The Essence of Islam – Volume III — Page 391
Repeated Challenges 391 ness heavenly signs, if God Almighty so wills. This is a Divine promise that is bound to be fulfilled. If you do not come, you will be accountable to God, and after waiting for three months an account of your indifference will be set out in part V of the book. If you come and stay for a year and witness no heavenly sign, you will be paid compensation at the rate of two hundred rupees a month. If you consider this sum inadequate, we shall agree to pay you such amount as you may consider adequate, as a compensation for your wasted time or as a fine for our not keeping our promise, provided that it is within our means. Anyone who requires compensation must first seek our consent by means of a registered letter before- hand. A person who does not seek compensation will not need such permission. If you cannot come in person, you may appoint, as your representative, someone whose ob- servation you can trust and can accept as your own, to come in your place; but on the condition that, after the confirmation of your representative, you will not delay your acceptance of Islām or your confirmation of the ex- traordinary signs. You can set down your announcement on a simple sheet of paper, and a few respectable follow- ers of different religions should testify it to. It will be published in a number of Urdu and English newspapers. We are willing to register our liability to pay compensa- tion as set out above with a guarantee of a proportionate amount of our property. [Majmű'ah Ishtihārāt, vol. 1, pp. 20-22] For Followers of Revealed Books who Deny the Truth of the Holy Qur'ān I, the author of Brāhīn-e-Ahmadiyyah, announce an award of ten thousand rupees on the following condi- tions. This announcement is addressed to all the fol-