Lecture Ludhiana — Page 3
3 can never negate what He wills, whereas the plans which the world makes but God does not countenance, can never succeed. Just pause and consider! All clerics, custodians of shrines and their ilk rose in opposition to me and joined hands even with the followers of the other faiths. Sparing no effort, they labelled me an apostate in order to alienate the Muslims at large. When all this failed, they started court proceedings against me. They tried to implicate me in a murder case and did their utmost to get me convicted. I was accused of plotting the murder of a priest. In that lawsuit Maulvi Muhammad Hussein too played a very active role against me, personally appearing as a prosecution witness and hoping that I would be entrapped and punished. That he went to such great lengths clearly showed his inability to produce any plausible argument or proofs to disprove my claim. In fact, it is a well established practice that when an enemy finds no argument or reason he opts for persecu- tion and murder; he plans the banishment of his opponent from his native land and hatches a variety of plots and conspiracies against him. This is what happened when the disbelievers of Mecca became helpless against the Holy Prophet sa and all their efforts were stymied; they conspired to kill him, imprison him or expel him from his homeland. His companions too were subjected to torture, but in the end all the designs and intentions of the Meccans were frustrated. Exactly the same old story is now being repeated in my case. But this