Murder in the Name of Allah — Page v
Murder in the Name of Allah world as a medieval theocracy. Mirza Tahir Ahmad set the Munir. Commission Report within the context of the Quran, hadith and. Islamic history. He had separated fact from fiction and the law of the. Quran from the interpretations of the sultan-serving faqih. . This slender and compact, yet challenging, book originated from. Mazhab ke Nam per Khoon, originally published in Urdu, is addressed to educated Muslims who know both their history and the basic principles of their religion. . When I undertook the task of translating Mazhab ke Nam per Khoon,. I had no idea whether I was biting off more than I could chew. A literal translation would be meaningless for all but experts in this field, while a translation with long, boring and distracting notes would be self-defeating. The latter would be rather like a bad tailor trying to alter a quality, made-to-measure suit for another customer - it might fit him adequately, but it would not hang as well as it would on the person for whom it was made. . This book is an updated version of Mazhab ke Nam per Khoon and includes some new material. . All references to important figures and events in the history of Islam which have become part of Muslim collective memory and have been mentioned by the author are fully explained. The books of tradition, Ibn. Hisham's Sirat Rasul Allah and other primary sources have been used for this information. . Finally, I have to admit that I have failed to convey the author's perceptive and creative imagination. I have not been able to do justice to the underlying force of his prose or the spiritual dimension of his rhetoric. . Mirza Tahir Ahmad's style combines learning with humour. These qualities have been somewhat lost in translation, but I hope I have succeeded in retaining the high academic standard of the original book, which makes it a unique and inimitable work on the Islamic concept of freedom of conscience and its expression. Though I have tried my best to convey the spirit of the original - its reflective intellectuality interwoven with the mysteries of the soul - this book remains above all a translation. Any mistakes of fact or interpretation are mine alone. If in doubt, readers should check with the original, Mazhab ke Nam per. Khoon. . May Allah, the reader and, especially, the author forgive my shortcomings. . Syed Barakat Ahmad vi