Proofs from the Holy Quran of the Existence of God — A Summary of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s Arguments
Edited and translated by Imam Kalamazad Mohammed
Proof 02
The second proof is contained in the following verses of the Holy Quran:
“And this was Our argument which We gave to Abraham against his people. We exalt in degrees whom We please. Surely thy Lord is Wise, Knowing. And We gave him Isaac and Jacob. Each did We guide; and Noah did We guide before, and of his descendants, David and Solomon and Job and Joseph and Moses and Aaron. And thus do We reward those who do good (to others). And Zacharias and John and Jesus and Elias; each one (of them) was of the righteous, And Ishmael and Elisha and Jonah and Lot; and each one (of them) We made to excel the people” (6:84–87).
After these verses, the Holy Quran exhorts us:
“These are they whom Allah guided, so follow their guidance. Say: I ask you not for any reward for it. It is naught but a Reminder to the nations” (6:91).
The Holy Quran asks us in whose word we should believe: in the truth of the evidence that pure and righteous people present to us, or should we take the word of others who are ignorant of the existence of God and whose conduct is in no way comparable to that of the pious ones? The sensible thing to do is to honour the word of those whose exemplary conduct and deeds, and whose chastity and nobility as well as their rigid self-discipline and abstinence from sin have been already established in the world. It is therefore binding on each person to imitate such people and to reject the assertions of those who stand in opposition to them.
So we observe that all those who spread goodness and high morals on earth in the past and who established their nobility in the world through their good deeds have all given testimony to the fact that there is a Supreme Being Who, in different ages, has been referred to as Allah, God or Parmeshwar. These righteous ones include Ram Chandra and Krishna of India, Zoroaster of Iran, Prophet Moses of Egypt, the Messiah of the Christians (Prophet Jesus), Baba Nanak of the Punjab. Lastly came the Prince of all the righteous ones, the Arabian Prophet, Muhammad (sas) who, since his youth, was renowned among his people as a truthful one who expressed his veracity to them in the following rhetorical question:
“Have I not lived a lifetime among you (without telling a lie)?” (10:17),
to which his people could offer no rebuttal.
In addition to these, more than a hundred thousand prophets and messengers who came to the world from time to time all proclaimed the same message – that there was only one God. Even more than that, they claimed to have met Him and to have conversed with Him.
Many very eminent philosophers there were on earth and they all performed some beneficial work, but not one of them could have accomplished even one thousandth part of the task of a prophet. As a matter of fact, if we were to compare the lives of these two groups – the philosophers and the prophets – we will find, if we go beyond the words of the philosophers that their deeds seem very scanty. We may well ask: Why could they not display the same kind of truth and sincerity as the prophets?
The reason is that they taught people to be truthful but were themselves unable to avoid falsehood. On the other hand, those righteous people, some of whom have been mentioned above, had to endure hundreds of thousands of painful and heartbreaking calamities solely in their effort to establish the virtuous quality of truth, yet they never swerved an inch from their principles. Plans were made to kill them, they were driven out of their homes, attempts were made to tarnish their character in every street and lane and bazaar and they were socially ostracised, but yet they never gave up their mission nor did they resort to lying out of fear of people in order to save themselves from the persecution of men. Their good deeds, their aversion for worldly possessions or honour, their distancing themselves from ostentation, all served to establish the fact that they were completely altruistic in their work and never undertook any task for personal gain. Indeed, they were ever truthful and trustworthy and unanimously proclaimed that they had met their Maker and had heard His words and witnessed a manifestation of His glory and splendour. So what reason is there for anyone to doubt their testimony?
We have all heard certain people telling lies. Yet when a few of them join together to attest to the truth of a matter, we are forced to believe them. People, of whose character and circumstances we know nothing at all, publish their findings in newspapers and we respect their views, yet if there is one thing we are ready to reject outright, it is the testimony of those virtuous ones. For instance, people tell us that London is a city and we accept it as true; geographers write that America is a large continent and we believe them; travellers relate that Siberia is a vast, unpopulated region and we do not deny it. Why don’t we? The reason is that a very large number of people have attested to the truth of these matters and so we are inclined to believe them even though we are ignorant of these witnesses, that is, whether they are true or false.
On the other hand, the people who give eyewitness testimony of the existence of Allah, Most High, are those whose truthfulness shines brightly like the midday sun: they sacrificed their wealth and their lives and left their beloved homelands in order to establish truth in the world. So how can it be a sign of honesty and integrity to believe travellers and geographers and to reject the word of such purified ones? If the existence of London can be established on hearing the testimony of a few witnesses, why can we not accept the existence of Allah, Most High, after hearing the testimony of hundreds of thousands of virtuous and noble people?
In short, the testimony of hundreds of thousands of upright people who have given firsthand evidence of the existence of God can in no way be lightly rejected. It is amazing that those who fall in this camp all asseverate with one voice that God exists, whilst those without an ounce of spirituality urge people to contradict the evidence of the prophets and to accept their assertion that there is no God. This is especially astonishing since, according to the canons of evidence, if two men of comparable probity should offer testimony in a certain matter and one should say: “I have seen such and such a thing,” and the other should deny seeing it, preference will be given to the former over the latter. The reason is that it may well be that the eye of the latter may not have witnessed the scene whilst it is impossible for the first-mentioned righteous one to make a false claim of seeing it and that it was only a figment of his imagination. Thus, the testimony of those who have seen God is at any rate proof against the deniers.