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conclusion will end in failure. The Higher Biblical
Criticism will guide you as far as the gate of the sacred
shrine of truth, and there it stops, stricken with awe and
incredulity. It does not open the door to enter inside and
search for the eternal documents therein deposited. All
research and erudition shown by these “impartial” critics,
whether Liberal Thinkers, Rationalists, or indifferent
writers, are, after all, deplorably cold, sceptical, and
disappointing. Lately I was reading the works of the
French savant Ernest Renan, La vie de Jesus (pbuh) , Saint
Paul, and L’ Antichrist. I was astonished at the extent of
works, ancient and modern, which he has examined; he
reminded me of Gibbon and others. However, alas, what
is the conclusion of their inexhaustible research and
study? Zero or negation! In the domain of science, the
marvels of Nature are discovered by the Positivists; but
in the domain of Religion these Positivists make hay of
it and poison the religious sentiments of their readers. If
these learned critics were to take the spirit of the Quran for
their guidance and Muhammad (pbuh) as the literal, moral,
and practical fulfilment of Holy Writ, their research could
not be so desultory and destructive. Religious men want a
real and not an ideal religion; they want a “Son of Man”
who will draw his sword and march at the head of his
valiant army to pulverize the enemies of God and to prove
by word and deed that he is the “Lord of the Sabbath
day,” and to abrogate it altogether because it was abused
by the Jews as the “Fatherhood” of God was abused
by the Christians. Muhammad (pbuh) did this! As I have
often repeated in these pages, we can only understand
these corrupted scriptures when we penetrate, with the
help of the light of Al-Quran, into their enigmatic and
contradictory statements, and it is only then that we can
sift them with the sieve of truthfulness and separate the
genuine from the spurious. When, for example, speaking