The Mirror of the Excellences of Islam — Page 401
400 ΑΙΝΑ-Ε-ΚΑMĀLĀT-E-ISLAM-DAFI UL-WASĀWIS preoccupied with the thought of somehow being able to bring even the dead back to life and a group of Christian philosophers is conducting experiments regarding these very initiatives. The enterprise for bringing down rain has already commenced, and it is their desire that instead of people praying to God Almighty for rain or offering the Șalatul-Istisqā' [Prayer for Rain], they should simply apply to the Government asking it to cause rain to fall on such and such a piece of farmland. Moreover, efforts are being made in Europe to invent some instrument to place the male semen in the womb of a woman, as well as to bring forth a male or female child at will and to induce pregnancy in a woman by injecting a quantity of semen into her womb. Now, it should be considered whether this amounts to an effort to usurp the power of God or is it something else? As regards the words in the aḥādīth about the Dajjal laying claim first to Prophethood and then to Divinity,¹ if this is taken to mean that the Dajjal would first, for a few days, lay claim to Prophethood and then to Divinity, such a meaning would clearly be false. This is so because the person who makes a claim to Prophethood must necessarily affirm the existence of God Almighty and, moreover, make the statement that he receives revelation from God Almighty. Furthermore, he should recite to the people the words which have been revealed to him by God Almighty and bring into being a body of followers who consider him to be a Prophet and his book to be the Book of Allah. Now, it needs to be understood how such a claimant could make a claim to be God before this very body of followers. These people would surely call him a great liar and say that he used to declare his belief in God Almighty and used to recite 1. Fathul-Bari Sharḥ Şahih al-Bukhārī, Juzw 13, p. 113, Kitābul-Fitan, Bāb Dhikr ad-Dajjal, Hadith 7131 [Publisher]