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  • [1902] Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (AS) Challenge to Alexander Dowie as Published in Review of Religions

[1902] Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (AS) Challenge to Alexander Dowie as Published in Review of Religions

26 Aug, 2026 Challenges of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (AS), Christianity
[1902] Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (AS) Challenge to Alexander Dowie as Published in Review of Religions

Introduction

In the September 1902 issue of The Review of Religions (Vol. 1, No. 9, pp. 337–349), Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (peace be upon him) published his historic challenge to Dr. John Alexander Dowie—the self-proclaimed “Elijah the Restorer” and founder of Zion City, Illinois.

Dowie had publicly called for the destruction and annihilation of all Muslims across the globe. In response, the Promised Messiah (peace be upon him) articulated a simple, peaceful, and rational alternative: a decisive prayer duel (mubahalah) between the two leaders, praying that whoever was an impostor should perish in the lifetime of the truthful claimant.

For a detailed biographical background of Dowie’s career, claims, and anti-Islamic statements, read Who was John Alexander Dowie? Life, Claims & Downfall. For the complete international press coverage documenting the challenge and Dowie’s subsequent downfall, see The Dowie Prophecy: 156 Historical Newspaper Compendium (1899–1907).

An Answer to Dr. Dowie’s Prediction of a General Destruction of All Muhammadans

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Every seeker after truth must bear in mind that when false doctrines prevail upon earth and there is a general departure from the ways of righteousness, when people forsake the true and living God who revealed Himself to Adam, Seth, Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Jesus, and last of all to the greatest and noblest of the prophets, Muhammad Mustafa, on whom be peace and the blessings of God, in short when the earth is defiled with shirk (the joining of gods with God), impiety, wickedness, worldliness and carelessness, Almighty God commissions one of His servants to reform and regenerate the world, breathes into him a soul from Himself, bestows upon him wisdom of His own wisdom, gives him power of His own power, and grants him knowledge of His own knowledge. It is a criterion of his being from God that the world cannot withstand him. If an adversary chooses to vie with him in religious truths and knowledge, the messenger of God comes off victorious; if the competition is as to the supernatural signs, his adversary is a certain failure; and if anyone tries conclusions with him in Mubahila and prays to God, alone or in opposition to him, that the liar should perish before the other, the enemy of God’s messenger must perish in his lifetime.

According to this time-honored Divine law, when Almighty God saw that the earth had become corrupt, that millions of men had set up gods with God—more than four hundred millions having deified a weak man, the son of Mary, and along with it plunged into drunkenness, licentiousness, worldly-mindedness and spiritual apathy,—He raised me in order to reform these evils. About a hundred thousand persons have already been converted by me from the ways of evil, and these have sworn repentance on my hands. The grace of God has been my constant companion, and He has shown more than 150 heavenly signs at my hands to which publication was given before their occurrence and consequently millions of the people of this land bear witness to them. I have been sent to re-establish the Unity of God upon earth, to deliver people from the snares of idol-worship and human-worship, to turn them to the worship of the One and Invisible God who has no partner, and to bring them back to true purity and righteousness. I see that a movement has already begun in the world and thousands of the people are repenting at my hands. The winds that are blowing from heaven are bringing men nearer to the recognition of the great truth of Unity and producing a general tendency towards its acceptance, and thus heaven itself is assisting my cause. There are certain signs and sure indications in earth as well as in heaven that Almighty God has determined to extirpate the abomination of human-worship from earth. For the attainment of this great end, He has brought into existence the various necessary means. The worshippers of a weak human being—I mean the Christians who with persistent blindness look upon the son of Mary as God,—are not satisfied with the progress which that pernicious doctrine has already made and long to see the day when the whole world should give up the true God for the supposed divinity of a weak and helpless man who was crucified by a few nameless Jews. Such are the evil consequences of the despicable practice of bowing down in worship to a fellow-creature that those who are involved in it, seeing do not see and hearing do not hear and having hearts do not understand.

But the audacity of the evangelists of this religion is astonishing, for they do not like to see a single person who should worship the true God who existed before Mary or her son ever came into existence. It is the height of their ambition that the whole human race should worship the son of Mary as God, Creator, Lord and Savior of the world. But I see that the God of glory has with patience allowed this cancer to grow on the Divine religion. His honor and glory were given over to a weak human being but still He smote not the utterers of this blasphemy, for the Lord is patient as He is jealous.

The blind human-worshippers have divested the Almighty Being of all His glorious attributes and invested the son of Mary with them, so that Jesus alone is now their Lord in earth and in heavens. The true God is like the rich man who for the sake of his dear relatives built a magnificent and spacious house with an orchard in the yard yielding fruits and flowers and giving shade. When the house was built, he gave one portion of the house to his relatives, locked up his property and valuables in another portion and set apart the rest as an inn for the travellers to take rest in. When the owner of the house was away on a trip, an impudent stranger who came and lived in the inn, took possession of the whole of the house set apart for public use, and with the exception of the compartments which contained the owner’s property and relatives, turned the rest to his own individual use. Not content with this, the usurper turned out the relatives and broke open the rooms containing the valuables, taking wrongful possession of all the owner’s property. When, therefore, the owner of the house who is also the king of the country shall come back, what shall he do and how shall he deal with the rude tyrant? He shall do to him as his monarchy, jealousy and power require. He shall turn him out of the house, restore it to his relatives, give them back the property of which they had been wrongfully deprived and give to them also the possession of the inn, so that none might tarry there again against their will.

In like manner the time has come when God shall settle all religious disputes. The pike and the sword have had their day but Jehad and crusades were equally unable to settle the question. Many encounters have taken place and lances have been broken, with the only lesson that sword cannot be the arbiter in religious struggles. But the days of heavenly judgment have drawn near, for the name of the Jealous God is held in great contempt upon earth. Every Christian Missionary has it in the heart of hearts that the true God preached by Moses and the prophets should be stripped of His glory and the throne of His majesty given to a frail mortal, Jesus the son of Mary. They do not wish that a single worshipper of the true God should breathe upon earth, and heartily desire that all nations should join in the monstrous cry, until the corners of the earth echo and re-echo with the acclamation, that Jesus Christ is Almighty God, the Creator of worlds and the Lord of lords. The huge sums of money that are spent, the bulky volumes and the numberless leaflets that are written, the restless activity of the Christian Evangelistic Societies, and the plenty of resources they have in hand, are quite unknown in the history of any other movement.

Instead of resisting these forces of evil in a reasonable manner, the Muhammadans either sit silent or look to Jehad as the only means of advancement. They are looking forward with eagerness and anxiety to the time when their expected Mahdi and Messiah shall put an end to all infidel nations, and thus reply with the sword the objection of the ignorant critics against the Holy Prophet’s taking up the sword. I think the chief reason of the decline of Muhammadans is that the feelings of love and sympathy are on the wane in their hearts. I do not judge all Muhammadans to be guilty of this hard-heartedness but it cannot be denied that there are millions among them who are thirsty of the blood of their own kind. Would a bloody-minded person like that some one should put an end to his life by a sudden stroke and leave his widow and orphans helpless and unfriended? Why does he do to others then what he does not like that others should do to him? The Muhammadans would certainly have conquered the hearts of Christian Europe, had it not been for the curse of trusting to the sword for the propagation of religious truths.

The Christian religion is one that cannot make its stand for a moment against the strong current of reason. The theory that one who was born of a woman was God, is the greatest insult to human intelligence. The son of Mary has not the slightest superiority over other men; nay, we can point to men who have been far superior to him. And in this age, the writer of these pages has been sent to convince people that he enjoys a greater grace and favor in the sight of God than Jesus Christ. That Jesus Christ is still living, that he sits on the heavens, that he actually quickened the dead, and that on his death the graves were opened and the dead arose and went into the city, are all legends as fabulous as those found in the Puranas of the Hindoos. The only truth about all these extravagances of the wonders wrought by Jesus, is that he wrought certain miracles like all other prophets of God and as are even now being wrought by Almighty God at the hands of His Promised Messiah. But in the case of Jesus a grain of fact has been mixed with a mountain of fiction. What a disgraceful lie is it for instance that he ascended to heaven? The fact is only that he did not die upon the cross. This he had himself foretold in the words that “There shall no sign be given to it but the sign of Jonas the prophet.” (Matt. 12: 39). In these words he plainly indicated that as Jonas remained alive “in the whale’s belly,” so shall he remain alive “in the heart of the earth.” If he did not enter alive into the grave, his prophecy was a sad failure, for the only vital point of resemblance is thus brought to nothing. But the truth is as is strongly corroborated by all the other circumstances attending his crucifixion that he was alive when taken down from the cross. Jesus remained fastened to the cross only for three hours, an interval of time by no means sufficiently long to produce death on the cross. The painful impaling, however, suspended sensibility for a while and produced a loss of consciousness. Thus there was an apparent state of death and consequently he was spared the breaking of bones, a necessary step to ensure the death of those who were nailed to the cross. The darkness caused by an eclipse of the sun and a violent burst of the storm accompanied with an earthquake, affrighted the Jews who immediately departed and left Jesus to be taken care of by a rich man, a secret disciple, Joseph of Arimathea, who lavished care upon the master. Two or three days’ rest in the sepulchre which was in reality a room hewn into a rock, with the anxious care which Joseph bestowed upon his master, resuscitated Jesus, who after this event thought it advisable to bid adieu to his native land and travelled eastward. It has now been proved on the strength of arguments of unquestionable validity that he peacefully passed the rest of his days in the valley of Cashmere, and his tomb in the Khan Yar street at Srinagar, falsifies the legend of his ascent to heaven. Thousands of persons bear witness that the prophet Jesus lies asleep in the sacred dust of Cashmere, and before the light of this fact, the fiction of his ascent to heaven vanishes away as every fabrication must.

The result of a careful investigation with regard to this tomb has been embodied in a book which shall be published shortly. Articles on this subject will occasionally appear also in this Magazine. I wonder at the crass ignorance of the Missionaries of Christianity who with a dullness which is the common lot of all superstitious people declare Jesus to be God on flimsy arguments. Their deification of a weak man with no proof in their hands, is a disgrace to their boasted philosophy and science.

I have lately been hearing of a messenger of Jesus Christ born in America. John Alexander Dowie, for such is his name, claims to have been sent by the son of Mary in his capacity of Godhead that as his apostle he may draw the whole world to a belief in the despicable dogma of his Divinity. A powerful God, indeed! who could not save himself from a handful of Jews. A treacherous disciple betrayed him into the hands of the authorities and he was unable to prevent the betrayal or hold back the betrayer. Pinched with hunger, he ran to a fig tree and (bless his omniscience!) he did not know that the tree was barren. When he was asked of the day of judgment when it shall come, he confessed his ignorance, and the most shocking of all, it is alleged, that he became subject to la‘nat (i.e., was accursed) which means that his heart became impure, turned away from God and was removed further off from Him and His mercy. But the marvels displayed by this God, do not end with the curse. He had to traverse countless millions of miles in space to reach his father, and the distance could not be removed but by his bodily ascent. It was the fate of the Christian Deity to remain involved in contradictions. The son and the father were “one,” and yet the son had to travel millions of miles to go to the father. He there sits on the right hand of his father, yet how this could take place, both being one, must be left to be solved by Christian ingeniousness.

But notwithstanding all this Dr. Dowie looks upon the man Jesus as his God, and looks upon himself as his messenger. He further asserts that he fulfils the prophecy of Deut. 18: 15 in which Moses promised a prophet like to himself, and also claims to be Elias and the messenger of covenant. But he must be aware that his sham deity was never dreamt of by Moses. His repeated injunctions to the Israelites were against the making “of any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath” or the “similitude of any figure,” for, as he said: “The Lord spoke unto you out of the midst of fire. Ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude, only ye heard a voice. Take ye, therefore, good heed to yourselves, for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day the Lord spoke unto you in Horeb.” But Dr. Dowie wants to take advantage of the prophecy of Moses while rejecting the one and invisible God who inspired the great Lawgiver and taking for his God one, who had a mother and four brothers, and sisters to boot. This messenger of Jesus, informed by his mock Deity, awaits a destruction of all Muhammadans and publishes his predictions that all those who do not recognise the son of Mary as their God, and Dowie himself as the messenger of that self-made Deity, shall perish. Here are some of his ejaculations: “Except they repent they shall all perish. They shall all perish Jew and Gentile alike.” And again: “That nation, that people, that kingdom that will not recognise Christ as the king, and will not recognise the Christian Catholic Church in Zion as the forerunner, and the front of the Army of the Church of the Living God, that nation or that kingdom will perish, because God has said it.”

Since Dr. Dowie is the messenger of the powerful Deity who was crucified by the Jews, I would entreat him to refrain from destroying the whole body of Muhammadans living upon the face of the earth. If they do not take the son of Mary for their God, the fault is not theirs. Where is the requisite proof, and how can they be convinced of the Divinity of one whose very tomb has been discovered in this country. Nay more, they have in their midst the Promised Messiah who has made his appearance, in accordance with the prophetic promises, at the close of the sixth and the commencement of the seventh thousand, with a host of heavenly signs. Moreover, it is not the Muhammadans alone who must perish according to Dr. Dowie’s assertion. The Christians themselves are not out of danger. All must perish who though accepting the Divinity of Jesus, do not recognise his messenger in Dowie. “London with all its millions, could be destroyed in the same way and time as St. Pierre.” “Everything has to come into the Christian Catholic Church in Zion. If you do not come in, you will perish. Your organizations will perish.” To be saved, therefore, all the Christian Churches whom Dowie calls “Apostates” must follow Dr. Dowie, the blood of Jesus alone being insufficient to save them. They must admit that as Jesus is God, so is Dowie Elias and the messenger of covenant and the like of Moses promised in Deut. 18: 15. If they do this, they shall be saved; if not, they must perish like the Muhammadans.

In short, Dr. Dowie emphatically asserts and repeats his assertion over and over again, that all must perish who do not admit his authority along with the Divinity of the son of Mary, and the Christians of Europe and America will do well to accept his message. They have no difficulty, for when they accept one groundless assertion regarding the Divinity of Jesus, they may also accept a second one equally, if not more, groundless, and add to the rotten chain of the dogma of Jesus’ Divinity, another rotten link of the Elijahship of Dowie. The Christians may thus escape the threatened destruction. As regards the Muhammadans, we hope Dr. Dowie will renounce his claim upon all if the decision can be come to by an easier method. Whether the God of Muhammadans or the God of Dowie is the true God may be settled without the loss of millions of lives which Dr. Dowie’s prediction would involve.

That method is that without threatening the Muhammadan public in general with destruction, he should choose me as his opponent and pray to God that of us two whoever is the liar may perish first. I look upon the son of Mary as a weak human being although I recognise him as a prophet of God, while Dr. Dowie takes him for the Lord of Universe. Which of us is right, is the real point at issue. If Dr. Dowie is certain of the Divinity of the son of Mary, he should publish the proposed prayer with the signatures of at least one thousand men affixed to it. Upon receiving it, I shall address the same prayer to Almighty God and publish it with the signatures of the same number of witnesses. If Dr. Dowie has the courage to accept this challenge, he will thereby open a way for all other Christians to the acceptance of truth. In making this proposal, I have not taken the initiative, but the jealous God has inspired me upon Dr. Dowie’s presumptuous prediction that all Muhammadans shall perish.

Dr. Dowie should further bear in mind that this challenge does not proceed from an ordinary Muhammadan. I am the very Messiah, the promised one, for whom he is so anxiously waiting. Between Dr. Dowie’s position and mine the difference is this that Dowie fixes the appearance of the Messiah within the next twenty-five years, while I give him the glad tidings that the Messiah has already appeared. I am that Messiah, and Almighty God has shown numerous signs from earth as well as from heaven in my support. My following which already claims a hundred thousand souls is making a rapid progress.

The proof that Dr. Dowie furnishes in support of his extravagant claims is the very height of absurdity. He claims to have healed hundreds of sick men. But why did his healing-power fail in the case of his own beloved daughter where it should have been exercised in the highest degree? Why was he unable to restore her to health whose death has been the most violent shock to him, for which he has not ceased to lament since. In the same way there are many other instances of the cases of his disciples in which he was called in time but failed to afford any relief with the result that his victims perished. It should also be borne in mind that the art of healing is one which is practised abundantly even in this country without any sanctity being attached to the character of those who are skilled in it. I wonder at the simple-mindedness of the Americans who attach any value to this absurdity. Was not the burden of deifying a man sufficient for them that they have added to it another equally heavy burden?

It is important to note that the art of healing diseases from its very nature and its prevalence among different people apart from divine inspiration and irrespective of religious sanctity, cannot serve as a criterion of truth. A sort of therapeutics which may appear supernatural to superficial observers, has been practised among various nations from time immemorial. It is practised by the Hindus. Among the Jews it was a common thing to effect the cure of certain diseases by means apparently inexplicable. Even now there are men among the Muhammadans who lay claim to the healing of diseases exactly in the manner in which Dr. Dowie does it. The truth is that the healing of diseases is not a proper criterion for judging the falsehood of religious principles, for adherents of any system may be able to practise it. The Gospels themselves relate incidents showing that there were contemporaries of Jesus who were reputed for curing the sick in the same manner as Jesus did, and yet these thaumaturgists were not among his followers. There was even a pool at the time a dip in which had the miraculous power of removing bodily infirmities. The mere capacity to heal certain diseases cannot, therefore, be a sure test for the truth of a religion. In one case only can it serve as a criterion, viz., when two parties each claiming the truth for himself, divide by lot a number of sick men between themselves. In such a case, the party who is able to heal the greater number in comparison with his antagonist, is entitled to claim it as a supernatural sign of the efficacy of prayer in his favor and hence as evidence of his truth.

Sometime ago I invited my opponents to ascertain the truth or falsity of my claims by this test but no one accepted this challenge. I am certain that if Dr. Dowie or any one of his co-religionists stands forth even now to meet me on this ground, my God shall surely disgrace him, for he is a liar and his god is an embodiment of falsehood. But the remoteness that exists between us, does not allow of such a contest. I may, however, take advantage of Dowie’s own assertion that the Muhammadans stick to falsehood and shall therefore perish. Dr. Dowie would not, I hope, resent the slight amendment that instead of making the whole body of Muhammadans as the aim of his prophetic denunciation, he ought to choose one opponent who may serve the same purpose. Would he hesitate to adopt a method by which he may save millions of lives without the least harm to his own cause? If he does, we must doubt his honesty. Dowie’s assertion has moreover a subterfuge about it, for he has placed no limit upon the time within which the Muhammadans must perish. What if he himself dies before his predicted destruction! Shall one go to his tomb then and blame his dead body for his daring falsehood? Is it not a subtle shift to escape the blame of falsity so long as he lives? If Dr. Dowie is in earnest and his statements regarding the destruction of Muhammadans are bona fide, and taught to him by the son of Mary, his alleged deity, there should be no equivocation in the method he adopts. It would be braver and more honest on his part to choose a single great adversary instead of hiding himself behind a multitude whose destruction he may be pleased to postpone to any suitable moment. Let him like an honest gentleman obtain permission from his Lord to accept the challenge and take his stand against me. I am an old man over sixty-six years of age and Dr. Dowie is more than eleven years younger than myself and, therefore, on the ground of age, he need not have any apprehensions. Moreover, I am suffering from various diseases and my life does not depend upon my health but upon the will of God. If the self-made Deity of Dr. Dowie has any power, he shall certainly allow him to appear against me and spare him for many years after me. Dr. Dowie shall attain his object easily for instead of waiting for the destruction of all the Muhammadans, he shall have only to procure my destruction in his life-time, and then he will have in his hands a manifest sign of his mission from Jesus. Millions shall then bow their heads in submission to the son of Mary and recognise Dowie as his messenger. I say it truly that if the hatred of all the Muhammadans of the world for the Christian Deity were placed in one scale of a balance, and the hatred which I alone entertain towards him, in the other, my hatred would far outweigh that of the whole Muhammadan world.

Of all the birds I have an extreme liking for pigeon flesh, because it is the emblem of the Christian Deity. How Dr. Dowie likes it, it is difficult to say. He may for aught we know do justice to it on account of its deliciousness or spare it on account of its Divine sanctity. From our experience of the Hindus of this country, we should have expected the latter alternative, because since they have attached a sanctity to the cow, they do not use its flesh as an article of diet. But the Christians seem to have awkwardly lagged behind their Hindu brethren in this respect. They have shown no respect to dove which is the semblance of their deity who called out to Jesus from heaven: “Thou art my beloved son.” From this it would appear that the dove stood in paternal relationship to Christ who being himself God, the dove may be described as the Father of God. But notwithstanding this extreme sanctity, the Christians eat its flesh unscrupulously and never think of the reverence that is due to it. Thus they pitilessly mince its meat whereas they ought to have addressed it as “Lord.” God created man in His own image and therefore human flesh was forbidden to be eaten out of respect for the Divine image. How is it then that the dove which addressed Christ as a son is fondly eaten? The Christians not only eat it but praise its flesh as “excellent for the table.” In the Encyclopædia Britannica it is stated: “As regards flavour, however, those who have been so fortunate as to eat them, declare that the Fruit-Pigeons of the genus Treron and its allies surpass all birds.” The Christians, therefore, prize it for its relish without paying any heed to its sacred character. According to the Law of Moses, two pigeons or turtledoves were required as an offering when the woman who gave birth to a child was not able to bring a lamb (Lev. 12: 8). The mother of Jesus, not being in well-to-do circumstances, offered a pair of turtledoves (Luke 2: 24). What a contradiction that on the one hand, the dove is made the semblance of God Himself and on the other the poor bird is not only used as a sacrificial victim but also slaughtered and eaten largely on account of the relish of its flesh. Jesus was crucified once and became thereby the Savior of the world, but the poor dove, notwithstanding that its meat is ever ground under the teeth, has not been granted any share in the salvation business. The statement in the Encyclopædia Britannica as to the number of its varieties must be corrected and to the 500 species mentioned there, another species must be added which may be called the Divine Dove. Without including it, the list is incomplete by one.

In short I hold him in abomination who being born of a woman says that he is God, although I declare Jesus Christ to be free from the charge that he ever claimed Divinity for himself. With me such a claim is the most horrible sin and an arch-heresy, but I, at the same time, know that Jesus was a good and a righteous servant of God who never presumed to assert Godhead. I have seen him many a time, but he has always expressed his humbleness and submissiveness. On one occasion, he and I ate beef upon one table from one dish in kashf which is really a state of wakefulness. With expressions of humbleness and love, he told me that he was my brother, and I also felt that he was my brother. Since then I have looked upon him as my brother. I believe in what I saw and entertain the feeling of brotherhood towards him. There is no doubt that Divine wisdom has entrusted a far greater and more important work to my charge and has given me promises of a far greater kindness and grace, yet spiritually, Jesus and I are one in essence. It is for this reason that my advent is his advent. He who denies me, denies Jesus also. He saw me and was pleased, and therefore he who sees me and is not pleased with me, is not of us, neither of me nor of Jesus. Jesus is from me and I am from God; blessed is he who recognises me, and undone is the person from whose eyes I am hidden.

Now if Dr. Dowie is certain that Jesus is the Lord of the universe, it is his duty that instead of threatening the whole Muhammadan world with destruction, he should adopt the fair method which I have proposed above, by which one man’s death in the other’s life-time will decide the truth or falsehood of either view. If he is an honest believer in Jesus’ divinity, he must defend it and stand by it to the death. But if Dr. Dowie assumes silence and gives no response to this offer, or if having decided to enter the lists he prays in his boastful manner and adopts the procedure herein recorded and then dies in my life-time, in either case it shall be a sign to the whole of America. Upon the manner in which death should take place, it is necessary to impose the restriction that it should not occur through human hands, but it may be the result of a disease, a stroke of lightning, snake-bite, &c. The time-limit within which Dowie is at liberty to respond to this call is fixed at three months from the date that the announcement is issued. And we pray God that He may be with the righteous. Amen.

MIRZA GHULAM AHMAD,
Chief of Qadian,
India.

Original Scans of the Review of Religions Article (September 1902)

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Conclusion

The September 1902 announcement in The Review of Religions marked the decisive turning point in the confrontation between Islam and the aggressive claims of Dr. John Alexander Dowie. By transforming a hostile threat of genocide into an open, peaceful, and verifiable prayer contest between the two respective leaders, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (peace be upon him) demonstrated the supreme confidence of a truthful prophet of God.

The fulfillment of this challenge—culminating in Dowie’s paralytic strokes, public disgrace, bankruptcy, and death in March 1907 while Ahmad (peace be upon him) survived in full health—stands as an enduring testament to the power of prayer and the living truth of Islam.

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