Human hands have taken the ideas conceived in minds and spread them onto paper. These ideas have been disseminated and will continue to be disseminated to the point where written material can bridge the gap from one end of the Atlantic to the other. The volume of content in the form of books, journals, and newspapers is so vast that it could wrap the entire hemisphere of the Earth, creating multiple layers and still leaving an abundance of what we, with our fingers, have created. Who can measure the ink, weigh the paper, count the pens made of wood or iron that have been spent or will be spent in this manner? But among the writers and readers of these writings, who can claim to have the highest level of certainty? Whether it’s Bernard Shaw’s allegorical tales, Sherlock Holmes stories, Hosherba’s tales, Premchand and Sudarshan’s fables, we are engaging in falsehoods and being fed lies. Do both the writers and readers possess any certainty other than the fact that these are all fabrications?
If Mirza Dagh didn’t base himself on the foundation of truth, how can you be sure that Mr. Shakespeare’s literature stands on anything solid? Historians themselves acknowledge that what they write is based on conjectures and speculations. Even the readers of history are aware that history books offer nothing more than the outcomes extracted haphazardly from analysis and conjectures.
Who can label this unenlightened and non-philosophical mind as a philosopher’s mind unless, in its philosophical pursuits, it has arrived at the thorny ground of doubt and skepticism, hesitance, and vacillation? The thorns of “doubt” and the embers of “hesitation” are the greatest and, indeed, the most valuable products of philosophical efforts. Who denies the discoveries of science and mathematics?
This is the nature of words and uncontrolled statements that we have composed and disguised as knowledge. As for true knowledge that underpins countless aspects of life, its results are undoubtedly sound. However, the laws formulated by human minds to present these conclusions as fundamental principles may not be true. Those who grasp the principles know very well that the formulators of these laws have neither truly understood their formulations nor can ever truly understand them to the extent that can be termed ‘ilm al-yaqīn (certain knowledge). Various groups among humanity claim to possess certain knowledge. Christians assert that the Gospels contain certain knowledge. Jews assert that there is certainty in the Torah. Hindus proclaim that there is certain knowledge in the Vedas. They contend that the uncertainty of knowledge finds solace in the Gita as these are the Omniscient God (ᶜallām al-ghuyūb). Their author is the one who knows those who have passed away, those who are passing by, and those who are about to pass. He knows the realities that we know and the ones we do not.
Who claims that there is no day, or that night doesn’t fall? Who believes that the seasons don’t change, and the weather remains constant? But why does this happen? Ask Einstein about the interrelationship of principles and the conclusions drawn by different minds from various linguistic cultures. Did they not firmly believe in the accuracy of deriving these conclusions from those principles, or did anyone have the right to apply the term certitude to these derivations?
Why do people turn a deaf ear to the call of the internal evidence of the books and the external evidence [proving adulteration in them]? It is due to their self-interest or national egoism that they do not wish to acknowledge or hear about the mishaps that befell their books through their own hands or the hands of their religious elders. The element of human desire has intertwined with God’s words. Who has the power to separate them? So, among the extensive shelves of the British Museum, the grand libraries of Paris and New York, the libraries of Berlin and Vienna, and of course, all the book collections of the East and the West, there is only one book on the face of the earth that can rightfully claim, “There is no doubt in it being the Book of God.” It is the book found in the “house” of every Muslim but not “inside” any of them except a few of those Allah wills.
Undoubtedly, the one with such all-encompassing knowledge must be the author of the book that can genuinely claim to have no doubt in it.
But can anyone prove that these nations are left with the original form of the teachings handed over to them by God’s representatives and apostles? Whether it is the Vedas or the Ushas, the Torah or the Gospels, the teachings of the Vedas or the Teachings of Confucius, does anyone have the original form of the teachings handed over to them?