A Gift for the Queen — Page 5
5 own thinking and understanding; or, there were some religions whose foundation was in fact laid by a true prophet of God but their true teachings were forgotten with the passage of time. The followers of the latter turned to creature-worship by taking some similes or parables literally. The fact is that those prophets did not teach such a religion. It is not the fault of those prophets, as they brought a wholesome and pure teaching; rather, the ignorant followers assigned perverted meaning to their statements. Such ignorant people did not claim that God’s word descended on them or that they were prophets. Rather, they misunderstood and misinterpreted the prophetic word. Though such mistakes and deviations are a sin and are hateful to God, yet He does not stop their proliferation as He stops the work of a liar who lies against God. No government, whether heavenly or earthly, gives respite to a liar who fabricates a law and claims that it is authenticated by the government. A government would never allow someone to pose as a government employee and exercise authority and make people believe that he is a government official when not only is he not an officer, he is not even a lowly employee. Therefore, this law is part of the eternal practice of Almighty God that He does not grant respite to a false prophet. Such a person is soon seized and suffers his punishment. In view of this, we shall honour and accept as true all those who claimed to be prophets at any time, and their claim was established and their religion became widespread and flourished over a long period. If we should discover mistakes in the scriptures of their religions or should observe the misconduct of their followers, we should not attribute these faults and shortcomings to the founders of these religions, inasmuch as the perversion of scriptures is possible and