At other place, he makes the following comment on that part of the Tradition which mentions that the Messiah will "kill the swine."

"Will the excellent task that will be undertaken by the Messiah after he comes down to the earth merely be to go around, accompanied with a pack of hounds, hunting pigs? If this is true, then Sikhs, Chamars and Sansis and Gandils who love pig-hunting have, reason to be glad, for they will prosper. (Izala-i-Awham; p. 21.)

At another place he makes the following observation about the future descent of the Messiah:

Watch out lest you are deceived by someone who first boards some balloon And then alights from it in front of you. So, beware! Don't mistake such a person for the son of Mary because of your established belief. ( Ibid., p. 143. )

At still another place he refers to the same question in the following manner:

Brethren, this question stood on two legs:

"(1) One, the descent of the son of Mary from the heavens with his terrestrial body, towards the end of time. This leg has been broken by the Glorious Qur'an and also some Traditions by informing of the death of the Messiah, son of Mary.

"(2) The second leg was the appearance of the promised Dajjal towards the end of time. Now this leg bas been broken into two pieces by the unanimously agreed Traditions of Sahih Muslim and Sabih Bukhari which have been reported by important Companions and- also by calling, Ibn Sab-d to be the promised Dajjal and, at last, by killing him after making him. join the body of Muslims. Now y that both the legs of the question ]have been broken, bow and with whose support can this corpse which lacks both the legs stand up after these thirteen co-untries"?(Ibid., pp. 133-34.)

 Here is another example of his- writing:

"Can it be proved that there has been a consensus regarding the Traditions that the Messiah will go around hunting pigs in woods and that Dajjal Will circumambulate around Kabah and that the son of Mary will perform the obligatory cicumambulation of the Kabah like a sick man, supported on the shoulders of two men? Is it not known that the exegetists of these Traditions have been letting their conjectures loose limitlessly ?" (Izala-i-Awham, p. 214. )

At another place, he bad the following to address to the ,Ahl-i-Sunnah (Lit. 'One of the path'. A term generally applied to the largest sect of Muslims who belong to one of the four juristic schools of orthodox Islam.) scholars:

"O respected maulavis! While the death of the Messiah is generally proved by the Noble Qur'an, certain Companions and Exegetists have, from the very beginning, been continuously killing him (that is, holding that Jesus is dead-Translator). Then, why do you adopt your attitude of unavailing stubbornness ? 'Let the God of Christians die. How long will you go on calling him the living one, the undying ? Is there any limit to this ?" (Izala-i-Awham, p. 235.)

 The works of the Mirza written during this period also show that he was deeply impressed with the advancement of natural sciences and -with the scientific know ledge which was evoking great interest and curiosity in India in his days. The level of scientific knowledge attained by the West by that time would appear to be rudimentary when judged by the present level of scientific advancement. However, the Mirza's acquaintance of the then scientific knowledge was second-hand and very superficial. - It seems that one of the main preps of his rejection of the idea of the return of the Messiah was that the idea ran counter to the accepted facts of modern science. He thought that such a belief would expose religion to the ridicule of the educated people. He wrote in Izala-i-Awham:

"In this philosophically-minded age, which has speedily brought with it mental refinement and intellectual advancement, it is a big error to think that one would be able to achieve religious success while holding on to this beliefs. (It is hard to say how and why the Mirza believed in such metaphysical proportions as revelation, angles, paradise, hell, etc. and how he accepted the demand of religion. Indeed, the very heart of religion is guided by faith in the realities beyond the ken of human perception. The above excerpt only illustrates the extent to which he was mentally over-awed by "modernism", and how he, like other superficial writers and ill-educated people of the nineteenth century, had deified modern science without appreciating its actual domain and its inherent limitations.) If such baseless things were to spread in the deserts of Africa or among the desert-dwellers of Arabia or in some islands of the sea or among groups of wild people, they p might spread easily. But we cannot propagate such teachings which are totally opposed to reason and experience and natural sciences and philosophy and which also cannot be proved (to have originated) from our Prophet (upon him be the salutation and peace of God); rather traditions which are quite opposed to these are being proved among the educated people. Nor can we present them to the scholastically inclined people of Europe and America, who are getting rid of the absurdities of their own religion. How can they (whose minds and hearts have been illuminated by the light of new sciences) believe in such things which are out and out an insult to God and constitute an abrogation of the principles of His Book ?" (lzala-i-Awham, p. 135.)

 While reading passages such as these, one finds it hard to believe that they could have been written by the author of Surma- i-Chashm-i-Arya; by the same writer who had strongly argued in favour of the possibility and actual occurrence of miracles and had refuted the view that metaphysical notions could not be denied on the basis of reason of limited human experience.

In this book the Mirza has argued on the basis of the Jummal (The reckoning of -the alphabets by a system in which the letters have different powers) numerals and here his mode of argument becomes very close to that of the missionaries of the Batiniyah sect who used to employ these numerals as evidential arguments even in. respect of fundamental religious beliefs.

"My attention has been drawn through Kashf (Revelation of any secret, to a mystic or saint by the grace and power of God) towards the powers of nick letters of the following name where- in I have been informed of the Messiah who was to appear at the end of the thirteenth century. (God has told me) that He had already kept in view the era (of Messiah's appearance) in giving this name (to me); and that name is, 'Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani'. The powers of the letters of this name add up exactly to 1300, and in this township of Qadian there is none except this humble one whose name is Ghulam Ahmad. In fact, it has been put in my heart that at this time there is none except this humble one who has the name 'Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani.' And this has been a favour bestowed by God to this humble one that He, the Pure One, reveals the mysteries to me through the powers of alphabetical letters." (lzala-i-Awham, p. 90.)

At another place he writes:

"Now it is proved by this research that, the Qur'an contains the prediction of the coming of the Messiah, the son of Mary, towards, the end of time. The time of the appearance of the Messiah, which has been fixed by the Qur'an as 1400 (A.H.) has also been accepted by many saints on the basis of their kaslif. The Qur'anic verse 'And We certainly are able to drain it off (It should be noted that this verse refers to- rain, and the whole verse reads thus: "And We send down water from the sky according to (due) measure and We cause it to soak in the soil; and We certainly are able to drain it off (with ease,). (XL: 18) ). has letters which, according to the jummal, make up the figure of 1274 ; and this points to the moonless nights of the Islamic lunar months containing a hidden pointer to the rise of a new moon. And this mystery is latent, according to jummal system, in the letters of Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani." (lzala-i-.Awham.Vol. 11, p. 338. )

In these books, while trying to explain the Traditions from the Holy Prophet and arguing that they referred to him, the Mirza has been extremely heedless of all rules of exposition of such texts, giving full rein to his fancy. In fact, it is hardly conceivable that anyone should take such liberty in explaining even the writings or compositions of ordinary writers and poets not to say of Traditions from prophets. To suit his purpose the Mirza has taken the position that the words of the Traditions are of a figurative or metaphorical nature. Again, in this respect, he seems to be following in the footsteps of the Batinis who used to explain religious terms-about whose text as well as meaning there is an unbroken continuity of agreement-in a far-fetched and ridiculous manner without any Toxicological or rational basis to support them. And it is thus that they had opened the flood- gates of atheism and nihilism.

In Izala-i-Awham the Mirza repeatedly asserts that knowledge about the son of Mary and Dajj had not been completely clear ,to the Holy Prophet and that in this regard God had endowed him only with some brief hints." (Ibid., Vol, 11, p. 346.)

The Mirza, kept on "reflecting" about the death of the Messiah till, in the end, he concluded that his death had taken place in Kashmir and that it was there that he lay buried. In this connection, according to his wont, he did a lot of hair-splitting which shows the fertility of his imagination even if the level is childish. He has tried to prove that the pronunciation of Kashmir in Kashmiri language is "Kashir", and it appears that this word, in fact, is a compound Hebrew word, composed of 'K' which is used to denote similarity, resemblance, etc. and of 'Ashir' which in Hebrew means Syria. Thus the word 'Kashir' in Hebrew meant 'like Syria'. On this basis, the Mirza went on to add that when Jesus (peace be upon him) migrated from Palestine to that part of India which due to the excellence p of weather, agreeableness of its seasons and its greenery and freshness had close resemblance to Syria, God named it "Kashir" in order to comfort and gratify him. The excessive use of the word led to the dropping of 'a' with the result, that it became 'Kashir.' Then, he proved that the tomb of 'Budhasaf' (popularly known as the "prince") in the Khan Yar locality of Srinagar was in fact the grave of Jesus. In trying to support this piece of research, he marshalled all possible far-fetched arguments, with the result that his writing on the point appears closer to poetry and fiction rather than what is normally considered to be academic writing. The unbridled speculations of the Orientalists, who are noted for making the mountain out of a mole-hill simply pale into insignificance when compared with. the Mirza's Writing. (See Barahin, p. 228.)

This brings us to a definite milestone in the spiritual experiences and claims of the Mirza. At this stage he categorically claims to be the -"Promised Messiah," and tries to prove this by his so-called 'rational' as well as traditional arguments.