Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya Part IV — Page 86
BarĀhĪn-e-a H madiyya — Part Four 86 by itself has not carried any of your worldly tasks to completion? Is there any room left for you to deny the verity that intellect never had the ability to carry any task to its completion in the best and perfect manner on its own, without being paired with a companion? Speak the truth! Have you still not experienced that whatever task relied exclu- sively upon intellect remained doubtful, conjectural, and incomplete; and until a portrait of the events was sketched by a recorder, the entire effort of intellect and conjecture remained incomplete and unreliable? Speak with justice! Are you still unaware that it has always been the practice of the wise that they strengthen their theories—sometimes with experience, sometimes with history, sometimes with maps depict- ing the geography of a place, sometimes with letters and epistles, and sometimes with their own faculties of seeing, hearing, smelling, touch- ing, and so on? So now reflect for yourselves, weigh it in your own minds, and estimate it duly in your observation: Given the condition that other companions are required for [understanding] the matters of this world, which are observable and perceivable, then how much greater is that need for those matters that transcend this world, are the most hidden of the hidden, and are the most concealed of the con- cealed? And given that reason by itself does not suffice even for the easy and simple matters of the world, how can it be sufficient to fathom matters relating to the life to come, which are the most abstruse and subtle? Moreover, since you do not consider conjecture and intellect, alone, to be sufficient for the fickle and mundane matters of daily life—whose gain and loss are but a transient matter—how can you sit complacently, relying on the same defective intellect in matters of the Hereafter, whose impact is everlasting and whose dangers are irre- mediable? Is this not the best proof of this fact, that you have thrown all regard for the Hereafter behind your back, and you find the car- cass of the world so delicious and palatable? Otherwise, how can it be believed that God has not given you even this minimal understanding that when the Perfectly Noble God has not left man’s reason alone with