The Essence of Islam – Volume III — Page 377
Repeated Challenges 377 possession of the soul. No lexicon and no Arabic saying contradicts this. There is not the slightest room for any different interpretation. If anyone should cite a single instance from the Holy Qur'an or from the Aḥādīth or from ancient or modern poetry, or ode, or prose of the Arabs, wherein the expression Tawaffi has been employed when indicating the action of God Almighty concerning a human being, as connoting anything beyond death and taking possession of the soul, that is to say, as connoting the taking possession of the body also, I call God to witness that I shall hand over to such a person one thousand rupees in cash and also acknowledge that he possesses expert knowledge of Hadith and the Holy Qur'ān. [Izāla-e-Auhām, Rūḥānī Khazā'in, vol. 3, pp. 602-603]. A Misguided Assertion of Hafiz Muḥammad. Yusuf Challenged. In Lahore, Hafiz Muḥammad Yusuf Ṣāḥib, Dila 'dār of. Canals, under the false doctrines of ignorant and misguided clerics, . . . has stated confidently that if anyone falsely claims to be a Prophet or a Messenger or a commissioned one by God, and thus seeks to mislead people, he can survive such imposture for twenty-three years and even more. What he means to say is that the survival of such an impostor for more than twenty-three years cannot be a proof of his truth. He also stated that he can cite the names of many people who made such false claims and continued to assert for more than twenty-three years that they were recipients of God's word. . . . . Through this announcement, I demand from Ḥāfiz Muḥammad Yusuf Ṣāḥib to cite such an instance as promised in his signed document. I know for certain that this principle, which is set out in the Holy Qur'ān by God