A Gift for An-Nadwah — Page 24
24 these false claimants? In whose favour was the Hadith of D a r-e-Qu t n i regarding the eclipses fulfilled? For whom did the plague strike in accordance with [the prophecy found in] authentic Traditions? For whom did the comet appear? For whom was the sign of Lekhr a m and many others manifested? If the Nadwatul-Ulema wish to live commensurately with the grandiose name they have chosen for themselves and long for the truth, whether Ha fi z Sahib himself desires it or not, they should at the very least ask him under oath to prove that the period of revelation of past false claimants of prophethood lasted for the same time as the complete revelation of the Holy Quran, i. e. , 23 years. He should also be directed to show that those claimants swore that they were prophets and that their revelation was as indubitable as the verses of the Holy Quran. More- over, he should provide evidence of whether or not such people were considered apostates by the ulema of the time. If not, then, why not? Were the ulema so iniq- uitous and corrupt that they showed such negligence in matters of religion? He should also be asked to produce evidence of where these false claimants were buried, i. e. , whether they were buried in Muslim or non-Muslim cemeteries and whether they were executed under