A Shining Sign

198. [One Hundred Ninety-Eighth Sign]

Babu Ilahi Bakhsh, Accountant/Pensioner, Lahore—the false Musa [Moses]—has died.

Readers! You may be aware that a person named Ilahi Bakhsh, who was an accountant in Lahore during the period when, based upon divine revelation, I announced that I am the Promised Messiah, he distanced himself from me and made a claim of his own that he was Musa [Moses]. The details of this are that the above-mentioned Ilahi Bakhsh had quite a long-standing relationship of discipleship with me. He visited Qadian frequently and would serve me, believing that I was a true recipient of revelation from God Almighty. In Amritsar, it so happened that sometime after the Morning Prayer, when I was taking a nap with a sheet covering my face, someone came and started to massage my feet. When I lifted the sheet, I discovered he was none other than that very Ilahi Bakhsh. By writing this my intent is to illustrate that his devotion and sincerity to me had reached the point that he considered no act of servitude unworthy or unbecoming, and he simply considered himself a humble servant with great modesty. He also did not hesitate in making financial sacrifice as far as possible within his means. He remained in this state of sincerity so long as God was pleased to permit. I, for my part, entertained high hopes that he would make great progress in his sincerity. Whenever I had the occasion to leave Qadian for Ludhiana, Ambala, or some other place, he would make it a point to reach there if time and opportunity permitted him. More often than not, he would be accompanied by his friend and companion, Munshi ‘Abdul-Haqq, Accountant. But after sometime, he began to think that he himself was a recipient of divine revelation. This indeed was the poisonous seed that providence planted in him.

Subsequently, his condition of sincerity started changing slowly and secretly. Thereafter, God Almighty commissioned me to take the bai‘at [pledge of allegiance] from people and some forty or more persons had solemnized the covenant in conformity with the command of God Almighty, I made a general announcement that whosoever was devoted to me should take the pledge of bai‘at. Upon hearing this, the heart of Ilahi Bakhsh took an evil turn. Sometime thereafter, accompanied by his friend Munshi ‘Abdul-Haqq, he came to see me in Qadian with the intention of narrating his revelations [to me]. During this visit, his attitude had so hardened that he appeared to be someone else, and not Ilahi Bakhsh. Rather presumptuously, he straight away started to read out his own revelations that were recorded in a small notebook which he kept in his pocket. Among other things, he narrated to me, ‘I have seen in a dream that you say to me, “Come, enter into bai‘at with me,” but in reply I say, “No, I won’t do it; rather, you should take the pledge of bai‘at to me.”’ On account of this dream, he was filled with great pride and arrogance and thought that he was of such great spiritual stature as did not need to enter into the pledge of bai‘at and that, on the contrary, it was I who needed to enter into such a pledge with him. However, in reality this was a satanic prompting which led to his stumbling. The truth is that when arrogance and denial lie concealed within a person’s heart, then that very denial makes its appearance in a dream assuming the shape of the ego’s prompting. An ignorant person thinks it to be from God, whereas that denial is generated out of one’s own hidden thoughts and has nothing to do with God at all. Hundreds of people are ruined because of such promptings of the ego. In short, Ilahi Bakhsh related that dream to me with great audacity and insolence. I felt sorry at his ignorance for I was certain that what he was relating to me was nothing more than the prompting of his ego. But since I noticed in him signs of ingrained arrogance and egoism and his speech was sharp and strident, I thought it would be useless to remonstrate with him. It is a pity that many people regard everything that flows from their tongues in a state of slumber as God’s word, and thus contravene the verse:

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It should be borne in mind that anything that flows from the tongue, even if it is not opposed to the Word of God and the word of the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, cannot be said to be the Word of God until the Work of God Almighty bears witness to it. Satan, the accursed, is man’s enemy and seeks diverse ways of ruining a person. This beguiler also adopts the method that he puts his words into the heart of a man and assures him that they are words of God and such a person is destroyed in the end.

Thus, for someone who has some words descend upon him, to call it the word of God would amount to committing spiritual suicide, unless and until it fulfils three conditions:

First, it should not be opposed to, or contradict, the Holy Quran, but this alone is not enough. Unless the third condition which will be mentioned below is present, nothing can be established.

Second, those words should descend upon a person whose soul has been completely purified. He should be one of those who have withdrawn entirely from their passions and who have submitted to a death through which they have approached close to God and have withdrawn far away from Satan. A person hears him to whom he is close. He who is close to Satan hears Satan’s voice and he who is close to God hears God’s voice. One’s utmost effort should be for the purification of one’s soul. All search ends with that. In other words, it is a death that burns up all inner impurities. When a person completes his search, then a stage arrives when he passes under the control of the Divine. Thus, through enlightenment and love, God revives His servant who, by discarding his passions, has arrived at the stage of ‘death’. Then, through His extraordinary Signs, God reveals to him spiritual wonders and fills his heart with the attraction of His personal love which the world cannot understand. In this condition, it can be said of him that he has been bestowed new life after which there is no death.

Therefore, this new life is won through complete enlightenment and complete love. Complete enlightenment is acquired through God’s miraculous Signs. When a person arrives at this stage, he enjoys true converse and discourse with God, but this condition is not so much as can give one satisfaction without the third condition, for perfect purity is a hidden matter and any idle talker can claim to have achieved it.

The third indication of a true recipient of revelation is that a continuous series of works from God should testify to the words that he attributes to God. In other words, so many Signs should appear in its support that rational thinking should reject the suggestion that despite so many Signs it is not the word of God. This condition supersedes all other conditions, because it is entirely possible that some words may flow from someone’s tongue, or someone might have even presented them with the claim of being divinely revealed, and in their meanings they do not contradict—but are consistent with—the Holy Quran, yet they could still be the fabrication of an impostor. Any rational human being who is a Muslim—albeit an impostor—will take the necessary precaution not to flaunt anything as the revealed word of God which opposes the Holy Quran; otherwise, they would needlessly invite publi criticism. Furthermore, such so-called ‘revelation’ might well be the promptings of his inner ego. In other words, their mind may well cause their tongue to pronounce a certain phrase. Such is the case with many children; from the books they study during the day, they tend to pronounce the same phrases involuntarily at night. In short, for any utterances that are presented as being revealed, to be merely consistent with the Holy Quran is not a categorical argument of its actually being the word of God. Is it not possible that a passage could not be in contradiction with the Divine Book on the basis of its meaning, yet be the fabrication of an impostor because a forger can easily fabricate a passage which is consistent with the Quranic teaching and parade it as the Word of God which was revealed to him, or the passage could be the promptings of his inner self or a satanic fabrication?

Similarly, this second indication—namely, that the person who claims to be the recipient of revelation should also be completely purified—is also not such as can give one total satisfaction, because purification is something hidden and many people with impure natures may well claim to be spiritually cleansed and to love God truly. Thus, this is also not an easy matter to readily distinguish between the liars and the truthful. This is why many evil-minded people have levelled filthy accusations upon those holy ones who were completely purified; very much like the way the present-day Christian missionaries slander our lord and master, the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and they say—God forbid—that he was guilty of succumbing to carnal passions and desires. You will find such false accusations in thousands of their periodicals, newspapers, and books. Similarly, the Jews level all kinds of charges against Hadrat ‘Isa (as) [ Jesus]. For instance, not long ago, I came across a book written by a Jew which contained the unholy charge that—God forbid—not only was his birth illegitimate but it also cast dirty aspersions on his character, and the ladies who served him were also mentioned in an unbecoming manner. Thus, when filthy-natured enemies have not spared such pure-natured and the holiest of men from their foul slanders of carnal indulgence, and have considered them to be lacking in self-purification, everyone can realize how difficult it is for the enemies of a person to recognize his status of self-purification. This is why the Aryas consider all Prophets of God to be mere impostors and slaves of carnal desires, and denounce their times as times of deceit and fraud.

Nevertheless, this third indication that the divine inspiration and revelation which is the ‘Word of God’ must also be accompanied by the ‘Work of God’, is such a perfect condition that no one can counter it. This is the condition through which God’s true Prophets have always prevailed over the liars. When a person claims that God’s word descends upon him and hundreds of Signs appear along with it, and a thousand varieties of support and divine help are displayed while God openly attacks his enemies, then who can dare call such a person false? But alas, there are many such people in the world who fall prey to the trial of mistaking a prompting of the self or an insinuation of Satan to be the Word of God Almighty and give no regard to the Work of God by way of divine testimony.

Of course it is quite possible that one may experience true dreams or revelations from time to time; however, such a person cannot claim to be an appointee of God on such meagre experiences, nor can it be said that such a person is free from the darkness of the ego. Rather, this much of dreams and revelation is virtually a universal experience. It has no significance. This capacity to experience occasional dreams and revelations has been designed as part of human nature in order to save a wise person from doubting the Messengers who are the Elect of God and to help them realize that since the capacity to experience occasional dreams and revelations is ingrained in the nature of each human, it would, therefore, be foolish to deny its development to perfection [in the case of the Elect of God].

But those people who are considered by God to be [mulham—the recipients of His revelation] and [mukallam—those with whom God converses] and enjoy the honour of converse and discourse with God and are appointed to call men to divine guidance, are supported by divine Signs which descend like rain and the world cannot oppose them. Divine works bear witness through their abundance that the words that they put forward are the words of God Almighty. If those who claim to be recipients of revelation were to keep this condition in mind, they would escape falling into this trial.

Similarly, if Ilahi Bakhsh had just pondered a little over this and reflected as to how many divine Signs had appeared in his favour— how much he had been helped and supported and what distinction he had been granted in comparison to ordinary people—he would have avoided this calamity. Now, regrettably, it must be said that his death leaves behind nothing more than a heap of lies and fabrications.

With reference to me, he used to quote one of his own revelations that I would die of the plague during his lifetime and that my entire Jama‘at would disintegrate. Thus did he see himself die from the plague. He had claimed that he would not die until he would put an end to me, but subsequent to his false revelation, he witnessed himself how the number of my followers rose to many hundreds of thousands. When he started to publish such revelations, the number of my followers did not exceed forty, which subsequently rose to 400,000 and he did not die until he had witnessed his own complete failure and my success in every way.

Impelled by his own false revelations, he would think that I would be penalized and suffer humiliating chastisement in each case filed against me. These were the type of revelations that he would receive and flaunt before his acquaintances, but in each case, God went on acquitting me with honour, whereas he died full of immense frustration.

There is no doubt that when he contracted the plague and saw death staring him in the face, he must have realized that all his revelations were satanic words and at that moment he must have been reminded that he was in the wrong. It would be against all logic and probability to assume that even after suffering so many stumbles, contracting the plague himself—which he anticipated would be my lot—and visualizing my victories in the final moments of his life, he would have still held on to his erstwhile condition [of disbelief] when he would have recalled that he had claimed to be Musa, had named his book ‘Asa-e-Musa [‘The Staff of Moses’], and had entertained the wish that this staff would kill the man who had claimed to be the Promised Messiah; and when he would recall that he had prophesied in his book ‘Asa-e-Musa about the person who had claimed to be the Promised Messiah that he would die of plague in his lifetime; and when he would remember that, in this same book, he prophesied that he would not die until he would have destroyed this enemy. Everyone can very well imagine the overwhelming pain, frustration, and chagrin that must have enveloped him when the plague took hold of him. Can anyone possibly believe that—despite such frustration and the realization that all his revelations had turned out to be false—he still believed that he was Musa, even after falling victim to the plague? No, certainly not! On the contrary, the plague must have demolished all his own thoughts about himself. He must have been reminded of his wrongs. As a matter of fact, long before this crisis, God had revealed to me that he would cease to hold fast to his false beliefs and that in the end, he would renounce them. So there is no doubt that when he was suddenly faced with the plague and an untimely death, which he understood with full certainty was as untimely as it was against his own claim, without doubt this scene must have convinced him that all his revelations were satanic. In this state, he must have realized with irremediable regret that he had been in the wrong and that all that he had thought was not from God Almighty. Later on, I shall go on to elaborate that for him to contemplate along these lines was [simply] unavoidable because with this spectacle of imminent death, his revelations were proven false so unexpectedly and suddenly as if a wall suddenly collapses to the ground.

It was far from the realm of possibility that he would have thought that he would ever escape death by the plague, for on 7 April 1907, the day he died, and even before, such a raging and deadly plague was rampant in Lahore that on certain days as many as 200 persons died of it. One of his relatives had died the day before his death, by attending the burial of whom he had contracted the plague. Hence, in the midst of this deadly epidemic who can say that he would survive? Indeed, thousands of people would hasten, upon contracting the plague, to immediately have their wills recorded in favour of their survivors. In short, all his pretensions to being Musa were thrown into the sea the moment he contracted the plague. Remembering the thousands of dying people and in particular thinking of the death of Ya‘qub, he too must have understood that he would surely die. Under such circumstances, how could he cling on to the perception that he was Musa? Thus, it is indeed the mercy of God that he did not carry with him his false beliefs to the next world. God grabbed him, as it were, by his throat and forced him to recant [his claim] to let him join those about whom God says:

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Now, first, I shall prove that all the revelations that he had recorded in his book ‘Asa-e-Musa have been proven to be false. Then I will demonstrate that he died in accordance with my prophecy and that his death is a Sign in support of my truth; nay rather, it sets the seal upon my truth. I will divide this statement into two chapters.