The Light of the Holy Qur'an — Page 47
Fo o T N o T e F r o M PAG e 25 Fo o T N o T e F r o M PAG e 25 47 never taken to task and he continued to receive rewards worth thousands of rupees from the court of the Marwan dynasty. He was born in the time of our Holy Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and had witnessed the era of the four [Rightly Guided] Caliphs, may Allah be pleased with them. He resided in Levant and died at a ripe old age. He has rendered this excellent job of depicting the true character of Christians in his poetry and clearly testified that the Christians of that age had indulged in the vilest of debaucheries and were beset by drinking and every other kind of vice. As the Levant, wherein he resided and whose con- dition he has depicted, is the source and origin of the Christian religion, this makes it clear how false and delusive the doctrine of Atonement is, which from its early years, is proven to have led the Christian people into every kind of immorality. The time of al-Akh t al was not far removed from the time of the Messiah, peace be upon him—only six hundred years had elapsed—but al-Akh t al’s testimony and his personal admission clearly establish that the Christians of that time had fared even worse than the idol- aters in immorality. So, when Atonement had such an effect in its early age, then those people are extremely foolish who expect any good to come from this well-tried doctrine of Atonement in the nineteenth century. There is also the lyrical ode composed by Amr bin Kulth u m Taghlabi about the character of the Christians of that time which is the fourth one among the As-Sab‘ul-Mu‘allaq a t. It is no secret for any historian that the tribe of Ban i Taghlab was Christian and they were viewed as the foremost in all of Arabia in immorality, debauchery, tyranny, and oppression. So this ode is a complete testimony to the character of Ban i Taghlab; telling how bloodthirsty, warmongering, spiteful, immoral, and alcoholics of