The Descent of the Messiah — Page 55
HADRAT MIRZA GHULAM AHMADAS no sign of any commentary in it, I almost wept for the man. The book was not worth so much as a glance, for the author had not demonstrated any proof of his miraculous power by writing it in Arabic, as he had been obliged to do. Rather, he had been una- ble to do this over a long period of time, and had instead turned away from the contest and put a seal upon his failure with his own hand. ¹ He had practically testified that I'jāzul-Masih was a sign from God, the like of which he could not produce. Still, when I read the Urdu book carefully, it became apparent that, aside from some frivolous criticism, there was nothing in it that was worthy of consideration. The criticism itself was so vile and based on such ignorance that, were it to be taken as legitimate, it would spare neither the Holy Quran nor the sayings of the Holy Prophet, nor any other literary work. Let us now look carefully at the criticism. The Pir says that in the book Ijāzul-Masih, which comprises about two hundred pages, a few sentences, which would amount to no more than four lines if put together, have been stolen from Maqāmāt-e- Harīrī², from the Holy Quran, and certain other books, and that some of them have been copied with some modifications while others are from well-known Arab anecdotes. This is my alleged theft that the Pir has exposed, that out of some twenty thousand sentences, some ten or twelve happen to coincide with the Holy Quran, or some Arabic anecdotes, or some texts that he claims 1 As if his name is not Mehr Ali but rather Muhr [stamp] Ali for he stamps his seal on the miracle of the book I'jāzul-Masih due to his helplessness and silence. (Author) 2 Magāmat-e-Hariri (Assemblies of Hariri) is considered one of the great works of fiction in the Arabic language written by Al-Hariri of Basra around the turn of the 12th century. [Publisher] 55