A Critique of Professor Arnold G. Toynbee’s Understanding — Page x
viii Foreword The author has undertaken a daunting task of challenging a world renowned historian and author. Maulana Sheikh Mubarak Ahmad has succeeded admirably in showing how Professor Arnold G. Toynbee has misread the situation and has drawn conclusions which histor ical record of the Madinite Era of the Holy Prophet (May peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) is unable to support. The fact is that in Madinah the Holy Prophet did not abandon or even subordinate his prophetical role but assumed additional responsibility as a statesman, an administrator, a general and indeed a supreme leader both in war and peace, in affluence and in poverty, in victory and hard ship and in glorification of the Creator and in the service of mankind. This was indeed necessary if he was to prove the divine description that the Holy Prophet was a role model in every conceivable wholesome human activity and prove in his person the Qur anic claim: “This day have I perfected your religion” (5:4). This should be acknowledged as a service to Islam in pursuance of the divine mission of the founder of the Ahmadiyya Community, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, who claimed to the Promised Messiah and the latter day Reformer predicted by the old script ures of the principal religions. The book was written in Urdu and demonstrates the inherent difficulty in translation and in completely capturing the