Yes, in fact, I would like to ask a few more questions to Mr. Kaisar. There is another issue, especially in Pakistan, the strict attitude that has been adopted, and the Pakistani non-Ahmadi Muslims, they want us to adopt Ahmadiyyat, to be part of it. And in today’s time, if we go back 1400 years, there is a lot of difference. Every person has a future, he has to eat, he has to earn, he cannot live without eating and drinking.
Whereas 1400 years ago, one could live without eating and drinking. No, 1400 years ago, one could live without eating and drinking, but there is a lot of difference between that time and today. Everyone wants to live a good life, a respectable and respectable life. And the 1400 years ago, was it different from the 1400 years ago or was it exactly the same? It was definitely different. And the 1400 years before that, no, the 1400 years before the Prophet’s time, was it different or not? This is the truth, it was definitely different.
But what I want to say is… Now the point is clear, now you can ask. I wanted to say that, if someone joins the Ahmadiyya Community, then all the ways of his development are blocked, especially in Pakistan. He cannot go to any technical job, any technical education, technical university, he is always left behind. So what would you say about this? Because now it is a young generation, and every parent wants their children to study and move forward.
First of all, you better determine this question as applied to the time of the Prophet’s time, and find out whether your statement is in effect correct or wrong. You attempted to establish a difference between the situation today and the situation at the time of the Holy Prophet, thereby you indicated that perhaps it was not so difficult for the people of that time to accept a Prophet of God and yet survive the trials and tribulations of the time because of the animosity and hostilities unleashed towards him.
Now the situation is very different, so it has become very difficult. This is not true. This is not true because not only at the time of the Holy Prophet of Islam, peace be upon him, but from the times immemorial, we know that whenever anyone claimed to be a Prophet of God, he and his followers were persecuted to the maximum of the ability of their opponents, and they were not spared in any manner of speaking. Sometimes they were turned out of their homes, their properties were looted, sometimes they were murdered. All the livelihood or the means of livelihood were denied them.
They were deprived of all possible chances of survival. So to say that things are more difficult today than previously is wrong. It is so wrong that when you compare the facts with the facts earlier, the facts of the time of the Holy Prophet of Islam, peace be upon him, you will be surprised to learn that the situation there was much more difficult and uglier than the situation today. The Holy Prophet of Islam, peace be upon him, along with his companions, were interned in a valley which was called Sheikh Abu Saleh.
And for three years, they were totally boycotted. There was such strong economic boycott that the Arabs of all tribes had vowed that not even a piece of date would be permitted to penetrate to go through this barrier and reach the Holy Prophet and his followers. So if that is not, you know, the total deprivation of means of livelihood, then what else is? Yet they survived that. They suffered, of course. Some of them died in that privation. But they survived and survived as victorious ultimately.
So that is the message to man. For a noble cause, sometimes he has to suffer. And as such, he should be brave enough and man enough and have faith in God. Because he suffers for the sake of God, who is a life thing, not a dead idea, but a life, the most powerful thing that can be, that is, that always will be. So when you suffer for somebody who is powerful, then you expect something in return too. And that reward is not only limited to the hereafter, to after death, but that reward is always, without exception, provided which it comes to you, is given to you, in this life, after a few years of patience and suffering, of course.
So these people who are deprived of all their human lives and economic lives, etc., they become ultimately the possessors of everything. That is what happened in Arabia, that is what happened everywhere else when the phenomenon of prophethood was unfolded.
