Haqiqatul-Wahi (The Philosophy of Divine Revelation) — Page 676
676 HAQIQATUL-WAḤI-THE PHILOSOPHY OF DIVINE REVELATION of God to be mere impostors and slaves of carnal desires, and denounce their times as times of deceit and fraud. Nevertheless, this third indication that the divine inspiration and revelation which is the 'Word of God' must also be accompanied by the 'Work of God', is such a perfect condition that no one can coun- ter it. This is the condition through which God's true Prophets have always prevailed over the liars. When a person claims that God's word descends upon him and hundreds of Signs appear along with it, and a thousand varieties of support and divine help are displayed while God openly attacks his enemies, then who can dare call such a person false? But alas, there are many such people in the world who fall prey to the trial of mistaking a prompting of the self or an insinuation of Satan to be the Word of God Almighty and give no regard to the Work of God by way of divine testimony. Of course it is quite possible that one may experience true dreams or revelations from time to time; however, such a person cannot claim to be an appointee of God on such meagre experiences, nor can it be said that such a person is free from the darkness of the ego. Rather, this much of dreams and revelation is virtually a universal experience. It has no significance. This capacity to experience occasional dreams and revelations has been designed as part of human nature in order to save a wise person from doubting the Messengers who are the Elect of God and to help them realize that since the capacity to experience occa- sional dreams and revelations is ingrained in the nature of each human, it would, therefore, be foolish to deny its development to perfection [in the case of the Elect of God]. But those people who are considered by God to be [mulham the recipients of His revelation] and [mukallam—those with whom God converses] and enjoy the honour of converse and discourse with God and are appointed to call men to divine guidance, are sup- ported by divine Signs which descend like rain and the world cannot oppose them. Divine works bear witness through their abundance that the words that they put forward are the words of God Almighty. If