The Reality of Khilafah — Page 2
SIRRUL-KHILAFAH— 2 to nitpick is easy and even a man of lowest competence—indeed, even a fool—can do it. I had set the end of June 1894 CE as the last date by which a treatise was to be written in competition with my H am a matul-Bushr a and N u rul- H aqq. That date came and went but no maulaw i came forward with the intent to write a compet- ing treatise and to demand the deposit of the promised reward money—and now that time has long gone. Notwithstanding—yes, indeed!—they exhausted every possible means to carry out nitpick- ing as is the wont of the unworthy and envious, while some sim- pletons, upon discovering some scribal inaccuracies or inadvertent errors, grew eager in anticipation of the reward, yet failed to open their eyes to the fundamental condition that the reward for every error found was contingent upon the person first writing a trea- tise in competition. Otherwise, greedy nitpickers who possess no treasure of personal knowledge are readily available throughout the world in the thousands; nay, rather in the hundreds of thousands! To which of them shall the prize be granted?! What is required is that, for example, first a treatise should be written to compete with this treatise Sirrul-Khil a fah and then, if their treatise is found free of error and equal to mine in stature from the perspective of eloquence and fluency, then they are entitled to claim from us—apart from the reward that we had already pledged for writing a competing treatise—an additional award of two rupees per error. Failing this and then proceeding to indulge in petty scrutiny far deviates from the demands of decorum. والسَّالم ُ علـٰی من اتّبع الھُدٰی [And peace be upon him who follows the guidance]. Humbly, Ghulam Ahmad