The Hidden World of Revelation — Essence of Islam Vol. 2
Introduction
In this discourse from Essence of Islam (Volume 2), Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (AS), the Promised Messiah and Mahdi, expounds upon The Hidden World of Revelation, presenting profound spiritual insights and scriptural verities.
Book Series: Essence of Islam (Volume 2)
Author: Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian (AS)
Section: Part 2: Revelation, Inspiration, Vision and Dream
Navigation: Book Table of Contents | « Previous: Revelation, Inspiration, Vision and Dream | Next: Man’s Ability to Receive Revelation »
and is free from every mistake and knows the truth of every matter) does not help His servants through His true revelation, how could we humble creatures emerge out of the darknesses of ignorance and error, and how could we be delivered from the calamities of doubt and suspicion? I, therefore, affirm with full conviction that the wisdom and mercy and sustaining love of God Almighty demand that from time to time, when He deems it right, He should create men who should be recipients of revelation for the purpose of ascertaining true doctrines and establishing correct morals, and who should have bestowed upon them the capacity of impressing their teachings upon others so that mankind, who have been created for true guidance, should not be deprived of their needed good fortune.
[Purani Tehrirain, Ruhani Khaza’in, vol. 2, pp. 20-21]
[Essence of Islam, Vol. 2, p. 32]
God Almighty has divided His wonderful universe into three parts. (1) The world which is manifest and can be felt through the eyes and the ears and other physical senses and through ordinary instruments. (2) The world which is hidden and which can be understood through reason and conjecture. (3) The world which is hidden beyond hidden, which is so imperceptible that few are aware of it. That world is entirely unseen; reason has not been granted the ability to reach it, except through mere conjecture. This world is disclosed only through visions, revelation, inspiration, and not by any other means. souls current among the Hindus. The greatest wonder is that sometimes one possessing the capacity for vision, through concentration, appears to another person, with the permission of God Almighty, at a distance of hundreds of miles in a state of complete wakefulness without his body moving from its place. Reason holds that a person cannot be at two places at the same time, yet this impossibility becomes possible in the third world. In the same way, a person of understanding witnesses hundreds of wonders with his own eyes and is surprised at the denial of those who altogether reject the wonders of the third world. I have witnessed the wonders and rare visions of that world with my own eyes approximately five thousand times and have experience of them happening to myself.
[Surmah Chashm Arya, Ruhani Khaza’in, vol. 2, pp. 175-181, footnote]
It would take a large volume to record details of these experiences. One wonderful aspect of these experiences is that some matters which have no external existence come into being through Divine power. The author of Futuhat and Fusus and other great Sufis have recorded a number of their own experiences of this kind in their compilations. But as there is a great difference between hearing and seeing, I could not have obtained that certainty by merely reading these accounts which I have acquired through my own experience. I recall that in a vision I saw that I had drawn up with my own hand certain Divine decrees which related to the future and then presented the paper to God Almighty, the Omnipotent, the Glorious, for His signature. (It should be borne in mind that it often happens in visions and true dreams that some Divine attributes of beauty or glory appear in human form to the person seeing the vision and he imagines the form to be God Almighty. This experience is well known to those who are favoured with visions and cannot be denied). In short, I presented that book to that personification of beauty, which appeared as God Almighty, the Omnipotent, the Incomparable and the Unfathomable, in the state of my vision. On my presenting that document, God Almighty, Who appeared in the form of a ruler, dipped His pen in red ink and sprinkled it in my direction and with the ink that remained at the point of the pen He signed the document. Thereupon the vision came to an end and when I opened my eyes I saw several drops of red ink fall on my clothes and two or three of them fell on the cap of one ‘Abdullah of Sannaur who was sitting near me at the time. That red ink which was part of the vision became materialized and became visible externally.
I have seen several other visions of the type which it would take too long to set down, but whereby my own experience confirmed that sometimes a matter that is observed in a vision assumes external form by the command of Allah. These matters cannot be appreciated through reason alone. Indeed a person who is afflicted with the pride of his reason hears these things and affirms arrogantly that they are impossible and false and that the person who claims to have had such experience is either a liar or is mad or is self-deceived and for lack of proper research, has not been able to penetrate to the reality. Such a one does not reflect that these matters are testified to by thousands of the righteous from their personal experiences, and of which they undertake a demonstration to those who might keep company with them. Can they be set aside with mere verbal denials?
The truth of the matter is that, apart from the wonders of the world of vision, reason has not been able to comprehend fully even that which pertains to the world of reason and there are millions of Divine mysteries which are still hidden and beyond the reach of the wise.
[Essence of Islam, Vol. 2, p. 32]
Book Series: Essence of Islam (Volume 2)
Author: Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian (AS)
Section: Part 2: Revelation, Inspiration, Vision and Dream
Navigation: Book Table of Contents | « Previous: Revelation, Inspiration, Vision and Dream | Next: Man’s Ability to Receive Revelation »
