The Holy War — Page 101
Proceedings—Debate 26 May 1893 101 simple and straightforward statements of the Messiah to make them fit your own interpretation, and you intend to make the proof that the Messiah presented to vindicate himself, appear to be useless and absurd. Could the Messiah have been held blameless in the eyes of the Jews just by saying that by virtue of being God, without doubt, I am indeed the Son of Allah, but by virtue of my humanity I am equal to the other Prophets and what was said in their favour has also been said in my favour? And could this type of flimsy excuse remove the accusation of the Jews that hung over the head of Jesus? And had they accepted that the Messiah was, without doubt, indeed the Son of Allah, by virtue of his Divinity and that they had no quarrel with this, but yes, by virtue of being human why is he calling himself the Son of Allah? But it is mani- festly clear that if in their hearts the Jews had only been concerned that the Messiah, being simply a human, is declaring himself to be the son of Allah like other holy and select men, then why would they have labelled him a blasphemer? Did they consider Prophets Israel, Adam, and other Prophets in whose favour the words ‘son of Allah’ have been applied to be guilty of blasphemy? No. Indeed, their question had arisen because they too had been deceived into thinking that the Messiah, in reality, considers himself to be the Son of Allah. And since the answer must be provided in the context of the ques- tion being asked, it was the responsibility of the Messiah that he should adopt that same line of thinking based on which they had raised the question. If, in reality, he was the Son of God Almighty, then he should have presented before them the very prophecies that Deputy Abdullah Atham is presenting outside of these sessions. And he should have shown some examples of his being God and the matter would have been settled. This is absolutely not the case that the Jews were not ask- ing to be provided the proofs of him being the actual Son of Allah. At this stage, there is no need to write further regarding this. Now let it be clear that I had written to Deputy Abdullah Atham that just as you claim that salvation is only in the Christian religion, sim- ilarly it is written in the Quran that salvation lies only in Islam. Now, you