Haqiqatul-Wahi (The Philosophy of Divine Revelation) — Page 496
496 HAQIQATUL-WAḤI—THE PHILOSOPHY OF DIVINE REVELATION who repeatedly raise objections against conditional prophecies and refuse to relent? Had they but only the fear of God within their hearts, they would have learned a lesson from the prophecy of Yūnus and would not have exhibited such impudence and insolence. Had they but any seed of righteousness within them, they would have realized that the prophecies against which they raise objections are merely two or three in number in comparison to the prophecies which-slapping their faces with fulfilment—number hundreds; nay rather, thousands and hundreds of thousands! Quite the contrary, this was a moment [for them] to reflect upon which side had the majority!!* Can they prove that the kind of objection they level against these prophecies, or against some error of interpretation, are not to be found in the prophecies of the other Prophets? Do they not know that, leav- ing all other Prophets aside, even our Holy Prophet, may peace and 1. In this book, I have recorded 187 Signs of God Almighty. These are the Signs which have nothing dubious about them. Rather, most of these proph- ecies were published in books and newspapers beforehand. Their eyewitness- es are still alive in thousands. All these are such phenomena that transcend human capacity. If you try to search for such a corpus of divine Signs and prophecies in the Books of any of the Israelite Prophets of the past, I hereby declare with authority that you will not find its parallel in the life of any of the Israelite Prophets. Supposing such Signs to be there [on record] where will you find their eyewitnesses? A mere report can never equal an eyewitness account. Christians repeatedly quote the miracles regarding Ḥadrat Masiḥ raising the dead, but there exists no proof of even one single incident. No deceased has ever returned and intimated the experiences of the Hereafter or revealed the truth about Heaven and Hell or published any book containing an eyewitness account of the wonders of the other world or testified to the existence of angels. On the contrary, by the 'dead' are meant those who re- sembled the physically or spiritually dead who were granted, as it were, a new life through prayer. The same is true about ‘Īsā creating birds. Had he actually created birds, the world would have turned towards him, obviating any pos- sibility of crucifixion. Would the Christians, who are so keen on converting Haḍrat 'Īsā into God, miss such a huge divine sign? Rather, they would have made a mountain out of a molehill. It is so evident that this episode which is related in the Holy Quran is not to be taken in any literal sense. Rather it means something minor which had no great importance of its own. (Author)