Questioner: Why there are many misunderstandings about Hazrat Isa A.S. between many groups of Muslim people and why Ahmadi Muslims feel more in the right way.
Huzoor (rh): Ahmadi Muslims do what?
Questioner: She writes that why Ahmadi Muslims feel more in the right way.
Huzoor (rh): Perhaps you would like to say that. I couldn’t hear the word feel. Please, what did you say? Huh? Feel. Feel? Yes. Ahmadi Muslims feel that they are on the right way. Why do they feel? Yes. When we explain to the lady why we feel, she will also begin to feel that we are on the right way. You see, it’s a question of argument. One should weigh the argument put forward by one against the other and weigh according to his own potential.
We believe that, because there are so many things to be said, the whole night will be consumed if I start speaking on this subject, trying to convince the lady that we are right. But I’ll only speak of one little thing and leave the matter at that for the time being. The main difference is that the Muslims believe, other than Ahmadi Muslims believe, that when it was said that Jesus would descend from heaven, although the word heaven was not used by the Prophet (sa), just Jesus would descend was the phrase, what he meant was that the same old Jesus Christ who lived around 2,000 years ago would bodily descend from somewhere in space. That is the message they understood. Ahmadis believe that when Jesus promised that he would come again, or when Prophet Muhammad (sa) promised that Jesus would reappear in the world in Islam, what both of them meant was that someone in his character and in his spirit will be born again like an ordinary human being and he will restart the process of reform as was started and completed by Jesus Christ himself. That is our understanding. Who is right and who is wrong, why we believe that we are right, is simply because we agree with Jesus Christ himself and his verdict. And the Muslims and the Christians do not agree with the verdict of Jesus Christ as to how he should be understood to come again. I point out, to a biblical prophecy that before Jesus Christ would come, the Prophet of God by the name of Elijah, who had ascended bodily to heaven, sitting on his chariot, would return from heaven, descending bodily again. He would come and announce to the world the coming closer of the days of Christ. He would tell, open up your hearts to receive Christ. He is about to come. Which only means somebody of special benefit to mankind, somebody who comes from God. This is the meaning of Nazool (نزول). The same word is used about Prophet Muhammad (sa). That God has sent him down. The same word which is used about Jesus Christ in the tradition is used in the Holy Qur’an about Prophet Muhammad (sa). That we have made this memory of Allah personified to descend among you. The same phrase is used about Jesus Christ. I don’t know what happens to them, and they begin to translate it literally. But anyway, this had happened before. In the Old Testament, a prophecy was mentioned very clearly, leaving no room apparently for metaphor and interpretation. But when Jesus came as Christ, no Elijah seemed to have descended. So the Jews began to mock his followers, his disciples, and laugh at them. And would say, alright, we believe in your Jesus to be the Messiah, but first produce that Elijah who was to descend from heaven. Do you not believe in scriptures? If you do, then produce that Elijah. Where is that? Unless he comes, Christ cannot come. How can the child be born before the mother? That was a sort of joke they played upon them. When this was referred to Jesus Christ, he gave his verdict once and for all. Indicating John the Baptist, he said he is the Elijah who was to descend from heaven. Believe it or not, we believe it. But the other Muslims do not. The Christians do not. Because if this is the expression of descent from heaven, then why should the same expression not apply to Jesus himself? He is given the verdict, not about a person, but about a phenomenon. That when God speaks of somebody coming from heaven, even when his coming bodily is mentioned, even when his having a lifted body is mentioned, even when there is no room apparently for any interpretation, yet according to Jesus Christ, what God means is that somebody in his character or his spirit would be born again in this world. So why that verdict should not be acceptable for Christians or for the other Muslims? We believe Jesus was right. And when he meant to come again, he would again come exactly in the same way as he accepted the coming of Elijah. So I hope this should suffice to convince you that we have very strong reasons to believe that we are in the right. But that is not the only reason. We have 101 reasons. It would take me hours or even perhaps nights or days to finish the discourse. But because of the shortage of time, let it suffice. The second question, please.
