Braheen Volume 1

Title Page

Announcement

  • page 2 - The book is now over 100 juz (folios) and is expected to grow with footnotes as it is published. It is being printed on such high-quality paper and with such good calligraphic penmanship, that the real cost of publishing it is 25 rupees par volume but the price was set at 5 rupees per volume so that it is not a problem for Muslims. Nawab Muhammad Hasan Khansahib, Prime Minister of the State of Patiala has kindly paid for 50 copies.
  • page 3 - Although, in December 1879, the price was increased to 10 rupees from five rupees, it is still one and a half times less than the cost. Those that have paid at the original price are exempt from the original price. List of people who have bought/contributed.

Excuse

  • page 4 - Half the book should have been published by now, but due to the illness of the printer of the Safeer Hind Press, Amritsar, Punjab, in whose press this book is being printed, and other issues that he co-incidentally encountered, there has been a delay of 7-8 months. There will be no such delay from now on insha-Allah.

Important Request from the Author

  • page 5-6 - Thanks to God, and a list of those who have contributed/purchased/donated.
  • page 7-9 - Appeal to those who do not know about this book to come forward and address the need for such a book.
  • page 10-12 - List of purchasers and donors.

Preface

  • page 13 - prayer in Arabic
  • page 14-16 - Persian poem in praise of God
  • page 16-17 Praise of God and Muhammad(saw) in Urdu
  • page 17-23 Poem in Persian in praise of Muhammad(saw)
  • page 17-18 Description of the book - full name, types of proofs, and that it will be composed of :
    • an Advertisement
    • an Introduction (muqaddima)
    • four themes (fasl) (fasl is over multiple volumes)
    • an Epilogue

Advertisement

Main Offer (pages 24-28)

This is the full translation. It appears short due to very large font with ~7 lines to a page, and only 4 lines to a page in the original edition

A prize of 10,000 rupees for all those who, with their book, present the arguments and proofs that I have presented out of the Quran; or if their revealed book is not capable of doing that, they should admit as much in thir book and then refute my arguments one by one.

I, the author of Braheen-e-Ahmadiyya, advertise in my name the promise of ten thousand rupees to those leaders of religion and nation who negate the truth of the Quran and the prophethood of Muhammad(saw). By publishing this advertisement for the ending of debate, I declare legally and a Sharia-compliant promise that if any one of the negaters, together with his book, presents from his holy book all those arguments and proofs that I have presented for the truth of the Quran and the Prophet (saw) from the Quran – and if not equal in number, half, or a third, or a quarter or a fifth of them – and if he is not capable of presenting anything, he refutes my proofs one by one, then in all these scenarios:

Provided three judges acceptable to both parties unanimously give the opinion that such an event has occurred according to the conditions, I will provide any such applicant, without excuse or delay, with an interest and claim of the value of ten thousand rupees against my property.

Further Conditions (pages 28-52 end of book)

This is the full translation. It appears short due to very large font with ~7 lines to a page, and only 4 lines to a page in the original edition

It should be clear that in the event that they are not able to present the arguments of their book or, according to the conditions of the advertisement, are not able to present even one-fifth, they would have to declare in writing in their book that due to imperfection or illogicality their book cannot fulfill this condition.

And if they present the requisite arguments, it should be remembered that the permission and leniency that I have given to present up to one-fifth of the arguments, does not mean half, third, quarter or fifth of the total without any distinction or categorization, but that this condition will apply to each category of arguments and they would have to present half, or third, or quarter, or fifth from each category of arguments that I have presented.

Maybe someone does not understand what these categories are, so I write it out in detail: the arguments and proofs from the Quran that establish the truth of this holy book and the truth of the prophethood of Muhammad(saw) are of TWO types:

  1. Those that are intrinsic and self-directed testaments to the truth of the pure book and the Prophet(saw), i.e. those arguments that are obtained from the perfections of that holy book itself and from the holy and perfect attributes and pleasant morals of the Prophet(saw) himself
  2. Those external arguments that are absolute testaments to the truth of the Quran and the Prophet(saw), i.e. such arguments that are built upon external events that are continuous and established.

And then these two categories are further sub-divided into two categories each, simple (self-sufficient) and compound proofs:

  1. A simple or self-sufficient argument is the one that is not dependent or related to any other issue, when it is proving the truth of the Quran and the Prophet(saw).
  2. A compound argument's reasoning needs a whole set of observations that when observed as a unit, is in a highly congruent state that dictates the truth of the Quran and the Prophet (saw); and its components are not in the state when looked at independently. The reason for this apparent anomaly is that combined total and individual total are always of contradictory order – just as ten men can lift a heavy weight that each one of them cannot.

And when each of these categories, simple and compound, with their presentation, nature and attributes, are termed 'categories of proofs' in this book. And these are the categories for which I have put a condition in the main part of this advertisement that the negater of the Quran will have to present half, or a third, or a quarter or a fifth - in the situation that he cannot present an equal number that are present in that category.

And another item that should be made clear is that whoever wants to present a compound argument from their book should ensure that at least one example of each of the component arguments of the compound argument should also be presented in the same way.

Because understanding this condition requires an example, I will present such an example from the compound arguments for the Quran: The principles of the teachings of the Quran based on logical arguments, i.e. the Quran proves all the principles of belief that are necessary for salvation with strong and philosophical arguments, such as:

  • establish the existence of the creator of the universe
  • establishing the unity of God
  • arguments for the necessity of Divine Revelation
  • not shying away from any establishment of truth of exposure of falsehood. So, this is a great (compound) proof that Quran is from Allah and that establishes to perfection its truth and superiority because it cleanses all the world's false beliefs of every type of mistake and doubt that resided in peoples' hearts - deleting them with absolute arguments and including in its book a group of principles that are logically established that have never been included in any revealed book before, nor can one find such a philosopher or oracle in any age who, through the power of his vision and thought and intellect and understanding and insight, discovered them. Nor did any decent person ever give an iota of proof that the Prophet(saw) ever sat in any school for even a a day or half-a-day or acquired any logical or copied knowledge from any one; or that he spent time with any logician or philosopher with whose influence he was able to establish philosophical arguments over these true principles and opened up the truths of the beliefs of salvation whose example cannot be found anywhere in the scrolls of history. This is such a task that cannot be accomplished without Divine help and revelation. Thus, pitiable intellect concludes that the Quran is the word of the One God whose knowledge cannot be compared to a human's.

This is the example of a compound argument that I have presented, whose components are arguments themselves that are based on true beliefs and because this argument is also one of the categories or arguments, therefore it is incumbent on the claimant to present from all categories, therefore he should also present from this category. But in order to show this proof, he has to show all the proofs that are compiled and gathered to form this argument, and whose integrated identity result in its existence, such as: Proof of the Creator of the Universe, Proof of Unity of God, Proof of God as the Creator, etc., because these are the components and the whole cannot exist without the parts; nor can a concept be realized without its components.

Therefore it is incumbent on the claimant the he present all such component proofs. However, where I have presented five such proofs, the claimant can present one such proof, in support or against (according to his beliefs or opinion), compliant with the conditions stated above and produced from his religion's revealed book.