Sub-Footnote Number Two1

The perfect and true revelation, which totally dispels all types of false notions held by the adherents of the Brahmu Samaj and other false religions and creeds, and takes a seeker after truth to the stage of perfect certainty, is none other than the Holy Quran. There is no other book in the world that can dispel the false notions of all creeds and lead man to the status of haqqul-yaqin [true certainty]. But alas! There are only a few in this blind and undiscerning world who, purely for the sake of God, put aside their religious and communal prejudices, detach themselves from worldly gains, and acknowledge the light and truth which God Almighty has specifically placed in the Holy Quran, and which cannot be found anywhere else. Far from accepting it, our opponents do not have enough decency to stop maligning it, even after they have clearly witnessed the truth and glory of the Holy Quran, and have been made aware of the corruption and misguidance of their own religions. This is a case of a thief who shows audacity instead of remorse.

For instance, the falsity of the Christians’ creed is evident from the fact that they have arbitrarily declared a humble creature to be the Lord of all the worlds. Nevertheless, they are so heedless of God that they have no fear of the Day of Reckoning, and slumber on, despite repeated efforts by numerous learned scholars to awaken them. Due to their perpetual materialism and religious indifference, they live under the illusion that the teachings of the Gospels are perfect and superior to the teachings of the Holy Quran. Recently, in the March 3, 1882 issue of Nur Afshan, a priest raised the question, ‘What does the Holy Quran or its author teach about eternal life that is not already contained in the Bible, and in what aspect are its commandments and teachings superior to those of the Gospels to prove the necessity of the revelation of the Quran in the presence of the Gospels.’ Similarly, an Arabic treatise named Risalah ‘Abdul-Masih ibn Ishaq al-Kindi has been fabricated with the intent to somehow make the defective and adulterated teachings of the Gospels seem praiseworthy in the eyes of unsuspecting people, and, at the same time, hurl baseless accusations against the teachings of the Holy Quran. Little do these ignorant Christians understand that praising one book and condemning another without evidence neither renders one praiseworthy nor the other condemnable.

Anyone can utter frivolous words, but observe how I have proven in this book that the teachings of the Gospels are devoid of truth and have established with hundreds of arguments that the teachings of the Holy Quran are a constellation of spiritual lights. All this is accompanied by a challenge promising a reward of ten thousand rupees [to anyone who can refute my arguments]. Indeed, our Benevolent God, who knows the secrets of the hearts, is my witness that I am willing to be put to death if someone can find even an iota of error in the teachings of the Holy Quran, or can prove that his own Scripture contains even the minutest merit contrary to, and better than the teachings of the Holy Quran.

Fair and just people!! Reflect and ponder over it for the sake of God and with a sense of honesty. What kind of piety and honesty is it that our opponents do not desist from uttering impertinences even when they have failed to face up to my challenge.

Come Christians, come here,
You will see the light of truth and find the path to God.

Show me in the Gospels, if you can,
All the perfections that are found in the Quran.

Be mindful of the Creator who watches you from on high,
And desist from misguiding His creatures.

How long will you remain in love with falsehood?
Will you not make use of the truth just for once!

O people! Have some fear of God,
Have some shame in His presence, O people.

Dear ones! The ease and comfort of this world shall not endure.
Dear ones! This is not an everlasting abode.

Dear ones! This is not the place to abide in,
Dear ones! No one has ever lived in it forever.

Why give your heart to this wilderness?
Why torment yourself on its account?

Why do you have no concern for the True Faith?
The very thought of which puts me in countless agonies.

Why do you not see the right path?
What veils are covering your heart?

Why such malice and arrogance?
Why have you forgotten God all at once?

Alas! You forgot the truth,
Alas! You turned your heart into stone.

Listen dear people! Without the Quran,
Man never reaches God.

Whoever is unaware of this light,
Is not fit for the eyes of the Friend.

The Furqan [the Holy Quran] has a wonderful effect,
In that it makes one a lover of the true Beloved.

It gives us authentic tidings of the One,
Whose name is the Greatest, the Almighty.

It draws man towards the abode of the Beloved,
And then it shows him signs beyond his ken.

It fills the heart with light divine,
And cleanses the breast thoroughly.

What more of its excellences should I describe,
Suffice it to say that it gives a new life to life.

It has shone forth like the dazzling sun,
How can anyone dare deny it.

It brought us to the land of the Beloved,
Having found it we found the Friend.

The whole Book is an ocean of wisdom,
It makes us inebriated with the wine of divine love.

When one is reminded of its words,
One’s heart gets emptied of the entire creation.

It imprints the image of God upon the heart,
And cleanses it of everything other than Him.

It is the only remedy for the anguished hearts,
It is the only guide granted by God that shows the way to God.

It is the only sun of guidance we have found,
It is the only beloved we know.

Whatever its detractors say,
Is nothing but nonsense.

If only they would come to me,
And say it all to my face;

And then listen to me describe its charms,
And hear about its splendour and beauty from me.

If they cannot see, they might be able to hear,
If not even that, it will at least serve as a test.

The above objections have been completely uprooted at their proper place in this book, but since the writer in Nur Afshan has specifically addressed me along with some other gentlemen, I feel it necessary to briefly address the issue at this point and remove his misconceptions.

It should be noted that believing the teachings of the Gospels to be perfect is a sure sign of a lack of intelligence and deficiency of understanding. Hazrat Masih [i.e, Jesus the Messiah] himself never considered the teachings of the Gospels to be complete, as he himself said:

I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. John 16: 12, 13, 142

Now, tell me, are these the Gospels which you say encompass all religious truths and eliminate the need for the Holy Quran.

Gentlemen!! When you have no right, according to the verdict of Hazrat Masih himself, to call the Gospels perfect and exhaustive, what kind of adherents are you who contradict your own Teacher and Prophet and label the book that Hazrat Masih had declared incomplete as complete. Do you possess better understanding than the Messiah [Jesus], or is his word not credible enough.

If you say that although the Gospels were imperfect at the time of the Messiah, he made a prophecy that the ‘Comforter’ would come and relate all the things he had left out, that is well and good. But let me ask you, who was this ‘Comforter’, the news of whose coming was given by the Messiah in the Gospels, and who was the person that was supposed to raise religious truths to the level of perfection and describe the events of the Hereafter in far greater detail than do the Gospels. Do you think that there is anyone other than Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, to whom the Holy Quran—which claims to be more perfect than all past Scriptures and provides proof of this claim—was revealed, who came after the Messiah, perfected all religious truths and foretold future events more clearly than the Messiah had done. If there is such a person, please tell us his name and show us the Scripture that God gave to the Christians after the Messiah, containing truths that the Messiah had omitted, and giving news of the future that the Messiah failed to explain so that such a book can be compared with the Holy Quran.

It does not behove you, however, to call yourselves followers of the Messiah and yet declare as perfect something which he had declared imperfect 1,882 years ago. If you do not believe the word of the Messiah, and wish to compare the Gospels with the Holy Quran yourself, you are most welcome to produce from the Gospels the excellences that I have demonstrated with regard to the Holy Quran in this book. Honest people will then judge for themselves which of the two—the Holy Quran or the Gospels—is the true source of divine enlightenment.

Since I have issued a challenge with a reward of ten thousand rupees, so as to arrive at a clear distinction between the Gospels and the Holy Quran, if you fail to demonstrate, like a truthful person, the excellences of your scriptures as against our Book, no sensible Christian will believe you in his heart even though he may apparently nod with approval. But rest assured, gentlemen!! That neither the Gospels nor the Torah can compete with the excellences of the Holy Quran. We need not go far: Let us examine these scriptures with respect to the two excellences of the Holy Quran that I have so far mentioned in this book. The first, which is recorded in the main body of the text, is that the Holy Quran is the repository of all divine truths, and no scholar can produce a single subtle point of theology that is not already present in the Holy Quran. If your Gospels have any merit, then it is incumbent upon you to rationally refute the arguments and doctrines of any of your opponents, such as Brahmu Samajists, Aryah Samajists or atheists, on its basis, and thus defeat—with rational arguments derived from your Gospels—the propaganda they have spread all over the country. Then compare the Gospels with the Holy Quran and ask a third party which of them, the Gospels or the Holy Quran, is truly convincing.

The second area of comparison is the one I have detailed in Sub-Footnote Number One,3 i.e., the Holy Quran helps a true seeker to establish a living spiritual relationship with the Eternally Besought One, which results in him being blessed with divine revelation. The revelations draw divine bounties upon him and make him one of the elect of God and the truth of these revelations is established with the fulfilment of the prophecies they contain. This relationship, as I have written above, is the essence of eternal life, as the [eternal] life depends on attaching oneself with the Living [God]. The truth of any book whose adherence enables one to witness the signs of such a relationship becomes clear—indeed, clearer than the sun—because it does not make mere empty claims, but actually leads to the desired objective. So I will now ask Christian gentlemen that if their Gospels are indeed true and perfect and divinely revealed, then they should demonstrate their spiritual effects, as against those of the Holy Quran, of which I have given adequate proof. They should also produce from among their own people such instances of heavenly blessings and of disclosure of the unseen as have been—and continue to be—experienced by Muslims by virtue of their adherence to the Holy Quran and following in the footsteps of Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa [the Chosen One], Afdalur-Rusul [the Most Exalted of the Messengers] and Khatamur-Rusul [the Seal of the Messengers], peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

Thus will the liar stand exposed. Remember, however, that you can never compete with the Holy Quran in either of the above-mentioned two aspects. Far from being perfect, the teachings of the Gospels are no longer intact, for, by declaring the son of Mary to be son of God, they have shown themselves to be demonstrably false right from the beginning. As for the teachings of the Torah, they are so flawed and distorted that they virtually serve as putty in the hands of Jews and Christians, who make of them what they like. Had the Torah detailed those aspects of things divine and of the Hereafter, which are found in the Holy Quran, the Jews and Christians would not have had so many disputes. The truth is that a single verse of Surah al-Ikhlas4 says more about God’s Oneness than the Torah or even the whole Bible. If the Christians disagree, the onus is upon them to prove otherwise.

Since the Torah—indeed the entire Bible—does not contain a clear and thorough discourse upon the Oneness of God, this creates a conflict between the Torah and the Gospels. The result is that nothing is definitely settled, and Jews and Christians differ widely about the very fundamentals of faith. The same Torah conveys one meaning to Christians and quite a different meaning to Jews. Such being the case, which seeker after truth would not desire from the bottom of his heart that God, the Maker, in His all-encompassing mercy, should arbitrate between the parties that had gone astray and inform the errant of his error.

Do understand that the Holy Quran was revealed to settle these very disputes and to reveal the truths which needed to be revealed due to the prevalence of misguided beliefs and also to carry the knowledge of faith to its perfection. With its descent, this Holy Word met all these requirements, corrected all of the errors and carried religious knowledge to its ultimate perfection. It neither unduly demanded an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, nor enjoined pardon and leniency in every case; rather, it taught true virtue, whether it be in the form of harshness or kindness, retribution or forgiveness.

The holy light of the Quran has ushered in the dawn of a bright morning,
The fresh morning breeze is blowing over the blossoms of the heart.

No one has witnessed such light, such brilliance, even in the midday sun,
Nor has anybody beheld such charm and beauty in any moonlit night.

Yusuf [Joseph] fell into the well all alone,
But this Yusuf [i.e., the Quran] has rescued countless souls from the pit [of misguidance].

The Quran has brought with it hundreds of verities from the Source of Truth,
The fragile new moon is bowed down to show its respect.

How would you know the true grandeur of the Quran’s teachings,
It is the heavenly honey that drips down from Divine Revelation.

Ever since this sun of truth rose in the world,
The owls who worship darkness hid away in their holes.

No one sees the face of certainty,
But he who loves the face of the Beloved.

He who acquires the knowledge of the Quran, himself becomes a treasury of knowledge,
He who has not seen this teacher knows nothing of this world.

The rain of divine grace comes to guide such a person,
But wretched is he who runs away from it.

The inclination towards evil is a satanic trait;
A true human, I say, is one who is delivered from all evils.

O treasure of beauty, I know whence you came,
You are the light of God, who created all creation.

I have forsaken all else, you alone are now my beloved,
For you are the light that has come to us from the Lord who answers our supplications.

Moreover…

The light of the Quran is the brightest of all lights,
Holy is He from whom this river of spiritual light issued forth.

The tree of faith in the Oneness of God was about to wither away;
All of a sudden, this pure spring gushed forth from the unseen.

O Allah! Your Furqan [the Holy Quran] is a universe in itself;
It contains everything that was ever needed.

We searched the whole world, we rummaged through all the shops,
But we found only this one goblet containing true knowledge of the Divine.

The similitude of this light cannot be found in the entire world,
For it is unique in every way, and matchless in every quality.

At first we thought that the Quran is like the staff of Moses,
But on further reflection, we found every word to be a Messiah.

Blind as they are, it is their own fault;
Otherwise, this light has shone as bright as a hundred suns.

How pathetic is the life of those people in this world,
Whose hearts remained blind even in the presence of this light.

Such people, whose every word is but an effigy of falsehood,
Are burnt [in the fire of jealousy] even before they are put into the Fire.

A Christian spokesman—the same correspondent who wrote in Nur Afshan—also writes the following, using a pseudonym, on the same subject: ‘Had the writer not been busy in his worldly affairs, he would have shown from which sources the Holy Quran had been plagiarized.’ How strange, gentlemen! How unmistakably you have followed in the footsteps of the Jews. You have dragged the same objection to the Holy Quran which the Jews have long levelled against the Gospels. You must not have uttered such a blatant lie in the entire span of your life as you have done now to please the Christians.

In any case, this statement of yours5 is exactly like that of the Jews, all of whom emphatically claim that the Messiah plagiarized the Gospels from the holy books of Israelite Prophets. Actually, Jewish scholars and divines even cite specific places in the books from which such texts are said to have been plagiarized. Likewise, Pundit Dayanand has vociferously claimed in his books that the Torah was extracted from the old Hindu books and that this is why the ritual of ‘burnt offering’ is to be found in it, as it is in the Vedas. In fact, you yourself admit that the Hindu teachings have many similarities in common with those of the Gospels. This admission on your part amounts to a confirmation of the Hindu claim. No such allegations can, however, be levelled against the Holy Quran, nor can any malicious person succeed in conspiring against it. You have not done yourself any favours by trying to spit at the sun, for the spit will only fall back on your own face.

My dear sir, in all probability your intention in making your baseless claims is to please the simple-minded among the Christians, for the intellectual ones will only laugh at such empty rhetoric. If you are indeed aware of the Jewish, Christian, and Magian sources from which the Quran and all its truths and verities were allegedly plagiarized, then why do you hesitate to produce something that will restore the honour of all Christians and wash away the old stain of defeat and surrender, not to mention the ten thousand rupees that will be yours for the taking. If you do in fact possess the qualities that even the Messiah did not possess, then what are you waiting for. If you can counter the Holy Quran and even trace its origins, it should not be difficult for you to counter all the Quranic truths, verities, proofs, and blessings that have been written in Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya for the very purpose that someone should produce their like and win all the money promised in the challenge. Since it is also evident from your writing that you are financially constrained and in dire need of money, what would be a better way to fulfil your worldly needs than to leave everything aside and immediately take up the task of showing from your own scriptures all of the divine sciences, rational insights and spiritual effects of the Holy Quran, and receive your reward. Thus, you would earn yourself great renown, for you would have succeeded where Hazrat Masih had failed and was forced to leave this world, admitting the deficiency of his teachings. The battle which he turned his back on would be won by you. In a sense, Christians would regard you as superior to the Messiah, for you would have revealed the perfection of a book which the Messiah had always considered imperfect. Being in desperate financial straits, how can you turn away from the chance of receiving such a large sum. If, perchance, you are unable to undertake the task by yourself, you are welcome to seek the cooperation of two, four, ten or even twenty of the missionaries who go about in towns and villages—serving no good purpose—and then see what comes of fighting God. Otherwise, the honesty and righteousness of the Christians—whatever it is—will become apparent to anyone who reads my valiant challenge and hears your sorry excuses.

In the May 25, 1882 issue of Nur Afshan, another Christiangentleman enquires as to the signs or conditions that distinguish between a true saviour and a false one. The answer is that the true saviour, who comes from God, can only be the one through whose obedience one is led to true salvation. In other words, God so blesses his discourse that his perfect follower is delivered from the darkness of the self and impurities of human nature, and his heart is filled with the light that necessarily accompanies pure hearts. But as long as a follower falls short of full obedience, the darkness of his soul will not disappear, nor will inner light make itself manifest. This, however, will not be the fault of the Prophet who is being followed, but of the one who claims to be the follower, who, owing to doctrinal or practical errors, is deprived and veiled. This is the true mark of distinction that does not leave one at the mercy of old fables and tales; rather, it enables him to become a seeker after truth and to recognize the true guide and benefactor. Then he not only witnesses the holiness and light that is believed to be associated with a perfect benefactor, but actually experiences it to the measure of his capacity. Salvation to him is no longer something imaginary that will take place on the Day of Resurrection, for he finds the reality of salvation in this very world after he has been freed from the torment of ignorance, darkness, doubt, suspicion, and the affliction of selfish desires, and has been thoroughly imbued by heavenly light.

Now that this has been established to be the sign of a true saviour—and to find whom is the greatest objective of any seeker after truth, the true aim of his life, and the ultimate cause of his following a religion—it should be borne in mind that this sign is found only in Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. Inner light and love of God can be obtained only by following him, which is dependant upon following the Holy Quran.

The Holy Quran, around which revolves the obedience to the Holy Prophet, is such a book that by following it, the signs of salvation are manifested in this very world. This is the only book which, through overt and covert means, perfects defective souls and delivers them from doubts and suspicions.

The overt way is that its statements are so comprehensive of verities and fine points that it refutes, through rational arguments, all of the doubts which prevent people from reaching God and because of which hundreds of false sects are flourishing and hundreds of false doctrines are occupying the hearts of misguided people. All the light of the true and perfect teaching needed to dispel the darkness of the present age, shines forth from it like the sun; and the remedy for all the ills of the soul is set out in it, and the exposition of all true insights is contained in it. There is no subtlety of the knowledge of the Divine which can possibly be disclosed at any time in the future, which has been left out of it. The covert way is that by truly following it, man, being purified wholly of inner vices, establishes a relationship with the Lord on High, and the light of his acceptance by God begins to descend upon him.

He is so encircled by divine favours that when he supplicates to God in times of difficulty, God Almighty responds to him through His perfect mercy and compassion. Sometimes it happens that, when he is surrounded by his difficulties and sorrows, even if he supplicates a thousand times, he receives a loving response from his Gracious Lord every time in eloquent, sweet, and blessed words. Divine revelation descends upon him like rain and he finds his heart so filled with the love of God as a transparent glass phial is filled with a delicate perfume. He is bestowed such pure delight of affection and zeal which, by breaking the strong chains of his ego, pulls him out of this hazy condition and bestows new life upon him every moment with the cool and comforting breezes of the True Beloved. Even before his death, he himself witnesses the divine favours with his own eyes which other people hope for in the life after death.

All of these bounties do not depend upon any monastic exercises or discipline, but are bestowed in consequence of following the Holy Quran completely, and every true seeker can achieve them. However, for their achievement, perfect love of Khatamur-Rusul [the Seal of the Messengers] and Fakhrur-Rusul [the Pride of the Messengers] is a condition. In consequence of the love of Allah’s Prophet, a person partakes, according to his capacity, of the light that has been bestowed in its perfection on the Holy Prophet. Thus, there is no better way for a seeker after truth than to embrace this Faith through someone possessing insight and understanding and, by following the Divine Word and developing love of the Beloved Prophet, to witness the truth of our statements with his own eyes. If he turns to me with a sincere heart for the achievement of this purpose, I would be ready, trusting in the grace and bounty of God, to show him the way of obedience, but both the grace of God and personal capacity would be needed.

It should be borne in mind that true salvation is like good health. As good health is a condition in which all of the signs of health should be apparent, and there should be no disorder affecting health, in the same way, true salvation is that which shows signs of the attainment of salvation. That which is proved to exist should exhibit the effects and conditions of such existence, for without these effects and conditions its existence cannot be established. As I have pointed out several times, the conditions for the establishment of someone’s salvation are that withdrawal towards God and the supremacy of the love of God should reach such a perfect stage that through his company, attention, and prayers these qualities should be produced in other persons who possess the capacity. In his own personal condition, his inner-self should be so illumined that his blessings should be self-evident in the sight of a seeker after truth; he should possess all the special qualities and the honour of converse with the Divine, which are the signs of those who are close to God.

No one should be misled by the prophecies of astrologers and soothsayers. It should be remembered that these people have no relationship with the light and blessings of the men of God. I have written before that human instruments have no relationship with powerful prophecies and benevolent promises that are the very truth and which convey the good news of victory, help, majesty, and honour. God Almighty has bestowed such natures upon the men of God that their looks, company, attention, and prayers possess the qualities of a sovereign remedy, provided that the beneficiary possess the requisite ability. Such people are recognized not only through their prophecies but through their treasures of understanding, their extraordinary trust, their perfect love, total abandonment of all [besides God], their sincerity, their determination, their love of God, their pleasure and delight, their extreme humility, the purity of their souls, their discarding the love of the world, the abundant blessings which descend upon them like rain, their having the support of God, their incomparable steadfastness, their fidelity of the highest degree, their unparalleled righteousness and purity, their grand resolve, and the satisfaction of their hearts.

Prophecies are not their true purpose; rather, the purpose is that by mentioning in advance the blessings that are about to descend upon them, and upon those connected with them, they should assure people that they are the objects of special attention from God. Moreover, the purpose of the communications that they receive from God is to present a conclusive and certain proof of their integrity and their being from God.

Those people on whom these holy blessings are bestowed in abundance are such concerning whom the law of divine power and eternal wisdom has determined that their doctrines should be true and pure, and that they should be established in the true faith, and should have a strong relationship with God, and should be exceedingly withdrawn from the world and all that it contains. Such persons are quite like the [proverbial] philosopher’s stone. Their innate nature has an inviolate affinity with divine light and true faith. It would be the height of stupidity and extremely unfortunate to compare their highly qualified selves, who comprise all blessings, with unfortunate astrologers and soothsayers, for they have no relationship with such contemptible, worldly people. On the contrary, they are heavenly lights, like the sun and the moon, and the eternal law of divine wisdom has created them so that by coming into the world they should illumine it.

It should be borne in mind that God has created certain remedies for physical illnesses and has brought into the world excellent things like antidotes, and so on for diverse types of pains and disorders and has invested these remedies from the beginning with the characteristic that when a diseased person, whose illness has not gone beyond remedy, uses these medicines with proper care, the Absolute Healer bestows, to some degree, health and strength upon the patient according to his capacity and ability, or restores him fully to health. Likewise, God Almighty has, from eternity, invested the pure spirits of these accepted ones with the characteristic that their attention, prayers, companionship and high resolve are the remedy for spiritual ills. Their souls become the recipients of diverse types of grace through visions and converse with the Divine, and then, all that grace manifests a grand effect for the guidance of mankind.

In short, these men of God are a mercy for the creatures of God. As it is the divine law of nature in this world of cause and effect that a thirsty one slakes his thirst by drinking water, and a hungry one satisfies the pangs of hunger by eating food; in the same way, by Divine Law, Prophets and their perfect followers become the ways and means of healing spiritual ills. Hearts obtain satisfaction in their company, impurities of human nature begin to recede, darknesses of the ego are lifted, zeal of love for the Divine surges, and heavenly blessings manifest their splendour. Without them, none of this can be achieved, and these are their special signs by which they are recognized. [So ponder over this matter and be not heedless].

[—Author]