Life of Ahmad — Page 408
LITERARY MIRACLE as 408 It may be pointed out here that, as already stated, Ahmad as , the Promised Messiah, had received very elementary education and that he had neither studied at any school nor read with any learned tutor. But when he claimed to be the Messiah and his enemies taunted him with his ignorance and said that God could never have made such a one the Mahdi and the Messiah, God granted him a vast knowledge of, and mastery over the Arabic language, which contains the whole of Islamic literature, and in one day he was taught the roots of 40,000 words. He had never journeyed to Arabia, nor lived with the men of that country, nor could he have acquired proficiency in the use of that language by following the methods of learning Arabic which were current in India; yet it so happened that he began to write Arabic works full of sublime thoughts in the most beautiful and elegant style, and challenged his opponents, among whom were the greatest divines of the country, to write books of equal excellence. But none dared to accept his challenge and several of his opponents said that he had hired the service of learned men of Arabia to write those books for he himself was an ignorant man. 93 Thereupon he extended his challenge to the whole world to produce the like of his books in the Arabic language, and in order to demonstrate that his books were no ordinary 93 See for instance the leaflet of Abdul H aq Ghaznav i which was entitled