor pestilences that occur during this season, but ignorant people who know nothing about medicine falsely describe them to be the plague. Moreover, such editors, who are the most ignorant of the ignorant, accept the reports of these naïve people as if they had been informed by prominent and ex- perienced doctors. The fact is that the plague is a disease whose diagnosis can confuse even the best of doctors. Strangely enough, patients sometimes develop boils but are not suffering from the plague. This is why it is so hard to diagnose. Some time ago, it was ru- 15