كتاب منهج دراسة الأديان بين الشيخ رحمت الله الهندي والقس فندر
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scholarship. They maintained good libraries containing many Arabic and Persian books. My grandfather decided to shift to Panipat because of Ghulam Muhammad Khan Afghan, whose family members have enjoyed positions of authority since the time of the Mughals and who was a man of great means and an important leader in this city. He befriended my grandfather, greatly honoured him for his learning and helped him in various ways. Thus my grandfather lived in this city in the company of Ghulam Muhammad Khan as an honoured and respected man and as a follower of the Islamic faith. My father, Mawlawi Siraj ud-Din, continues to reside in the same city. He has spent his whole life in worship and in obedience to the Muslim Law, and the children of Ghulam Muhammad Khan Afghan have continued to honour him as a teacher in the same manner. Abdullah Khan Afghan has succeeded his grandfather, Ghulam Muhammad Khan Afghan, and is now the leader of the city. Although his situation has deteriorated, he continues to honour my father.
My father is now an old man, but he observes the times of worship as regularly as ever. His prayer recitations and nightly vigils continue unabated. True, his senses have become dulled. Yet through letters I have conveyed to him the message of the Lord and the Good News of His salvation. He will accept it if he wants-it is up to him. The trouble is that the Muslim spiritual leaders are entangled in a network of ignorance and error. They believe that through Muhammad they know all about the significance of the prophets and the secret of the divine Law. Since they have never read the Injil and Tawrat (they forever talk about the corruption and abrogation of these Holy Scriptures based on claims of Muhammad) and since they never associate with Christians and enquire about the true state of these Scriptures (for generations they have been living in a state of self-deception), they therefore look down on Christians with much disdain and never pay attention to them. Yet it is true that in our country prejudice and ignorance is on the wane to some extent.
We were four brothers in our family. The youngest, Muin ud-Din, died in 1865. The eldest brother, Mawlawi Karim ud-Din, is at present a great author and the pride of our family. He is Deputy Inspector of School in the Lahore Division. He has authored many books in Arabic, Persian and Urdu. Though he is a Muslim, he is beginning to examine things for himself also.
The next brother, Munshi Khayr ud-Din, was at first a visitor in the schools of Ludhiana and Hoshiarpur. At present he is living with my father in Panipat. He is also intelligent and open-minded. If he were to ponder death and prepare for the afterlife, he could find the straight path. But, sad to say, there is no virtuous person to extract him from error. They all deceive and speak lies, and they are with him day and night. May God guide them all!
Next come I, Imad ud-Din. At the age of fifteen I left my people and went to Akbarabad (Agra) to study. There my brother, Mawlawi Karim ud-Din, served as senior Urdu teacher in the Government College. I studied under him for a long period of time. My only object in studying was somehow to find the Lord, for I had heard from Muslim preachers that without knowledge it is impossible to apprehend God. Even during my days as a student, I learned more about religion in the company of the ascetics, the pious and the scholars, as the time permitted. By frequenting the mosques, the monasteries and the homes of the mawlawis, I
