During the course of the week at Baitur Rahman, Hazur‐Aqdas met with a number of other dignitaries. This included Daniel Ohene Agyekum, Ghana’s Ambassador to the USA. The ambassador seemed truly delighted to visit Hazur at Baitur Rahman and the meeting was very friendly and warm. Both Hazur and the Ambassador shared memories of Ghana and the Ambassador was struck by how much Hazur knew about Ghana.
Another meeting was with Alejandro Beutel, who was a young Muslim, who worked for MPAC, which is a national group representing Muslims in the USA. I and a few others met with him before and after Hazur met with him and he was very confident, to the point of perhaps being even a little over‐confident. But when Hazur entered his attitude was very different and you could see in his eyes that he was awestruck by Hazur’s presence. Indeed he admitted as much after Hazur had departed the meeting.
Hazur was also visited by Tim Lenderking, the Director of Pakistan Affairs at the United States State Department. This was a very sober and detailed discussion in which Mr Lenderking spoke about his contact with Pakistani officials and asked Hazur how the USA could assist Ahmadis.
Hazur‐Aqdas spoke in detail about the difficulties faced by Ahmadis in Pakistan and the lack of peace they had in their daily lives.
Hazur spoke about the need for Ahmadis to be granted voting rights that were free and not based on them having to, God forbid, class themselves as either non‐Muslim on the one hand or on the other hand to disassociate themselves from the Promised Messiah (als).
Similar discussions were also held with Congressman Michael Honda and Congresswoman Jackie Speier.
Hazur‐Aqdas also met with a group of US military chaplains. As Hazur mentioned in a Friday Sermon after the tour concluded, one of the chaplains asked Hazur if he was nervous at the thought of having to speak in front of many political leaders at Capitol Hill the next day.
Hazur‐Aqdas remarked that he was not nervous and the reason for this was that whatever he planned to say was based on the teachings of the Holy Qur’an. Hazur‐Aqdas said that wherever he went in the world, he limited himself to the words of the Qur’an, and because of that he had no reason to be fearful or nervous in front of any audience.
You could see that the chaplain who asked the question was visibly impressed by the total belief and confidence that Hazur had in the text of the Holy Qur’an, Masha’Allah.