Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page xviii
PREFACE. Finally, despite my heavy engagements, it was considered essential that I should myself dictate most of the book anew. Basit Ahmad, currently on the Board of Editors of the Review of Religions, volunteered his services for the task. He managed to prepare many generations of dictated material on his laptop computer, but none could satisfy us because the time lapse between our meetings was often too long so that a coherent work without repetitions could not be produced. Moreover, every time a new dictation was given, new ideas were inserted and quite a few amendments were also made which required relevant changes in other chapters as well. He had put in so much labour continuously for two years, without complaint, that it began to hurt me to see him suffer pointlessly. He had to be relieved yet his highly precious service immensely helped to advance the cause further. Every version displayed a definite improvement on the previous one. . After Basit, a group of ladies opted for the resumption of the work. Thus it continued to progress bit by bit but could not develop into a coherent work with uninterrupted flow. . I was left in the end with no option but to rewrite most of the manuscript in my own hand, a task which took me the better part of last year with many intervening breaks because of other pressing engagements. In the end, all it needed was a competent person to scrutinize it from the beginning to the end in search of such lapses and repetitions as may have remained undetected. This laborious but highly essential task was excellently performed by Mrs. . Farina Qureshi, assisted by a team of dedicated workers with varied experience in literary work. With their combined effort, under her exacting supervision, they pointed out to me some discrepancies which had escaped xix