Documents of the Right Word

Muslims, i.e. for our master hadrat ’Umar-ul-Fârûq ‘radiy-Allâhu
anh’, who is very much loved by Muslims, who is praised and
lauded in âyat-i-kerîmas, who was given the good news through
hadîth-i-sherîfs that he would go to Paradise, and whose justice,
honour and fame occupy vast spaces in the world’s histories. Since
the person he puts forward is not among scholars, neither Sunnite
nor Shiite, and the two books he names appear to exist only in his
repertory, we shall not smear our pen with them. Let us harken to
what the book Tuhfa says in answer to these sordid lies:
These lies of Hurûfîs meet with outright objection, not only by
the Ahl as-sunna, but also on the part of Shiites, who
acknowledge that they have been spread by a few lowly, ignoble,
shameless heretics. Shiites, however, have insisted in their
aberrant credo by saying, “He wished to burn the house, but he
did not attempt to do it.” On the other hand, wishing is a feeling,
which in turn is the heart’s business. No one except Allâhu ta’âlâ
can know this. If these aberrant people mean to say that “He said
he would burn the house in order to threaten them,” yes, hadrat
’Umar threatened a few people by saying so. These people had
crowded around hadrat Fâtima’s house. “No one can harm us as
long as we are here,” they were saying. Their purpose was to
disarray the caliphate election by arising fitna and tumult. Their
noise annoyed hadrat Fâtima very much. Yet her excessive feeling
of shame would not let her hold out her head and tell them to
leave the place. At that moment ’Umar-ul-Fârûq, who was
passing by, saw them and knew at once what was going on. In
order to frighten them away, he said, “I’ll pull the house down on
you.” This type of threat was customary in Arabia. As a matter of
fact, Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu alaihi wa sallam’ stated, “If they do
not rid themselves of this remissness I shall pull their houses on
them,” in order to warn those who would not attend public
prayers of namâz. Hadrat Abû Bekr had been appointed by our
master the Messenger of Allah ‘sall-Allâhu alaihi wa sallam’ as
the imâm to conduct the public prayers of namâz. Some people,
who considered that they might as well not follow him, did not
join the jamâ’at. So Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu alaihi wa sallam’
threatened them. Therefore, this statement of hadrat ’Umar’s
possesses expressive subtlety. Moreover, on the day when Mekka
was conquered, an unbeliever named Ibn Hatal was reported to
have been reciting poems of vituperation against our master the
Prophet. Lest he should be punished, the heathen took asylum in
Ka’ba-i-muazzama and hid himself under its cover. “Do not
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