The Essence of Islam – Volume III — Page 362
362 Essence of Islam-III these books; otherwise, they should acknowledge that this enterprise of mine has been undertaken under Divine direction and should confess that these books of mine are a sign of my truth. Alas, they neither abandoned their opposition nor were able to match my books. In any case, the message of God Almighty was conveyed fully to them and they were proven guilty of having disobeyed a commissioned one of God. [Tiryāq-ul-Qulüb, Rūķānī Khazā'in, vol. 15, pp. 230-231] To disabuse the minds of the common people that Miań Muhammad Hussain Batālavī, or other like-minded op- posing clerics who share his views and mistakenly be- lieve him to possess a high degree of proficiency in Arabic and in the verities of the Word of God, it has been considered proper to publish this monograph in a final ef- fort to expose the myth of Bațālvī and the divines associ- ated with him, concerning their knowledge of Arabic and their comprehension of Divine verities. This booklet comprises four Arabic odes and a commentary on Surah Al-Fatihah. Though these odes have been completed within one week, in a few hours in fact, but for the sake of carrying the matter to the final conclusion, I hereby solemnly promise that if within one month of the publi- cation of this booklet, they publish their matching book- let exhibiting the same high degree of literary merit and comprising the same number of Arabic verses that are comprised in my booklet, along with a commentary of the Surah Al-Fatihah matching mine in every respect, I shall pay them one thousand rupees as reward. . . . I further promise that, upon publication of the booklet, if their odes and their commentary are found free from grammatical or idiomatic errors and are acknowledged to be superior to my odes and commentary, and, what is