Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya Part V — Page 370
370 BARĀHIN-E-AHMADIYYA - PART FIVE to my announcement of 11 May 1905, which was published twenty-five years after Barāhīn-e-Ahmadiyya, my mind had not moved to consider that the earthquake meant a real physical earthquake. But the meaning of the revelation became clear twenty-five years later at the occurrence of the earthquake. Since the two statements are contradictory, and I only accept one of them, which has been set out in this article of Maulawi Şahib with his own hand, namely, that for twenty-five years I could not ascertain the meaning of the prophecies found on pages 516 and 557 of Barahin- e-Ahmadiyya. Now can there be any doubt that the second statement would be considered a fabrication of Maulawi Şahib until he proves it from any of my books or announcements, that I have written the afore- said statement somewhere or I have written somewhere that I persisted and persevered in this sin for twenty-five years that, I had categorically learnt about the earthquake from the time of Barāhīn-e-Ahmadiyya and yet kept this news concealed? Now, readers, for the sake of God, being mindful of your death, tell me honestly whether or not a person who fabricates so much and concocts statements and ascribes them to me deserves some punish- ment and penalty as per the Shariah? Make a clear statement and be rewarded. And also tell me, solely for the sake of Allah, whether such a person who commits forgery with such cheek, deserves to be called a maulawī in the future? And is it not appropriate that a council of scholars should be appointed and he should be summoned and asked in which book or magazine have I written the imagined statement that he has attributed to me? I shudder at the thought of someone being called a maulawi, and yet being guilty of such forgery, distortion, dishonesty, falsehood, impertinence, and insolence. Do those who label me as a kāfir and faithless not remember the hadith of the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, in which it is written that the majority of maulawis in the Latter Days would develop similarity to the Jewish divines? Rather, even worse than that, some ahādīth [pl. hadith] state