The minds of the people were also turned towards the coming event. The followers of all religions seemed to expect the Promised Reformer. The Muslims expected, according to the prophecies contained in their scriptures, the appearance of the Mahdi and the Messiah. Their expectations, like the expectations of the Jews at the advent of Jesus A.S were strange and mythical. They expected somebody who would come in the guise of a temporal king, a bloody warrior who would kill all infidels by waging a holy war and thus bring about the promised millennium. In 1831 William Miller of America began to lecture, arguing that the two thousand three hundred days mentioned in Daniel 8:14 meant 2,300 years, that these years began with Ezra’s A.S going up to Jerusalem in 457 B.C., and, therefore, would come to an end in 1843. Miller then urged his hearers to make ready for the final coming of Christ in that year for, according to Roman chronology, he declared, the year was 1844. There was great excitement. Many left their businesses and, in white muslin robes, on house-tops and hills, awaited the epiphany. Edward Irving (1792-1834), a divine of the Scottish Church and founder of the Catholic Apostolic Church, also believed in the near approach of the second advent.
There was another movement that gathered strength at the time of the birth of the Promised Messiah A.S; and, like the sounding of a trumpet in the heavens, it seems to have been a signal for the uplift of humanity. It was the movement for the emancipation of the slaves of the world.
There was another movement that gathered strength at the time of the birth of the Promised Messiah A.S; and, like the sounding of a trumpet in the heavens, it seems to have been a signal for the uplift of humanity. It was the movement for the emancipation of the slaves of the world.
Written by: Tasleem Ahmad Fateh Majlis: Parramatta Region: NSW
