Haqiqatul-Wahi (The Philosophy of Divine Revelation) — Page 684
684 HAQIQATUL-WAHI-THE PHILOSOPHY OF DIVINE REVELATION his own revelation that بعد از خدا بزرگ توئی قصہ مختصر ]‘The sum and substance of it all is that after God, you are the greatest. ’]—a revelation, of which Munshi 'Abdul-Haqq is, among several others, also a witness-how can it be that such a person who claims to be the greatest in stature after God, and who claims to be the Mūsā of the age, should die of the plague that symbolizes the wrath of God? Can any wise person accept such a thing? And if someone should assert that Bābū Ilāhī Bakhsh did not die of the plague, then what could possibly be my reply besides say- ing لَعْنَةُ اللَّهِ عَلَى الْكَاذِبِينَ ]The curse of Allah be upon the liars']? Letters received from Lahore reveal that Ilāhī Bakhsh had gone to attend the funeral of Yaqub, son of Muhammad Ishaq. This Yaqub had died of the plague. It was there that Ilāhī Bakhsh contracted the plague. The newspaper, Paisa Akhbār, dated 10 April, contains the following report: ☆ A tragic death: We regret to announce that Maulawi Ilāhī Bakhsh Accountant (Pensioner) died on Monday, 8 April,¹ at Maulawi Abdul-Haqq's house, after suffering from fever for only a day. Now, a sensible person can understand how severe the spread of the plague was in Lahore during those days as is still the case. So far, thou- sands of people have died only due to this particular kind of fever. And what kind of fever is there apart from the plague that can do away with a man in only one day? Bear in mind that plague is inseparably accompanied by a high fever which proves fatal within one or two days. Given that the plague was raging in Lahore when Ilāhī Bakhsh died and he had gone to participate in the funeral rites of another victim of the plague and had fainted there, was some evil spirit supposed to be responsible for his collapse? Obviously, those were the days when the 1. The date is wrongly reported in the newspaper. In fact, this incident happened on the 7th [of April] at 6 pm. (Author)