The Mirror of the Excellences of Islam — Page 278
MISCONCEPTION IN NUR AFSHAN 277 not follow any of the Imams, are faithless and outside the pale of the Sunnah Jama'at. Why, then, should I be worried of being considered outside the community of the followers of the Sunnah? Nowadays, to call oneself Ahl-e-Sunnah wal Jamāʻah is not considered the exclusive right of any sect; everyone thinks of himself to be the Ahl-e-Sunnah and excludes others from its fold. This, therefore, is not a weighty dispute in the view of God. But to hastily call anyone kāfir for a minor difference in opinion and to declare him to be deserving of everlasting Hell is not, in the view of God, to be taken lightly or as an ordinary offence; it is a grave affair. It is a mat- ter of great surprise that a man who believes in the Kalimah, faces the Qiblah, believes in One God, and accepts Allah and the Messengeras, and truly loves them, and has faith in the Quran, should, merely on account of some minor difference of view, be declared a kāfir like the Jews and Christians or even worse than them, and that Miyāń Nadhīr Husain and Shaikh Baṭālawī should acquiesce in his being called not only a kāfir, but an akfar [the greatest of disbelievers]; that is, deserving of punishment even somewhat greater than everlasting Hell. The learned know that the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, held views that differed greatly from each other. None of them was above this conflict of views—neither Şiddīq [Abū Bakr] nor Fārūq ['Umar], nor any other Companion. Indeed, it is reported that Hadrat Ibn-e-Abbās, may Allah be pleased with him, notwithstanding the great eminence all the ulema grant him, differed from the general body of the Companions on fifty questions of theology. This differ- ence had reached such an extent that he regarded some such matters as being lawful which other Companions considered quite unlawful or clearly sinful. Similarly, Hadrat Ayeshah Şiddīqah [the Truthful] and Hadrat Mu'awiyah, may Allah be pleased with them, along with their adherents, were entirely opposed to the other Companions in their views of the nature of the Miʻrāj [Spiritual Ascension] and per- ception of the person of the Almighty, but no one called anyone kāfir. But times have taken such a turn that the maulawis consider it ever so