The Light of Truth — Page 23
THE ULAMA OF INDIA 23 suffocated; the crushing snow of greed fell heavily upon the ground of their hearts, and starved its garden of air. Stones of bigotry then fell upon them, crushing their mental faculties under them, like iron under the hammer of a blacksmith, or cotton under the beater of a cottonsmith. What is astonishing about them and their intellect is that they see with their own eyes that their false, misleading statements have greatly harmed Islam. The people, having heard their false statements, are abandoning the Religion of Allah in droves and joining the Christians due to what they hear of the attributes of the Messiah, his unique innocence, his having remained alive until now, and his complete power in creating and giving life-the like of which is not found in any of the Prophets. These (ulama) see all this mischief yet they do not become mindful, their hearts do not tremble, nor do their inner selves melt. They have no mercy or compassion for the Ummah of the Holy Prophet. So I cry for them and call out forcefully, but not one of them hears my cries and screams; instead, with great anger they call me a disbeliever. Our likeness in these days, the days of Islam's weakness, is that of a traveller who wanders blindly through a valley in the pitch-black night, or like the one who screams out from inside a burning fire. We do not find a provider of succour from among our people, but rather, in the One who is Lord of all the worlds. We are so utterly disappointed in these people, it is as though we have already buried them in their graves. We spoke repeatedly but they did not listen. We tried to awaken them as a warning but they did not stir. We humbled ourselves at many points but they refused to do so. So in the end we said: Stay away and be gone; verily, Allah does not need you and does not care for you, and He shall raise a people who shall help His Religion and shall love the Righteous. To sum up, I see these diseases and poisons circulating in the veins of the majority of the ulama of India. I see them in disregard of the