The Light 2018 07 July

July 2018 The
Light 2
The Call of the
Messiah
by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam
Ahmad
The Promised Messiah and Mahdi
(Editor’s note: Any quotations from the Quran
are translated from the author’s explanations
and are not literal translations of the verse
quoted. This extract is from the English translation
of a lecture he delivered in 1904 in Lahore,
now in Pakistan, taken from the Lahore Ahmadiyya
publication ‘Essence of Islam’.)
The Purity of Sexual Relations in Islam
Here I take occasion to express my views on
another point of equal importance. Whatever
the feeling of hatred
which the
Arya Samaj entertains
towards
Muslims and the
principles of Islam,
it should not make
a total departure
from the timehonoured
custom
of purdah, for such
a course would be
productive of immense evil and mischief,
though it may appear to be attractive at the present
moment. Every sensible person can easily
understand that the majority of men and
women in this age are walking only in obedience
to their passions and desires and are so
completely in their control that they do not care
at all for the retribution of their deeds. Most
young men cannot refrain from looking to lust
after young and beautiful women if they get a
chance to look at them at all. And so is also the
case for most women. If in this state, when the
hearts of both sexes are not free from corruption
and evil and are unable to resist the temptations
of flesh, a too free meeting of men and
women is allowed, the result would be that the
evil of adultery would poison the whole system
of society, as is the case in many parts of Europe.
But when these men actually grow pure in
heart. When they are freed from the control of
I Shall Love All Mankind.
bestial passions and sensual desires, when the
spirit of devil is utterly expelled from among
them, when the Divine majesty takes entire possession
of their hearts and the awe of God controls
their looks, in short when a pure transformation
is effected in their lives and they don the
garments of the fear of God, then, but not till
then, they may do what they like, for they would
be then as eunuchs made so by the Hand of God
and their eyes would be shut against lustful
looks and their hearts closed against evil ideas.
But remember, my beloved countrymen, may
God Himself inspire this idea into your hearts,
that this is the most dangerous time for doing
away with the custom of purdah, and if you do it
you would sow the seed of poison in your people
which would vitiate the whole society. This
is a time when the custom of purdah ought to
have been instituted even if it had never prevailed
before, for this is the kaljug (the iron age).
Evil rages in the
world and the
Evil rages in the world and
the transgression of Divine
commandments, corruption
and drunkenness are at
their highest.
transgression of
Divine commandments,
corruption
and drunkenness
are at their highest.
Atheism prevails
in the hearts
and the awe of Divine
majesty and
glory has utterly
vanished away from them. Many things are uttered
with the tongue with which the heart does
not tally. Lectures are delivered which may
claim great intellectual merits, but the hearts
are dead and devoid of spirituality. It is not appropriate
that at such a time the poor sheep
should be let loose in forests where wolves
abound.
My friends, the plague is still threatening us
and I have received information from on High
that many of its onslaughts are in store for us.
These are dangerous days and no one can say
who would become its morsel by the next year
and who remain alive, what house would be
devastated and what saved. Arise then and repent,
and please your Lord with good and virtuous
deeds. Mind that though errors in belief
would be punished in the life to come, and the
fact of being a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian