Invitation to Ahmadiyyat — Page 250
250 thought of was to attack his lack of learning. They described him as a munsh i , or a half-educated scribe who, having gained some experience in writing and scholarship and having written some articles that had won him some acclaim, now thought that he was somebody and had started making lofty claims. They wasted no opportunity of telling people that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as did not know Arabic and, therefore, was not qualified to give an opin - ion in religious matters. However, this assertion that the Promised Messiah as did not know any Arabic was completely wrong because he had studied the standard Arabic textbooks, even though it was true that he did not study Arabic at any recognized institution or have a formal degree in the language and could not be counted among its notable scholars or bear the title of Maulaw i. When this criticism had spread far and wide and the mullahs started trum - peting it in and out of season, God taught the Promised Messiah as 40,000 root words of Arabic in a single night and blessed him with the miraculous ability to write books in Arabic. God also promised him such eloquence in Arabic that no one would be able to compete with him in this regard. Accordingly, the Promised Messiah as wrote an article in Arabic and published it along with his book A’ in a- e-Kam a l a t-e-Isl a m. He then challenged his critics to produce something better if they could, but no one came forth. He then went on to write about 20 books in Arabic. In some of these books, he promised rewards of up to Rs. 10,000 to anyone who could write something equal to them in eloquence. Still, no one took up the challenge. Some of the books were addressed to Arabs but even they fled from the field. One of them was addressed to Syed R a sh i d Raz a , editor of Al-Man a r , and he was given the same challenge, which he refused to accept.