Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya Part III — Page 118
BarĀhĪn-e-a H madiyya — Part three 118 Allah and cannot be reached or attained by any other means. Deprive a newborn child of all knowledge and leave him to study the book of nature—which the Brahm u Sam a jists believe to be open—and then see what enlightenment he achieves and what level of cognition of God he reaches. Repeated observations have shown that unless people receive knowledge of the existence of God through the sense of hearing, whose ultimate source is revelation, they will never be able to know whether or not the world has a creator. And even if they strive to find the Creator, they will be inclined to take created objects, such as water, fire, or the sun and moon, etc. , as their creator and worthy of worship, as has been repeatedly confirmed by the study of uncivilized people. It was only through the blessings of revelation that man came to recognize the peerless and matchless God as befitted His perfect and flawless being. Those who became uninformed of revelation and had no revealed book to turn to, and had no available means of knowing about revelation, achieved no understanding of Allah, despite the fact that they possessed eyes and hearts. On the contrary, they gradually moved away from humaneness and deteriorated close to the level of dumb ani- mals, and derived no advantage from the book of nature. It is obvious that if that book had been open, uncivilized people would have taken advantage of it and would have achieved equality in enlightenment and cognition of God with those who had progressed in the cognition of God through divine revelation. So what greater proof is needed that the book of nature is closed than the fact that whoever relied solely upon it, and never heard of divine revelation, was altogether deprived of the cognition of God and even remained far removed and bereft of human manners. If, however, by the book of nature being open it is meant that it should be physically visible, this is a baseless notion that has no bearing on the subject at hand. What does it matter if something is always vis- ible, if it does not provide any religious benefit nor lead man towards God without being guided by divine revelation.