Life of Ahmad — Page 582
ELEVATION OF RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION as 582 admission of the weakness of Islam. He, therefore, made public opposition to it and sent another memorial to the Government on 4-5-1898 asking it to ignore the request of the Anjuman. The Government reply (No. 1055, dated 31-5-1898) to the Anjuman was that as the book was written before the Sedition Act of 1897 therefore it could not do anything in the matter. Mr. (late Sir) L. W. Dane, Officiating Chief Secretary to the Lieut. Governor of the Punjab, said: 'In reply I am to say that the Lieutenant- Governor, having been advised that the publication of the book in question (which he understands took place in 1897) constituted no offence under the law in force at the time of its issue, does not propose to take any action on the memorial. ' Ahmad as wrote, 'It is so very distressing, to think, on the one hand, that a book should have been published whose poisonous effects are forcing themselves into the minds of the ignorant and ruining the innocent souls of the Muslim world, and to find, on the other, that a representative body of that religious community should have only adopted the poor measure of submitting a cheap leaflet of a memorial, when they have thousands of rupees in their hands collected from the Muslim public under the pretext of defending their faith. The Anjuman H im a yat-e-Islam has always declared its first and foremost object to be the refutation of the