The Holy War — Page 243
Proceedings—Debate 3 June 1893 243 by compulsion. What does this mean that ‘fight them until there is no opposition to the religion of Allah and all religion becomes wholly for Allah’? And then what can this mean, ‘But if they repent and observe Prayer and pay the Zakat, then leave their way free. Otherwise, attack them from every path’? Then, from among them also, ‘if any idolater asks for protection, grant him protection till he may hear the Word of Allah, then convey him to a place of secu- rity’; in other words, such a place of protection where strangers cannot cause trouble, and if they turn away from Islam then they should not cause harm to any Muslim. Then, what does this mean that ‘either you kill them or they will submit’? The summary is very clear; all of these statements are commands to compel belief. The remaining answer in the Paper of 2 June— Then, Sir, you mentioned again the Word becoming flesh, the Word, meaning the Second Person of the Godhead. In the first chapter of John it is written thus that the Word became flesh but its manifestation, for the office of Messiahship, became apparent at the age of thirty; when the Holy Spirit descended and a voice was heard saying, ‘This is my beloved Son. I am pleased with him. ’ Sir, you repeatedly object to the issue of Trinity in Unity. It is incumbent upon you first to prove that absolute unity means some- thing other than a being with multiple attributes or show in any- thing something other than a multiplicity of attributes. It should be clear that the definition of attribute is that it is a power which is constituted of one particular type of thing, for example, light only does the work of illuminating, etc. , similarly a being which is the embodiment of all attributes and only has one task to perform. You must not forget that we consider an attribute to be a Person of the Godhead; our meaning of a Person of Godhead is a particu- lar being that is the epitome of all attributes. And our proof, which is based on a part of the attribute, by it our meaning is this, that that which is true for the part is also true for the whole.