tuary, scornfully spoke these words unto Muhammad: "Verily, God hath
entered into a covenant with us that we are not to credit an apostle until
he present us a sacrifice which fire out of heaven shall devour."(112) The
purport of this verse is that God hath covenanted with them that they
should not believe in any messenger unless he work the miracle of Abel and
Cain, that is, offer a sacrifice, and the fire from heaven consume it;
even as they had heard it recounted in the story of Abel, which story is
recorded in the scriptures. To this, Muhammad, answering, said: "Already
have Apostles before me come to you with sure testimonies, and with that
of which ye speak. Wherefore slew ye them? Tell me, if ye are men of
truth."(113) And now, be fair; How could those people living in the days
of Muhammad have existed, thousands of years before, in the age of Adam or
other Prophets? Why should Muhammad, that Essence of truthfulness, have
charged the people of His day with the murder of Abel or other Prophets?
Thou hast none other alternative except to regard Muhammad as an impostor
or a fool--which God forbid!--or to maintain that those people of wickedness
were the self-same people who in every age opposed and caviled at the
Prophets and Messengers of God, till they finally caused them all to
suffer martyrdom.

Ponder this in thine heart, that the sweet gales of divine knowledge,
blowing from the meads of mercy, may waft upon thee the fragrance of the
Beloved's utterance, and cause thy soul to attain the Ridvan of
understanding. As the wayward of every age have failed to fathom the
deeper import of these weighty and pregnant utterances, and imagined the
answer of the Prophets of God to be irrelevant to the questions they asked
them, they therefore have attributed ignorance and folly to those Essences
of knowledge and understanding.

Likewise, Muhammad, in another verse, uttereth His protest against the
people of that age. He saith: "Although they had before prayed for victory
over those who believed not, yet when there came unto them, He of Whom
they had knowledge, they disbelieved in Him. The curse of God on the
infidels!"(114) Reflect how this verse also implieth that the people
living in the days of Muhammad were the same people who in the days of the
Prophets of old contended and fought in order to promote the Faith, and
teach the Cause, of God. And yet, how could the generations living at the
time of Jesus and Moses, and t