Testimony of the Holy Quran — Page 14
T E S T I MON Y OF T HE HOLY Q U R AN 14 cannot be considered completely authentic. But how can the authenticity of those a ha d i th that have always been sustained and preserved in the continuous practice of millions of people from the very beginning, be held in suspicion and doubt? The authenticity of such a ha d i th cannot be doubted at all, for the overwhelming majority put them into practice and were known from generation to generation and were clearly traceable to their original source. In fact, one cannot help but consider this continued practice to be amongst the most established truths. Moreover, the Imams of Hadith buttressed this continued prac - tice by establishing another practice, whereby they traced the chain of truthful and righteous narrators right up to the Holy Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. So, to criti - cize it now is the work of only those who totally lack the insight of faith and human rationality. After this preamble, let it also be clear that the prophecy regarding the advent of the Promised Messiah is not such as was recorded by the Imams of Hadith on the basis of only a few riw a y a t [reports]. Rather, it has been established that the Muslims adopted this prophecy as part and parcel of their faith since the early days. In other words, there were as many testimonies to the validity of this prophecy as were the number of Muslims at that time, as right from the beginning they regarded the prophecy as part of their faith. If the Imams of Hadith, such as Imam Bukh a r i and others, discovered anything about this prophecy by their own effort, it is only that—when they found this prophecy widespread and oft-mentioned among millions of Muslims—they, according to