A Gift for An-Nadwah — Page 21
A Gift for An-Nadwah has demonstrated that the example of a few is enough to establish the truth of prophetic warnings. In this particu- lar case there is no shortage of examples. Is it not disgrace enough for my opponents that Ghulām Dastagīr met his end soon after cursing me in his book Fathi-Rahmānī (p. 27) and asking God to curse the one out of the two of us who was a liar. 17 Muhammad Hasan Bhin wrote 18 لَعْنَةُ اللهِ عَلَى الْكَاذِبِينَ with refer- ence to me in his book, but met his end before he ever had the chance to complete it. Pir Mehr 'Alī Shāh in- voked the same curse on me. Soon after, he was ac- cused of plagiarism for he stole the work of Muhammad Hasan after his death, and falsely passed it off as his own. 19 He lied and named the book Saif-e-Chishtiā'ī. 17 Think, is it not a miracle that the same maulawī who had obtained edicts of apostasy against me from the injudicious maulawīs of Mecca, fell victim to the Mubāhalah. [Author] 18 Let the curse of Allah befall the liars. [Publishers] 19 By accepting the criticism made by Muhammad Hasan, Mehr 'Alī, rather absurdly, accused me of copying proverbs and sayings from other works such as Muqāmāt-e-Harīrī. I did indeed reproduce them in my book but in the form of extracts or citations that cover no more than two or three lines. In the opinion of this vacuous man this was evidence of plagiarism. But the prophecy إِنِّى مُهِينٌ مَّنْ أَرَادَ اِهَا نَتَک loomed over him and he instead was found guilty of stealing a whole book. He lied and put his faith in false criticism and did not grasp the * 21