The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 167
THE PROMISED MESSIAH AND MAHDI "apes and swine" and worshippers of Satan (5:61). It cannot be said that Allah has used abusive language with reference to them. . The Promised Messiah at one place, addressing the opponent maulvies, described them as the vile sect of Maulvies (Anjam Atham, p. 21). At this a clamour was raised that he had abused them. He had only applied to them an expression employed in a Hadith in which it is reported that the Holy Prophet had said that the Ulemas (divines) of the latter days would be the worst of creation under heaven. (Mishkat,. Kitabul Ilm). The Promised Messiah has stated: "Abuse is one thing and a correct description, however bitter and harsh, is quite another. It is the duty of every speaker of truth to convey the truth to an erring opponent even though he might thereby be offended. " (Izalah Auham). At another place he states: "My words had assumed some severity against my opponents. in my writings, but I was not the one to start such severity. They were undertaken in reply to the severe attacks of my opponents. They had used such harsh and abusive language as called for some severity. . This can be perceived by the comparison which I have instituted between the harsh language used by my opponents and that used by me in the foreword of my book which I have called Kitabul Bariyyah. . As I have just stated the harsh language used by me was by way of retort. It was my opponents who first used such language against me. . I could have endured their harsh language without making a retort to it but I had recourse to a retort on account of two reasons: One, so that my opponents, being faced with severity in reply to their harsh strictures, might change their tactics and might revert in future to the use of civil language; and two, that the general Muslim public should not be aroused by the defamatory and provocative language used by my opponents. " (Kitabul Bariyyah, p. 10, 11). . So far as genuine divines and respectable people were concerned, the Promised Messiah has referred to them in his books in very good style. He states: 167