Intro
We have found a rare reference in the story of the Musleh Maud. It seems that in 1916, via the Pagham e sulh, the Lahori-Ahmadi openly surmised that maybe, Mirza Sultan Ahmad (the eldest son of MGA) was the Musleh Maud (see “The Noble Son” by Jalal ud Din Shams, 1957, see page 51). After MGA died, in June-July of 1908, MGA’s son, Mirza Basheer ud Din Mahmud Ahmad writes in his magazine that the “Promised-Son” doesn’t have to necessarily be a biological son of MGA. However, as soon as Mirza Basheer ud Din Mahmud Ahmad became Khalifa, he forced his closest followers to begin writing essays wherein he would be connected with the Musleh Maud, and he remained silent. This started after a Qadiani wrote an article in May 1914 in the magazine Tashhiz-ul-Azhan, published from Qadian, trying to prove that Mirza Mahmud Ahmad was the Musleh Maud whose coming had been prophesied by the MGA. A few weeks later, Muhammad Ali wrote “Al-Muslih al-Mau‘ud” and claimed that none of the then living sons of MGA fulfilled the prophecy of being Muslih Mau‘ud and the Musleh Maud would come at the end of the 300 years from 1908 and thus, would turn 3 into 4. The 1944 edition of this book can be found on the Lahori-Ahmadi website, it is only in Urdu. A few weeks after that in the English Review of Religions for September-1914 (see pages 330-337), unknown Ahmadi authors were straight up claiming that the Khalifa, Mirza Basheer ud Din Mahmud Ahmad was the Musleh Maud, without question.
Nevertheless, in early 1916, while Mirza Sultan Ahmad was working in Lahore as “Additional Judge and Magistrate” Lahore, he seems to have begun working with the Lahori-Ahmadi’s and denying all types of prophethood’s. What’s odd is that his sons seem to have been living in Qadian and seem to have converted to Qadianism (Mirza Aziz Ahmad and Mirza Rashid Ahmad), their mother was the daughter of the infamous Mirza Imam ud Din (MGA’s cousin). Its unclear where and when she died. Mirza Sultan Ahmad was in his 60’s at this time. His essay in the Pagham e Sulh can be found herein, it is dated as 1-23-1916. Sheikh Muhammad Jan of Wazirabad read this article and immediately wrote to the manager/editor of the Pagham-e-Sulh and had his own essay published on 2-3-1916 wherein he remembered a vision from MGA’s father-in-law (the famous Mir Nasir Nawab), which claimed that Mirza Sultan Ahmad was the one to make 3 into 4 (the musleh maud prophecy)(see “The Noble Son” by Jalal ud Din Shams, 1957, see page 49). Sheikh Muhammad Jan seems to have been super friendly with both sides of Ahmadi’s (Qadiani’s and Lahori’s), however, he never got into any bait. The Qadiani-Ahmadi’s immediately responded on 2-15-1916 via the Al-Fazl, it seems that Mir Nasir Nawab, interpreted this to mean that he came to occupy a seat in the Ministry of the Princely State of Bahawalpur and nothing more.