كتاب منهج دراسة الأديان بين الشيخ رحمت الله الهندي والقس فندر
2 - أصل النص الإنجليزي المترجم لقصة عماد الدين لاهيز (¬1)¬_________
(¬1) The Life of
The Rev. Mawlawi Dr. Imad ud-Din Lahiz
PREFACE
Padre Imad-ud Din Lahiz wrote his life story in 1866. This English translation of the Urdu publication, Waqicat-i cImadiyya, is based on a text published by the Punjab Religious Book Society, Lahore, in 1957. Later, I came across an obviously older edition from the same publisher. This undated forty-four page text sold for one anna! The content of both editions is the same. Both contain a short, identical Appendix, which, apart from a reference to the death of Imad ud-Din in August, 1900, adds little to the author's account. To the best of my knowledge no other complete translation of this work has appeared in English.
Imad ud-Din was a prolific writer. His works reflect the influence of the two chief contenders of that great debate between Muslims and Christians in Agra in 1854, Mawlawi Rahmat Ullah and Padre C.G. Pfander. In addition to Imad ud-Din's writing about Islam, its history, faith and practices, his translation of the Qur'an into Urdu and his many Bible commentaries, he responded to the works of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadiyan. Much within some of his writings offers us his reasons in detail for his conversion to Christ.
Through the pages of Waqicat-i cImadiyya Christians are introduced to yet another brother who developed and formulated his Christian theology within an Islamic context. Especially in the Asian sub-continent the Church would do well to pay more attention to the writings of Imad ud-Din and others like him who have been concerned with sharing the Good News with Muslims. Even more so than with their writings, we should become familiar with their persons and the manner of their Christian discipleship. The value of such testimonies is more than purely historical.
To the Muslim reader we wish only to say that we are not-or should not be-concerned with merely parading another convert before reluctant Muslim eyes. If parading converts, whatever their circumstances and the nature of their conversion, is our purpose, then there is plenty of them from more recent times; we need not reach back a century ago. Yet surely there is the possibility of learning from any authentic conversion account, be it from any one religion to another. It could be that Imad ud-Din's experience at least might help some Muslims, so ready to dismiss the Bible as a corrupted or abrogated revelation, to re-read the pages of the Bible apart
