Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya (Part V)

Arguments in Support of the Holy Quran and the Prophethood of the Holy Prophet(sa) (Part V)

The Book

The fifth and the last part of the Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya, which was delayed for about 23 years, the Promised Messiah(as) started writing this book in 1905, it was altogether a new book. About this book, the Promised Messiah(as) writes: “The four parts of Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya which have been published consisted of such matters unless these are manifested, the arguments contained there in find their fulfilment. It was not to be that the work on the fifth part begins.”1

He further stated:

Another reason of the delay was God wanted to divulge that his mission was in accordance with His will and all the revelations that contained in earlier parts are from Him and are not man-made. The great mission of the fifth part of the book was, that it constituted as a harbinger of earlier volumes. It was a great sign of God that He kept me alive till all the prophecies find their fulfilment. Now the time had come that the work on the fifth part should begin and at the time the work on it is beginning represented The Triumph of Truth and it is an acknowledgment of these blessings that I have named this part of the book as The Triumph of Truth and therefore some earlier pages2 carry the title of the The Triumph of Truth.3

In a ten page preface to the book, the Promised Messiah(as) said God alone Knows the reason of its delay, but his hench is that God wanted to publicly unfold the fulfillment of so many prophecies about him that their fulfillment may put a stamp on my truth on my claim.

The preface was followed by a 24 page highly classical prophetical poetry in urdu every word of which is pregnant with many meanings and signs.

From pages 1-53 The Triumph of Truth is the title of earlier pages of the book that preceded the actual beginning of Volume V of Braheen Ahmadiyya, volume 21.

This has three chapters, one deals with the reality of miracles and second about the prophecies that were published 25 years ago.

On page 56 and 58 of the book, the Promised Messiah(as) forcefully described the remarkable fulfillment of seven prophecies4, which he enumerated, each in away represented the fulfillment of thousands of heavenly signs:

In these lines, the prophecies (we) mention comprises of so many signs that these exceed a million, and these signs are so evident and so open and we will state them with a clarity.5

Brief mention of these prophecies is necessary:

(Prophecy 1) God says, we will be at war with the opponents, and opponent will desperately wish that this community fails and no one accepts it. But We (God) make people to accept you and eventually our intentions will triumph …

Any person can view the conditions that I was in, the Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya (Part I) was written but it was not yet published, and a judicial enquiry tried to establish what was my identity.

(Prophecy 2) Divine blessings started an unceasing flow of proffering of gifts, cash and garments, and I believe it exceeded a hundred thousand rupees.

(Prophecy 3) People would come in large numbers, and they did come in large number, there was a crowd of visitors if one can estimate the number would easily go over a hundred thousand.

(Prophecy 4) God says, We will save you from personal attack, so it happened and people have seen how Dr. Martyn Clark through a law suite tried to have him hanged and he was not alone in this legal suit as Dr. Clark was joined by many Maulavis.

(Prophecy 5) God will honour him and will make him known so it does not need any proof.

(Prophecy 6) So many people would come to visit you that you would be tired of meeting them and this prophecy found its fulfillment in a great way, it was a fact that there was such crowd. People who have been visiting Qadian would be a witness to it.

(Prophecy 7) It relates to the people who have migrated to Qadian and anybody was welcome to see how many followers have settled in Qadian.

At the end of this volume, he writes:

So this fifth part is in a way commentary and this commentary would have been beyond my control till God has not handed down all that it needed.6

The concluding part of this book, written after a lapse of 23 years, gave the Promised Messiah(as) an ideal opportunity to survey the period intervening between the publication of the first four parts to the present one.

The Promised Messiah(as) enumerated the chief attributes of a living and dynamic religion. He said that the fundamentals of a true religion are the constant manifestation of Divine help in support of the living religion. He argued that without Divine manifestation and conviction, faith does not reach the stage of a complete identity with his Creator.

Pointing out the differences between a dead and a living religion, the Promised Messiah(as) said that the living religion is constantly supported by miracles and Divine manifestation. He said that a number of prophecies that he had made after his Divine revelation in part two of the book were fulfilled. The fulfilment of so many prophecies was yet another unmistakable proof of the truth of Islam.

The Promised Messiah(as) also took up a number of objections raised by various so called Muslim scholars, including Muhammad Ikramullah Shahjahnpuri, Maulavi Muhammad Hussain Batalvi, Syed Muhammad ‘Abdul Wahid and Maulavi Rashid Ahmad Gangohi, in the supplement to the fifth part of the Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya and answered them convincingly.

In the Preface to the fifth and the last part, the Promised Messiah(as) says:

Several times, I regretted the long delay in completing the Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya, but in spite of every effort and in spite of the fact that its subscribers insistently demanded the book, during this long period of postponement, opponents raised such objections as were extremely steeped in mistrust and abuse. In fact, the long delay created objections in the minds of the people. The exigencies of Divine Decree did not allow me to complete this book. It shows that man cannot really go beyond the limits set by the Decree of God.7

The Promised Messiah(as), describing the conditions in how he was engaged in the production of part one of the book, says:

When the first part of the Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya was under print, I was an unknown figure. This part was being printed in a press in Amritsar owned by a Padre Rajab Ali, I used to go alone to the press from Qadian to Amritsar in order to read the proofs of the book and I used to come back alone. Nobody ever cared to see who is coming and who is going and for what purpose, and now the times have changed.8

Hazrat Jalal-ud-Din Shams(ra) in his introduction to the book9 says:

It was the intention of the Promised Messiah(as) to write a book comprising fifty parts and subsequently these appeared in four volumes which was published in 1880, 1882 and 1884. Generally the people of India regarded these four volumes as stout defence of Islam and these books have no parallel in the world of Islam.

Specimen of Writing

Two conditions are necessary for a religion which claims to be from God. In the first place, a religion should be so comprehensive and perfect and complete and free from every defect in its doctrine, teachings and commandments, that reason should not be capable of proposing anything better; and there should be nothing lacking in it. It should be ahead of all other religions in this respect. The Holy Quran puts forward this claim by proclaiming: This day have I perfected your religion for your benefit, and have completed My favour unto you, and have chosen for you Islam as your faith (5:4). That is to say, God requires us to conform to the reality inherent in the word Islam. Here there is a clear claim that the Holy Quran comprehends the perfect teaching and that the time of the revelation of the Holy Quran was the time when such perfect teaching could be revealed. The Quran alone is entitled to make this claim. No other heavenly book has put forward such a claim. Both the Torah and the Gospel refrain from making this claim. On the contrary, the Torah sets out God’s commandment that He would raise a Prophet from among the brethren of Israel and would put His word into his mouth and that whosoever does not lend ear to that word of God would be accountable for his default. It is obvious, therefore, that if the Torah had been adequate for meeting the needs of subsequent ages, there would have been no necessity for the coming of another Prophet, listening to whom was made obligatory. In the same way, the Gospel has nowhere claimed that its teaching is perfect and comprehensive. But there is a clear confession that there were many things which had still to be said but that the disciples had not yet the strength to bear them but that when the Paraclete would come he would lead them to the whole truth. Thus Moses confessed the incompleteness of the Torah and drew attention to the teaching of the Prophet who was to come. In the same way, Jesus admitted the incompleteness of his teaching and said that the time had not yet come for the perfect teaching to be disclosed but that when the Paraclete arrives he would set forth the perfect teaching. In contrast the Holy Quran does not, like the Torah and the Gospel, leave the matter for another book to complete but announces the perfection of its teaching in the words: This day have I perfected your religion for your benefit, and have completed My favour unto you, and have chosen for you Islam as your faith (5:4) Here is thus a great argument in support of Islam that by virtue of its teaching it prevails over every religion and no religion can compete with it in respect of the perfection of its teaching.

The second characteristic of Islam, which is not shared by any other religion and which attests its truth, is that it manifests its living blessings and miracles of which other religions are wholly deprived. The signs that Islam exhibits not only establish its superiority over other religions but enable it to draw the hearts of the people by exhibiting its perfect light. The first characteristic of Islam which we have stated above, that is to say, the perfection of its teaching, is not quite conclusive in establishing that Islam is a true religion revealed by God. A bigoted opponent who is not far-sighted may assert that it is possible that a teaching might be perfect and yet it may not proceed from God Almighty. This first characteristic relieves a wise seeker after truth of many doubts and brings him close to certainty, but does not establish the matter conclusively and beyond doubt till it is combined with the second characteristic. By their combination, the light of the true faith reaches its perfection. A true faith comprises thousands of proofs and lights but these two characteristics are enough to carry conviction to the heart of a seeker after truth and expound the matter to the satisfaction of all deniers of truth. Nothing more is needed in addition. I had originally intended that in support of the truth of Islam I would set down three hundred arguments in Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya. But on further reflection I perceived that these two characteristics are a substitute for thousands of proofs and thus God made me alter my plan.10