First Grain of Sand — Page 33
JOURNEY TO THE U. S. S. R. 17 was sixteen days after he had posted it to me. I realized that writ- ing a letter to him inquiring about the path I should take and then waiting for a response would cause me to lose yet another month before I could proceed to Bukhara. Plus, by then the snowfall would be so heavy that more routes would begin to close, which would likely leave me stranded in Mashhad for another four months. Additionally, from a budget viewpoint, with my illness and treatment in Mashhad, plus the money I gave to Maulawi Amin Khan before he left, I was running low on money. And of course, since my leader, Hazrat Khalifatul-Masih, had assigned me to Bukhara, I could not bear being delayed any further from that mission. For these reasons, I put my trust in God Almighty and decided to proceed to Bukhara immediately on my own. God Almighty knows well the indescribable embarrassment and guilt I felt at that time. I kept thinking that God's appointed Khalifah had set three men out on the road from Qadian, and while two of them had reached their destination, I was the unfortunate one who was still stuck en route. My master would be disappointed to learn this. So after performing the Istikhaarah¹ Prayer, I put my trust in God Almighty and then wrote a letter to Hazrat Khalifatul- Masih II explaining the situation, while also including Maulawi Amin Khan's letter so Huzoor could see it as well. Sadly, I do not have a copy of that letter to reproduce now, but I will give the essence of the letter here. In my letter to Huzoor, I explained the dire circumstances I was facing-I had just 1. A special prayer made to seek guidance from Allah before making a decision. [Publisher]