Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya Part IV — Page 199
Footnote Number Eleven 199 by all native speakers of Arabia including great poets, in spite of their bitter hostility [of Islam]. Rather, great enemies were astonished by the magnificent quality of this discourse. Many of them, who were well-versed in judging the merits of literary fluency and eloquence and were men of integrity, being convinced that the Holy Quran’s style was above and beyond human capacity, admitted it to be a great miracle and believed in it. Their testimonies are cited in numerous places throughout the Holy Quran. Those who were inwardly blind to the extreme did not believe in it, but even they were so confounded and amazed that they had to say that it was a great magic that could not be matched; their testimonies are also recorded in several places throughout the Glorious Quran. The criticism against this very Word of miraculous composition is advanced by such people, one of whom lacks the competence to write even two correct and eloquent lines in Arabic, and who, if he happens to hold a dialogue with a native speaker would not be able to utter more than a few broken, ungrammatical, and faulty phrases. Should anyone doubt this, he is welcome to carry out a test. The other [objec- tor] is totally ignorant of the Arabic language and is not well versed even in Persian. And it is a pity that the first-mentioned Christian does not seem to be aware that Western scholars, who are his elders and leaders, have themselves admitted to the splendid degree of elo- quence of the Holy Quran as has been recorded by Westerners such as Mr. Davenport. Apart from this, an intelligent person should consider that this is a book revealed to a person in his own language and hailed by all linguists, including the poets of the Sab‘ah Mu‘allaqah, 1 for its supreme eloquence. Can a word bearing such an established proof be subjected to valid criticism if denied by an ignorant non-Arab who is inarticulate and totally devoid of the art of composition and who has 1. The Suspended Odes, or Mu‘allaqah, are reportedly seven famous masterpieces of Arabic poetry that were hung in the Ka‘bah during pre-Is- lamic times. [Publisher]