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the poor Christians to believe that by “Kingdom of
God” Jesus (pbuh) only meant his Church, and that he
himself was the “Son of Man”.

These important points will be fully discussed, if
Allah will, later on; but for the present I have to content
myself with remarking that what Jesus (pbuh) announced
was, it was Islam that was the Kingdom of God and that it
was Muhammad (pbuh) who was the Son of Man, who was
appointed to destroy the Beast and to establish the powerful
Kingdom of the People of the Saints of the Most High.

The religion of God, until Jesus Christ (pbuh) , was
consigned chiefly to the people of Israel; it was more
material and of a national character. Its lawyers, priests,
and scribes had disfigured that religion with a gross and
superstitious literature of the traditions of their forefathers.
Christ condemned those traditions, denounced the Jews
and their leaders as “hypocrites” and “the children of the
Devil.” Although the demon of idolatry had left Israel, yet
later on seven demons had taken possession of that people
(Matt. xii. 43-45; Luke xi. 24-26).

Christ reformed the old religion; gave a new
life and spirit to it; he explained more explicitly the
immortality of the human soul, the resurrection and the
life in the next world; and publicly announced that the
Messiah whom the Jews were expecting was not a Jew
or a son of David, but a son of Ishmá’íl whose name
was Ahmad, and that he would establish the Kingdom
of God upon earth with the power of the Word of God
and with sword. Consequently, the religion of Islam
received a new life, light and spirit, and its adherents
were exhorted to be humble, to show forbearance
and patience. They were beforehand informed of
persecutions, tribulations, martyrdoms, and prisons.
The early “Nassara,” as the Quran calls the believers
in the Gospel of Jesus Christ (pbuh) , suffered ten fearful