the Dajjāl, the False Messiah, and Jesus’ killing of him. He replied, ‘The Dajjāl is a symbol of superstitions, deception, and vile practices that disappear when Islamic law is properly established …’”!

Strangely enough, the claimant to prophethood, Mīrzā Ghulām Ahmad al-Qādiyānī al-Hindī, had preceded him in this interpretation and repeated it in his books and treatises. How closely this interpretation resembles his interpretations of many Quranic verses, which he distorts and cites as evidence of his prophethood! For example, he interpreted Allah’s words concerning Jesus:

“and bringing good tidings of a messenger to come after me, whose name is Ahmad” [al-Saff:6],

claiming that he himself was the one meant by “Ahmad”! There is much more of this sort in his writings, all utterly absurd—as Sayyid Rashīd himself stated when refuting him elsewhere in his Quran commentary (6/58):

“He followed the method of claimants to Mahdiship among the Shia of Iran—such as al-Bahāʾ and the Bāb—in deriving fanciful proofs for his claim from the Quran. He even extracted such proof from Surah al-Fātihah! He has written an utterly absurd commentary on it, which he claims is a miracle of his!! He thus made it announce the glad tidings of his appearance and proclaim that he is the Messiah of this community!”

Sayyid Rashīd then added:

“It was those heretics among the Magians and their supporters—the ones who devised the teachings of the Bātinī sects—who opened for this community this strange avenue of interpreting the Quran and diverting its words from their established meanings to alien meanings that neither resemble nor correspond to them. These teachings gained currency even among many Sufis.”