A Present to Kings — Page 37
( 37 ) missionaries. Thus it is impossible to demonstrate the. Superiority of Islam to other creeds on the basis of stories and traditions, because those creeds too possess many traditions, and there is no reason why we should ask others to accept our traditions while rejecting theirs. And if we begin adducing evidence to establish the authenticity of our traditions, then it will be such a lengthy process as will take years in the discussion and a long historical controversy will ensue and a decision regarding the true religion will become a most difficult affair. Islam therefore does not ask that its truth should be tested by stories and tradition, rather it claims to be a faith which can show living miracles and no age does pass wherein Almighty God does not show some mighty proof of its truth. This is the test in the production of which the followers of other creeds fall short, and when they are summoned to it, their eyes are cast down and their tongues are tied, and they display a poverty of argument and a dumbness of speech. And as a matter of fact the best evidence of a truth is that it should be accompanied in every age by its own proofs, because when any person does see with his own eyes the proof of the truth of a faith he can not possibly refuse to confess its truth. . THE PROOF OF THE TRUTH OF A RELIGION LIES IN. THE ADVENT OF INSPIRED MEN. . All the religions of the world are now busy putting in each on its own behalf a claim to truth, and every one of them boasts of a noble ancestry. "Ours is the true system" say the followers of each creed and the proof of the fact is that God used to hold converse with our forbears. " But quite different is the argument put forward by Islam. It says that the men who fully carry out its instructions are favoured by it with ever-living evidence of truth. The followers of Islam have no need to hunt up old books for stories. They may convince themselves of the truth of Islam by their own experience, because Islam does not close the door of Divine revelation but has left it open for all times. And in fact not only does it believe in the possibility of revelation, but positively requires