The Light of Truth — Page 261
A CHALLENGE TO IMAD-UD-DIN AND HIS ASSOCIATES 261 eloquence and fluency of the Holy Quran. He exhibits shame- lessness in every book he writes, yet he claims, 'I am an hon- ourable and learned scholar. Not only is the Quran not fluent, but it is not even correct. I find neither any eloquence in it nor any literary mastery, contrary to the claims of its apologists. He also claims that he will write a commentary on the Quran-we often hear such boasts from him—and that he claims to possess excellence in the Arabic language. With complete shameless- ness he abuses the Messenger of Allah, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. He claims to find fault with the Book of Allah and its eloquence, as though he is the uncle or cousin of Imra' al-Qais himself! And he calls himself a maulawi, strut- ting about arrogantly. Next, I address every Christian convert who calls himself a maulawi and whose names I have recorded in the footnote below,¹ and summon them all to this contest. As I mentioned earlier in this chapter, they shall have a reward of 5,000 rupees if they produce a book similar to this book [Nūrul-Haqq]. I grant my adversaries a time frame of three months. But if they do not compete—and they will never compete—then know that they are liars. Bear in mind that this reward is contingent upon their pro- ducing a book comparable to this one, written with a swiftness that mirrors my own, and their proving that they are like those who can equal and rival [my work]. If, however, they demur and show their backs and run like jackals, and are incapable of responding to this challenge; and yet they neither give up 1. Maulawi Karam-ud-Din, Maulawī Nizām-ud-Din, Maulawi Ilāhī Bakhsh, Maulawi Hamidullah Khan, Maulawi Nūr-ud-Din, Maulawi Syed 'Alī, Maulawi 'Abdullah Baig, Maulawi Hisām-ud-Din of Bombay, Maulawi Husām-ud-Din, Maulawī Nizām-ud-Din, Maulawi Qadı Şafdar 'Alī, Maulawi 'Abdur-Rahman, Maulawi Hasan 'Alī, and so forth. -Author