Fazle Umar
Illness and demise The health of Hadhrat Khalifatul Masih II [ra] entered upon a prolonged process of slow but progressive decline and the end came on 8 November 1965. His demise shook the Movement to its foundations. Every member of the Movement was overwhelmed with grief, the depth and intensity of which were beyond measure. The shock was bewildering and baffling. It seemed that the vacuum thus created would be hard, if not impossible, to fill. Everyone, however, realised that the Divine Will was supreme and no human being was immortal. The members of the Community converged in large numbers upon Rabwah for the purpose of seeking comfort and consolation from each other’s company and to pay their tribute of love and devotion to the sacred memory of the holy one who had guided the destinies of the Movement for more than half a century and had given freely of his love, sympathy and support to everyone without discrimination. T he election of Ha dhrat K halifatul M asih I I I [ra] The President of the Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya, in conformity with the constitution of the Electoral College, convened a meeting of the College on 8 November for the purpose of electing the new Khalifa. The interval between the demise of Hadhrat Khalifatul Masih II [ra] and the meeting of the Electoral College was spent by everyone in humble and earnest supplication to the Divine, that the members of the Electoral College may be rightly guided in their choice of the Successor to Hadhrat Khalifatul Masih II [ra]. The College met in a deeply prayerful mood and Sahibzada Mirza Nasir Ahmad sahib, eldest son of the departed Khalifatul Masih, who had been Principal of the Ta’limul Islam College for 21 years, was elected Khalifatul Masih III by an overwhelm-
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