Blessings of Prayer — Page 33
33 Prophet whom he follows. Thus, his discourse is not mere conjecture, but he says what he has seen and speaks what he has heard. * And this way is open for this umma, for it is not possible that there should be no true inheritor [of blessings of Prophethood], nor is disbelievers, apart from the fact that the revelation of Prophets is ever flawless, while the inspiration of philosophers, such as Aristotle, Plato, etc. , was not so. This would, however, be a baseless claim and would, in fact, amount to sheer audacity; for we would have to believe that a good many portions of the exhortations and moral teachings of the philosophers— which happen to be free from error and are in consonance with the Holy Quran—are also the word of God, equal in status to the Holy Quran, and have been revealed in the form of words. The rest which contain errors should be entered into the category of 'error of interpretation', just as the Prophets also, at times, commit errors of interpretation. According to this principle, therefore, such philosophers and even disbelievers should be regarded as Prophets. This concept is such that it might well end up destroying Sayyid Sahib’s faith and he might even at one time declare the inspiration of geniuses, such as Newton, to be superior to the revelation of the Holy Quran. Alas! had Sayyid Sahib adopted the Holy Quran itself as the criterion for understanding its verities, he would not have fallen in this pit of ruin. Nowhere does the Holy Quran liken its revelation to a fountain that gushes forth from the earth, rather it always likens it to the rain that falls from heaven. Sayyid Sahib would surely have saved himself from stumbling if, before writing his book, he had enquired from a person with first-hand experience of revelation about its nature and mode of descent. Because of this error, Sayyid Sahib has led astray a large number of Muslims and has brought them to the brink of heresy and atheism by undermining the sanctity of the revelation of Prophethood, and by confining it to a natural ability which is also shared by the faithless and the infidels. I will now, merely for the sake of God, present my own testimony before Sayyid Sahib, hoping that God Almighty will have mercy on him. My dear Sayyid Sahib! I swear in the name of God that revelation from heaven falls upon the heart just as the rays of the sun fall upon a wall. It is my daily experience that whenever the time comes for me to receive Divine Contd…