Foreword

Revelation is a central feature of almost all religions and can be defined as the disclosure of a hidden or future truth by God or other form of deity. All the major religions of the world today testify to the truth of revelation and present prophecies from their scripture as evidence of their divine origins and authenticity.

This is also true of the Islamic tradition which holds that since the time of the Prophet Adam(as), God has revealed Himself to certain individuals and sent them as prophets and messengers to mankind, so that they may guide people and bring them towards the worship of their creator.

In the Holy Qur’an, God says to the Prophet Muhammad(sa):

1

And We have not sent thee but as a bearer of glad tidings and a Warner, for all mankind, but most men know not.

Then with regards to prophecy and revelation God says:

2

He is the knower of the unseen; and He reveals not His secrets to anyone, except to him whom He choose, namely a Messenger of His. And then He causes an escort of guarding angels to go before him and behind him, that He may know that they (His Messengers) have delivered the Messages of their Lord.

When reading these verses together, one can define the Islamic concept of prophecy and revelation as the divine disclosure of certain hidden truths by God to His messengers in order to establish both the truth of His existence and the veracity of their prophetic claim. These secrets which God reveals can be events of the past, present or future which are as yet unknown or forms of knowledge, whether scientific, historical, archaeological or otherwise, which have not yet come to light.

In the following two essays, Hazrat Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad(ra) draws on this criteria to show that like the prophets of the past, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and the Promised Messiah and Imam Mahdi(as) received news of the unseen from God and these revelations which span across the entire prophetic spectrum found fulfilment at their appointed time. Among the prophecies he mentions are those relating to the future success promised to the Promised Messiah and his community, prophecies regarding natural disasters, particularly those relating to earthquakes, and Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s(as) foretelling of the death of John Alexander Dowie, an American evangelist who contemptuously challenged his claims.

Mostly, however, Huzoor turns to the Promised Messiah’s(as) prophecies regarding the outbreak of the First World War and the subsequent fall of the Tsar of Russia and shows in intricate detail how each facet of these prophecies was fulfilled in absolute terms. These signs and many others, Huzoor argues, leave no doubt about the truth of the Promised Messiah’s(as) claim and show that just as God raised messengers in the past, He has also raised one in this age.

These essays were originally published in Urdu under the titles (Zinda Khuda ke Zabardast Nishan) and (Khuda ke Qehri Nishan) and can be found in Volume III of Anwar- ul-‘Uloom.