Arba'in — Page 88
88 ْوَل َلَّوَقَت [‘he has forged’] to be completed in the same way. 1 ٭ It is for this reason that I have had this announcement published with a reward of five hundred rupees, and should trust be lacking, I am able to deposit these rupees in any government bank in advance. If Ha fi z Muhammad Y u suf and his other religious counter- parts, whose names I have recorded in this announcement, are truthful in this claim of theirs—that is to say, if the statement is correct that anyone who claims to be a Prophet or a Messenger and an Appointee from Allah, and openly and publicly proclaims revelations to people in the name of God, yet despite being a liar continues to live up to the equivalent of twenty-three years, which is the period of wa hi [revelation] of the Holy Prophet, may peace 1. ٭ Certain foolish people of the present time, after having faced defeat many a time, wish then to debate with me in light of a ha d i th or they are desirous that I enter into such debate with others. Their condition is pitiable. They do not want to leave aside a few a ha d i th which are mere collections of conjectures, interpolated and doubtful in nature. And there are other a ha d i th opposed to them, and, furthermore, the Holy Quran declares them to be fabricated. So how can I discard such illumi- nating evidence whose one side the Holy Quran supports, and the wit- ness of whose truth is the authentic a ha d i th on another side, and [yet] on another side the word of God which descends upon me is witness, and on another side the previous Scriptures are witness, and on anoth- er side reasoning is witness, and [furthermore] on another side those hundreds of Signs that are being manifested at my hand are witness? Therefore, to debate on the basis of a ha d i th is not the correct way to reach a decision. God has informed me already that the wordings and the meanings of all the a ha d i th which they present are either tampered with or they are definitely fabricated. The person who is sent as H akam [Arbiter] has the authority to accept, with knowledge granted from God, a collection of a ha d i th out of the stockpile of a ha d i th , and reject another collection with the knowledge gained from God. Author