I as a doctor consider that the Promised Messiah’s greatest miracle was or is the recovery of that boy Abdul Kareem from Hyderabad who suffered from rabies and about whom a message came from Qasawli, sorry nothing can be done for Abdul Kareem. That’s right. I also mentioned it in one of my recent interviews. Yes. Now in medicine you say document the concept of spontaneous remission or spontaneous recovery.
Today a patient has got incurable disease like cancer and tomorrow the cancer is all gone without any treatment. And now until a few years ago it was written in the standard books of medicine in italics there is no known case of rabies having recovered. I mean this is what was written in the Sasan and Lowe’s book of medicine from America. Now only recently with these intensive care units they have written that only three cases have been recorded who have recovered and that is in one of the books from Oxford. Other books say once the symptoms appear that is the harbinger of death.
There is no question of him recovering. Now I mean we being Ahmadi of course we believe that it was due to his prayers but if an atheist says why don’t you say that Abdul Kareem recovered through spontaneous recovery or remission without any prayer or without any treatment. Who said? I ask you a question. Supposing an atheist asks you this question why was that recovery not spontaneous? And the fact is that number one as you have yourself admitted speaking on behalf of your profession I mean not as an Ahmadi that until recently no case of rabies was known to have gone through spontaneous recovery have exhibited spontaneous recovery.
Now if it is applicable till three years before how much more strongly and evidently it would be applicable at the time of the Holy Prophet Hazrat Masih Maud A.S. At that time as far as the total knowledge of mankind was concerned categorically it could be declared that no such case is ever reported. So it was not just left to chance that because he recovered so it was claimed that it was because he was an Ahmadi.
It was a miracle because it was foretold and foretold in a very special way which also shows that normally shouldn’t have happened because when Hazrat Masih Maud A.S. was told of this Hazrat Masih Maud A.S. had regard for his father who had shown such devotion in sending his dear son to Qadian and from a far off place at that time distance between Hyderabad Dakhan and Qadian was in the terms of value much much more than the distance between London and Lahore today. You know Hyderabad was supposed to be a far off place because of the more slow mode of communication and other hazards of journeys etc.
So Hazrat Masih Maud A.S. really got extremely anxious about it and he prayed very earnestly. His prayer was rejected that is the most important point because it was said it was Takdir-e-Mubram that is to say the disease was incurable and in ordinary normal things were left to normal course according to the nature Allah had created this was something which shouldn’t have been cured. So exceptional law must have been brought into operation.
So Hazrat Masih Maud A.S. after permission as you know the whole incident from Allah interceded and then he was told that he would be cured. This is the miracle before anybody could think that he would be cured even entertain the remotest possibility of his cure a telegram had already reached Qadian which said nothing can be done for poor Abu Kareem. It was after this that Hazrat Masih Maud A.S. prayed after this that it was rejected after this he was permitted to intercede and then he was heard.
This incident is taken to be so exceptional even by the atheists that the Russian scholar which I have mentioned earlier who wrote the article on Ahmadiyyat in the encyclopedia of Eastern religion or something published in Moscow some years ago. He picks out this incident particularly or she perhaps it was a lady who wrote that article. She picks out this incident particularly and says that one of the reasons why people began to believe in his claims is some of his miracles which according to investigation have proved to be correct.
We cannot explain how it happened but it did happen according to this writer of this article and he quotes this particularly that a boy who was bitten by a rabid dog and the disease appeared later on and took hold of the body of the boy and he was declared incurable by the medical professionals and yet he claimed before he was cured that Allah had told him he would be cured and he was cured. This is the type of miracle which you have correctly said that it should be specially emphasized but I don’t agree with you that this was the greatest miracle.
No, the greatest miracle is you as a doctor sitting here, the Ahmadiyya community as such. This is the greatest miracle, the creation of such a godly community offering everything by way of sacrifice and the way of Allah in this age of materialism, living a different life as if they are living in an island in the whole world. This is the greatest miracle. You know your uncle, Major Vibhula Sahib, when he was in his undergraduate days in King Edward Medical College, he mentioned… You knew him personally?
Well, I met him in Lahore and then he came to settle down in Salcourt. He used to come for the Friday prayers. Were you also in India after? Yes. Yes, I remember you. Yes. Now, when he mentioned about this Abdul Kareem’s case to his fellow class fellow and the professor in the ward rooms during the undergraduate days and I think he was there in the 30s, I am not sure. And nobody would listen. He said, no, it’s all wrong, it’s all myth and we don’t believe that… This could have happened. If he had rabies, he did recover through prayer.
But there is an official record in Kasauli. There was a hospital in Kasauli which dealt specially with rabies cases and the vaccine was also prepared there. This is why this boy was rushed to that hospital in the vain hope, in the remote possibility that maybe they have some cure available. So, all this which I have related happened after a telegram came from the specialist there that we are sorry, nothing can be done for him. And lo, he was cured spontaneously. Thank you.
