Haqiqatul-Wahi (The Philosophy of Divine Revelation) — Page 143
POSTSCRIPT—RESPONSE TO SOME CRITICS' OBJECTIONS 143 offer prayers behind us. Rather, we should not be allowed to enter the mosques because we are disbelievers; mosques become defiled by us and if we do enter, the mosque ought to be thoroughly washed. Moreover, it is permissible to steal our goods, and we deserve execu- tion because we deny the coming of a murderous Mahdi and repudi- ate jihad [with the sword]. But what damage have they caused us despite these edicts? When this edict was published in the country, not even ten persons had entered into a covenant of allegiance with me, but today, by the grace of God, the number exceeds 300,000; seekers after truth are joining this Jama'at with great vigour. Is this how God helps the 'disbelievers' when they confront the 'believers'? Moreover, look at their lie that they accuse me of declaring 200,000,000 Muslims who recite the Kalimah [the declaration of faith in Islam] as ‘kāfirs, whereas we did not take any initiative in this matter. Their scholars issued edicts of apostasy against us on their own and caused a furore in the Punjab and India that these people [Ahmadis] are kafirs. Because of these edicts, the ignorant people began to hate us to such an extent that they started considering it sinful to even address us politely. Can any maulawi, or any other opponent, or any custodian of a shrine prove that we were the first to issue edicts of apostasy against them? Let them produce any document, announcement, or treatise published by me prior to their own edicts of apostasy against us, in which I had pronounced my Muslim antagonists to be kāfirs; other- wise, they should consider how dishonest it is that they are the ones who declared us to be kāfirs, yet accuse us of denouncing all Muslims as kāfirs. How hurtful is such dishonesty, falsehood, and obfuscation of the facts. Any reasonable person can understand that now that they have declared us to be kāfirs through their edicts—and are themselves agreed that if any person declares a Muslim to be a kafir, then this [false