Page 265 - Demo

261conclusion 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