Truth About the Split — Page 352
352 i. e. "What! do you admonish others to do good deeds and forget your own selves?" At the same time he saw that there was nothing in the proposed notice to which he could object and from this dilemma he sought to save himself by a plea. If Maulawi Muhammad Ali really meant to be sincere and honest, then the proper course for him, in case he was in agreement with the substance of the notice, was to recall the tract and stop its publication, and in case he was in disagreement with the notice, to tell me frankly that it was very necessary to inform the Community of the existing differences, that he had already written a tract on the subject, and sent it to Lahore for printing and publication, and that accordingly he could not properly be a party to the notice which I had proposed to circulate. But he chose to adopt neither of these two straightforward courses. He approved of the notice, but dissuaded me from its publication on the plea that it would make people aware of the internal differences of the Community. But himself he did not desist from publishing his tract. More than this, in the tract, he had gone so far as to say that differences had assumed such proportions that each party thought the other kuffar and deserving of the punishment of death and yet five years have passed since these discussions have been going and though they have increased in