THE MESSIAH OF QADIAN. 



243 



father. When my father was yet alive and before any fatal 

 symptoms appeared, the Word of God came to me at mid-day 

 foretelling my father's death after sunset that very day. No 

 sooner had the idea of his death passed into my mind than the 

 inspiration of God broke forth upon me in the following words : 

 * Is not God sufficient for His servant ? ' My father died after 

 sunset as the Word of God had spoken. . . . In accordance 

 with this Word which God spoke to me, He took charge of all 

 my affairs, Himself became my teacher, Himself guided my 

 soul in all concerns, Himself supplied me with all I required, 

 and Himself crowned me with honour and glory. I was 

 unknown, God made me famous; I was unrecognised, God gave 

 me glory and renown ; I was in want, God granted me affluence. 

 This grand prophecy now shines forth like the meridian 

 sun." 



II. The Doctrine of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. 



The Mirza of Qadian claims that the promised Mahcli and 

 the promised Messiah expected by Muhammadans are not two 

 persons but one, and that he is that person. This is a heretical 

 view, if judged by the standard of Muhammadan orthodoxy. 

 For, as commonly held, the Malidi will be a descendant of 

 Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad and mother of Husein, 

 and the Messiah will be the Lord Jesus Christ at His second 

 coming. Both the Malidi and the Messiah will be men of 

 blood, w T ho will together fight against the unbelievers until they 

 are overcome. Thus the tradition of orthodox Islam includes 

 the notion of a bloody Malidi who will wage a bloody jihad 

 against all unbelievers. Such is the programme which, for 

 example, the Sudanese Malidi, Muhammad Ahmad of Gondola, 

 had in mind and sought to carry out. 



Against this popular view the Mirza Qadian! declares (1) 

 that " the traditions speaking of such a person [as the bloody 

 Mahdi] are all of them forged and were perhaps fabricated in 

 the time of the Abbasides " (Kashf-id-Ghita, 1898, p. 11), 

 (2) that the true Malidi (the Guided One) is to be a man of 

 peace, not a man of blood, and (3) that he, the Mirza of 

 Qadian, is at once the promised Mahdi and the promised 

 Messiah, as it were a " Mahdi- Messiah" He says : " The 

 spiritual personality of the Messiah and the Mahdi is a 

 combination of the spiritual personalities of the Holy Prophet 

 Muhammad and of Jesus " {Review of Religions, February, 

 1903, p. 67). 



