The Essence of Islam – Volume IV — Page 27
Status of the Promised Messiahas 27 tasted hunger and thirst. Then I stopped its continu- ous practice, but did revert to it occasionally. Spiritual Discipline All of this happened, but there still remained the spiritual discipline. I have also come to partake of this in these days when I have to endure the Mau- lavīs with their foul tongue, loose talk, declaration of apostasy, and insults and other ignorant ones with their curses and foul language. In my opinion, during the thirteen hundred years since the time of the Holy Prophets, no one else could have partaken of such treatment. Being declared an apostate, I was considered worse than the infidels, Christians and atheists. The fools of the nation, through announcements and newspa- pers, gave me such bad names as are not to be found in the case of anyone else. I am, therefore, grateful to Allah that I was tested with both kinds of hardship. [Kitab-ul-Bariyyah, Rūķānī Khazā'in, vol. 13, pp. 195-201, footnote] God Almighty knows and He is the best witness over everything that the first thing that has been granted to me in His way is a pure heart that is, a heart that had no real attachment with anyone except God, the Lord of honour and glory. There was a time when I was young and now I am old, but at no time in my life have I had any real at- tachment to anything except God, the Mighty, and the Glorious. . . Because of this love of mine, I have never been reconciled to any religion, the doctrines