Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya Part III — Page 196
196 BARĀHIN-E-AHMADIYYA PART THREE the unseen by His word and blesses them with His holy discourse-а status that cannot be granted to others in accordance with the words, هَلْ يَسْتَوِي الْأَعْلَى وَالْبَصِيرُ ]Can a blind man and one who sees be alike']. The overall impression one gets from Maulavi Şahib's writing in his booklet is that he has doubts about the revelation received by auliyā'ullāh. If this understanding of his intent is correct-God forbid-then Maulavī Şahib has undoubtedly fallen into a grave error. To deny that auliyā'ul- lāh are recipients of divine revelation does not behove even ordinary Muslims, let alone religious scholars. Does he not know that the Holy Quran itself mentions the fact that God spoke through His revealed word to the mother of Hadrat Mūsā [Moses], to Maryam [Mary], and to Jesus' disciples, though none of them was a Prophet or a Messenger. Maulavi Şahib might argue that he does believe that auliyā'ullāh receive divine communication, but he gives it [communication] the name wahī, not ilhām; ilham, in his estimation, is the name given to the thoughts that come to our minds, which are common to believers and non-believers, sinners, and the righteous-they are not specific to anyone. Such a response from him would be a lexical dispute, but even here Maulavi Şahib would be in error, because generally, when the word ilhām is used with reference to wahī, it is not understood in its etymo- logical sense, but as a term used by Muslim scholars. Since the earliest times, scholars have used the word ilham in the sense of wahi, whether it is wahy-e-risālat [Divine Scriptures] or wahy-e-ilām, the revelation received by other believers. Only someone who has an ulterior motive to repudiate the truth will deny knowledge of this usage. Otherwise, no one can quote a single book-out of the hundreds of commentaries of the Holy Quran and thousands of other religious works-which con- tradicts this usage. On the contrary, the commentators have constantly understood ilham in the same sense as wahī. Several ahādīth also lead to the same conclusion and Maulavi Şahib cannot be ignorant of them. Therefore, I do not understand how he got the idea that ilham should be used in religious literature in the same sense in which it is used in the lexicons, even though mainstream Muslim scholars are in agreement