Ahmadiyyas Open Mosque in Zion, Illinois

Almost 120 years after their founder efficiently challenged a Christian evangelist in Zion, Illinois, to a prayer duel of biblical proportions, the Ahmadiyya inaugurated the Fath-e-Azeem Mosque within the metropolis in September 2022. 

Zion was established by Christian evangelist John Alexander Dowie in 1901 as a utopian theocracy. Dowie, who claimed to be the prophet Elijah, foretold the destruction of all those that didn’t consider within the divinity of his mission. The New York Occasions wrote a story March 29, 1903, in regards to the problem titled “The Rival Prophets.”

 

The Ahmadiyya consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founding father of the Ahmadiyya, who was born in 1835, to be the promised reformer the Prophet Muhammed predicted and that he fulfills the prophecies surrounding the second creation of the messiah Jesus.

Responding to Dowie’s declare, Ahmad challenged the priest: Each ought to name upon God to reveal the opposite as a false prophet. Dowie and a thousand of his followers would pray for Ahmad’s early demise, whereas Ahmad, with an analogous variety of followers, would petition for the evangelist’s speedy finish. “The primary of the 2 to die is to be proclaimed ‘a liar’ all through the world,” wrote the Occasions.

Though Dowie didn’t settle for the problem, when he died in 1907, a 12 months earlier than Ahmad, the Ahmadis took this as affirmation that Ahmad was the Messiah. 

Fath-e-Azeem, the identify of the brand new mosque means “nice victory” in Urdu, a language of northern India and Pakistan, symbolizing their founder’s overcome Dowiein.

The brand new mosque doesn’t sign “the victory of any faith,” stated Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the worldwide head of the Ahmadiyya group, in a speech on the mosque’s inauguration coated by Faith Information Service. Somewhat, the “victory” embedded within the mosque’s identify was meant to convey “who’s the true man of God”—Ahmad or Dowie. “We should always respect all of the religions,” the caliph stated. “It’s no exaggeration to state that it was an impressive instance of restraint within the face of immense provocation and hostility,” the caliph stated. That the Ahmadiyyas prevailed over Dowie was a triumph for all of humanity, as a result of it was a victory of “prayer over prejudice, mild over darkness, love over hate.”

The Fath-e-Azeem Mosque contains a everlasting exhibit dedicated to the Ahmad-Dowie prayer duel, which incorporates some 160 newspaper articles and historic images from throughout the nation in regards to the extensively reported problem.

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