Arba'in — Page 88
88 ARBAIN لَوْ تَقَوَّلَ he has forged'] to be completed in the same way. 1* It is for this reason that I have had this announcement published with a reward of five hundred rupees, and should trust be lacking, I am able to deposit these rupees in any government bank in advance. If Hafız Muhammad Yūsuf and his other religious counter- parts, whose names I have recorded in this announcement, are truthful in this claim of theirs—that is to say, if the statement is correct that anyone who claims to be a Prophet or a Messenger and an Appointee from Allah, and openly and publicly proclaims revelations to people in the name of God, yet despite being a liar continues to live up to the equivalent of twenty-three years, which is the period of wahī [revelation] of the Holy Prophet, may peace 1. ✩ Certain foolish people of the present time, after having faced defeat many a time, wish then to debate with me in light of ahādīth or they are desirous that I enter into such debate with others. Their condition is pitiable. They do not want to leave aside a few ahādīth which are mere collections of conjectures, interpolated and doubtful in nature. And there are other ahādīth opposed to them, and, furthermore, the Holy Quran declares them to be fabricated. So how can I discard such illumi- nating evidence whose one side the Holy Quran supports, and the wit- ness of whose truth is the authentic ahādīth on another side, and [yet] on another side the word of God which descends upon me is witness, and on another side the previous Scriptures are witness, and on anoth- er side reasoning is witness, and [furthermore] on another side those hundreds of Signs that are being manifested at my hand are witness? Therefore, to debate on the basis of ahādīth is not the correct way to reach a decision. God has informed me already that the wordings and the meanings of all the ahādīth which they present are either tampered with or they are definitely fabricated. The person who is sent as Hakam [Arbiter] has the authority to accept, with knowledge granted from God, a collection of ahādīth out of the stockpile of ahādīth, and reject another collection with the knowledge gained from God. Author