The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Letter of 1899 reprinted in 1907

In Badr, 26th September 1907, a letter written by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad inviting a person to accept him is published, under the caption An old letter of Hazrat Aqdas. The date of the letter is 1317 A.H., and as the date on this issue of Badr is 1325 A.H., it means that the letter is from 1899. Its publication is one of many examples of pre-1901 writings of the Promised Messiah being published long after 1901. The letter is translated below. After the formal greetings, he writes:

 "I am appointed (mamur) in order to inform every right-minded, noble person of my mission, namely, that God the Most High has sent me at the head of this 14th century for renewal work (tajdid) to defeat through me the two troubles: the mischief of Christianity whose attacks from the outside have greatly weakened Islam, and the internal mischief that the condition of the Muslim themselves, in terms of faith, deeds and belief, has greatly declined. Accordingly, corresponding to the external reform work relating to breaking the cross, the Wise One has given me the name Promised Messiah, and corresponding to removing the internal trouble and establishing Muslims on true guidance He has given me the name Mahdi.

For, the man by whose hand the mischief of the cross is removed, and the distorted form of Christianity meets its fall, he is that Mujaddid whose name in heaven is Messiah. And the man who appears at a time when most Muslims have lost the true substance and essence of Islam, and he is sent to breathe into them again the spirit of true guidance and faith, he is that Mujaddid whose name is Mahdi, as the hadith says: 'There is no Mahdi except Jesus'. …

It is the condition of the present time that demanded that the Mujaddid of this century be called by the names Promised Messiah and Mahdi. … Is it not true that the heaven is calling out and the earth is pleading that, according to the prevailing circumstances and the internal and external troubles that are being witnessed, the name of the Mujaddid of this century should be Messiah and Mahdi?

If the prevailing circumstances themselves do not by their nature bestow upon me these two titles then I am a liar. But if they do, then it is obligatory and essential for every God-fearing person to join my helpers. On this basis, I write this letter to you, as I entertain a favourable view about you, and wish that you, having fear of the day when any deviation and laxity in the way of God will nullify one's deeds, should become my helper…

Ask God to show you light in my affair, so that you do not join those who, having found the Messiah sent by God, did not pay the least attention to him."

This is a very clear explanation of his claim written some eight years after first making it. And it is republished in Badr a further eight years later. Thus the Promised Messiah is the title of the Mujaddid of the fourteenth century.