Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page xvii
PREFACE lecture, in fact, which created the blueprint for the presentday European Common Market. At that time he was no longer the Prime Minister of Great Britain, but his greatness. did not lie in the office he had occupied, it was the office which was made greater when he occupied it. His lecture was epoch-making. . When the time for my address started on the fixed date, I began with a few introductory remarks in English. . They were followed by the main address, originally written by me in Urdu and rendered into excellent German by. Sheikh Nasir Ahmad. He took some seventy-five minutes to deliver the written speech. Finally the audience were invited to ask questions. As the questions were addressed to me, Sheikh Nasir Ahmad began to perform the role of interpreter. It was altogether a very refreshing experience. . The session had advanced to two and a half hours, yet the interest of the students was still alive until the session had to be closed at 10. 45 p. m. because the hall had to be vacated according to the University schedule. . That was how the seed of this book was first sown. It was a mere seed, in the first place, because most of the points covered by my notes could not be incorporated in the article from which the translation was made. Again the translation which Sheikh Nasir Ahmad had prepared could not be read to the end, because of the shortage of time. . Many attempts were made during the subsequent years to translate the full Urdu manuscript, which had been much enlarged by me later, into English. It took some years for these attempts to be exhausted and abandoned at last. . The topic was so varied that no single scholar could translate all the subjects covered by it even to his own satisfaction. Some groups of scholars also tried their hand together but to no avail. xviii