“Can a wretched imposter who claims messengership
and prophethood for himself have any belief in the Holy Quran? And
can a man who believes in the Holy Quran, and believes the verse
‘He is the Messenger of Allah and the Khatam an-nabiyyin’
to be the word of God, say that he too is a messenger and prophet
after the Holy Prophet Muhammad?
Anyone who is fair-minded should remember that I have never,
at any time, made a claim of nubuwwat or risalat
[prophethood or messengership] in the real sense. To use a word
in a non-real sense, and to employ it in speech according to its
broad, root meaning, does not imply heresy (kufr). However,
I do not like even this much, for there is the possibility that
ordinary Muslims may misunderstand it.
However, by virtue of being appointed by God, I cannot conceal
those revelations I have received from Him in which the words
nubuwwat and risalat occur quite frequently. But
I say repeatedly that, in these revelations, the word mursal
or rasul or nabi which has occurred about me is
not used in its real sense. (Footnote: Such words have not occurred
only now, but have been present in my published revelations for
sixteen years. So you will find many such revelations about me
in the book Barahin Ahmadiyya.) The
actual fact, to which I testify with the highest testimony, is
that our Holy Prophet, may peace and the blessings of God be upon
him, is the Khatam al-anbiya and after him no prophet is
to come, neither an old one nor a new one. ...
But it must be remembered that, as we have explained here, sometimes
the revelation from God contains such words about some of His
saints in a metaphorical and figurative sense; they are not meant
by way of reality. This is the whole controversy which
the foolish, prejudiced people have dragged in a different direction.
The name 'prophet of God' for the Promised Messiah, which is to
be found in Sahih Muslim etc. from the blessed tongue of
the Holy Prophet, is meant in the same metaphorical sense as that
in which it occurs in Sufi literature as an accepted and common
term for the recipient of Divine communication. Otherwise, how
can there be a prophet after the Khatam al-anbiya?”
(Anjam Atham, footnote, pages 27 - 28, published January
1897)
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