Fountain of Christianity — Page 53
53 want to be called 'good'; but Paul made him 'God'. It is written in the Gospels that someone said to Jesus "O Good Master!", but he said, "Why callest thou me good?" And how wonderfully do the words which he uttered at the time of the crucifixion testify to his belief in the One- ness of God. With the utmost humility, he had cried, Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani?, "My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken me?" Can any reasonable person believe that he who supplicated to God with such humility, and considered Him to be the Lord and Master, could himself have claimed to be God? The truth is that those who have a relationship of personal love with God are often made to use some metaphoric ex- pressions regarding themselves which ignorant people use to prove their divinity. More such expressions have been used for me than they were for the Messiah. 32 For exam- ple, Allah addressed me and said: 32 I once saw in a kashf [a vision experienced while awake] that I created a new earth and a new heaven, and then I said "Now, let us create man. " [When this kashf was made public], the ignorant mullahs raised a great tumult and accused me of claiming to be God. What the kashf actually meant was that God would bring about such a great change through me that heaven and earth would become new, and true people would be born. Similarly, God once said to me, i. e. , "You are to Me like an offspring, and your relationship to Me is such that the world knows nothing of it. " The mullahs became wild at this and asked if there could be any more doubt about my being a kafir, and they completely forgot the verse, * [Author] * Remember Allah as you remember your forefathers. —Al-Baqarah, 2:201 [Publishers]