Life of Ahmad — Page 766
JIHAD as 766 regard as absolutely unlawful and forbidden for this age ideas peculiar to warriors, jihad and love of war; and to affirm that the holder of such views is in manifest error. ' It is clear that if Rev. Dr. Griswold knew Urdu he is guilty of a deliberate misrepresentation and if he did not know Urdu he must have been seriously misinformed. Anyhow, the remarks that he has made are wholly unfounded and the meaning that he has put into Ahmad’s as words is entirely wrong. It is, however, difficult to assume that the reverend gentleman, living in Lahore and working there, did not have at his disposal the means of ascertaining the actual teachings of Ahmad as , especially when he himself undertook to write a book on the subject. Ahmad as has, openly and repeatedly, made his meaning clear in many of his publications. I quote here again from his booklet Jihad translated and published in English in 1900: 'The practice now so current among the Muslims by which homicide is committed under the mask of jihad, simply on the ground of a difference in faith, is not the Islamic jihad. On the other hand, it is diameterically opposed to the command of the Lord and His Apostle and is a violation of the Law. ' Again he says: 'Can it be a Divine command that we should shoot dead or put to the sword an innocent person unknown to us and even unaware of our