Arba'in — Page 192
192 ARBAIN over and above possessing the excellences of a spiritual guide- should compete with me in writing an eloquent and fluent com- mentary in Arabic on any chapter of the Holy Quran. Excited by faith in his knowledge, he renewed the fatwa of takfir against me and, to inflame the masses, he wrote a book in which he accused me of being a liar. In this book, while bragging about his knowledge, he pushed the notion that I lack knowledge of the Hadith and the Quran. In this way he incited the people of the Frontier Region against me, and laid claim to having knowl- edge of the Holy Quran. If this claim of his is true that he has been given extraordi- nary knowledge of the Book of Allah—then no one should refuse to follow him. And [possessing] knowledge of the Holy Quran is, without doubt, proof of a person being godly and virtuous, because in accordance with the verse: 10 لا يَمَسُّةَ إِلَّا الْمُطَهَّرُونَ only the innately pure are granted the knowledge of this revered Book. But merely making a claim is simply not enough. On the contrary, the value of everything can be established only through verification and the best way to verify is through comparison. Light is recog- nized only through comparison to darkness. And because God Almighty has honoured me with this ilhām [revelation]: الرَّحْمَنُ عَلَّمَ الْقُرْآنَ that God has taught you the Quran; therefore, this Sign will be adequate for judging truth or falsehood for me that Pir Mehr 1. Surah al-Waqi'ah, 56:80 [Publisher]