The Heavenly Decree — Page 8
8 A sm a n i Fai s lah against me and declared me kafir and faithless. In order to delay the date of 20 th October 1891, which had been publicised in the aforementioned announcements, Mi yan Sahib repeatedly put forward the excuse that I was not a Muslim. He asked me to first prove my faith in Islam, only then would he enter into a debate with me. I again submitted with all due respect that I was not a kafir, and that I believed in all the tenets which Allah—glorified be His name—has prescribed for Muslims. Furthermore, as mentioned in my announcement of 23 rd October 1891, I also wrote a statement with my own hand that I believe in all the articles of Islam. Alas! Mi yan Sahib still continued to consider me and refer to me as a kafir. The sole excuse for not entering into a debate regarding the life or death of the Messiah was his insistence that I was a kafir, and that there was no point in debating with kafirs. If only he had an iota of fear of God in him, he should have withdrawn this fatwa of kufr against me when I issued the announcement about my being a Muslim and declaring my Islamic beliefs. He should have owned up his error publicly and given clear testimony to my faith in Islam with the same zeal as he had shown while announcing me to be an apostate before the crowd, and could have saved himself from a false assertion. He would have created for himself an excuse before God Almighty by withdrawing an unfounded fatwa. But this he did not do. Instead, as