The following chapter is the translation of the booklet Khulasa-t-ul-kalam:

This booklet is in Arabic. Its author, Yusuf Nebhani, passed away in Beirut in 1305 H. [1932 A.D.] May hamd (praise, laud and thanks) be to Allahu ta'ala! He blesses anyone He likes with hidayat (guidance to the right way and consequently to salvation) and leaves anyone He wishes in His dalalat (aberration, wrong way). [With His justice He accepts the prayers of those who wish to be saved from dalalat and attain eternal felicity]. We pronounce benedictions over our master, Muhammad 'alaihis- salam', who is the highest of Prophets and of all the selected people. May blessings and salutations be upon his Al (close relatives, household) and upon all his Ashab, who shine on the earth like stars in the sky!

This small booklet has few pages. Yet it is rich with respect to the knowledge it contains. People of knowledge and wisdom will accept it if they read it with common sense, and those who are blessed with the hidayat of Allahu ta'ala, with the right way, will believe it outright. This booklet distinguishes the Sirat-i- mustaqim, which is a blessing Allahu ta'ala has bestowed on Muslims, from the way of Dalalat, wherein He has forsaken His enemies. I have named this booklet Hulasa-t-ul-kalam fi tarjih-i-din-il-Islam, which means 'a summary of the statements which will help choose the Islamic religion.'

O man, who wishes to save himself from eternal torment and to attain infinite blessings! If you spent all your time pondering over this very important, very great truth, if you applied all your energies to find out the means for safeguarding yourself against endless torment, when you were alone and in all situations, if you cooperated with all other people and struggled to the best of your abilities as a human being to attain this goal, all these endeavors would be extremely insignificant when compared with the importance of this means. In fact, it would be similar to giving a grain of sand in return for all worldly treasures. The importance of this truth could not be explained through this writing of ours. This writing of ours is intended to give some clues to the wise. A single implication will suffice for a wise person to realize the purport. I, therefore, shall make a few clue-bearing statements to prime the pump for this realization: Man forms a liking to his settled tendencies. He does not want to cease from doing them. When he is born, for instance, be gets used to sucking milk, and hates to get weaned. As he grows, he becomes accustomed to his home, to his quarter, to his hometown. It becomes very difficult for him to part with them. Later on, he becomes wont to his shop, to his profession, to his scientific branch, to his family, to his language and religion, and hates to part with them. Thus various communities, tribes, nations come into being. Then, a nation's love of their religion is not the result of a realization that their religion is the best of religions. A wise person should study his religion, compare it with other religions, find out what religion is the true one and hold fast to it. For adherence to a wrong religion will drift one to eternal disasters and everlasting torments. O man, wake up from oblivion! If you say, "How do I know what religion is the true one? I believe that the religion I am accustomed to is the true one. I love this religion," then you should know that "Religion means to obey the commandments and prohibitions which Allah has sent through Prophets." These injunctions are men's duties to their Rabb (Allah) and to one another.

Of all the existing religions, which one gives the most helpful explanation of the Rabb's Attributes, of worships, and of the relations between creatures? Wisdom is a sense which distinguishes between good and bad. What is bad should be rejected and what is good should be studied. Studying a religion means studying its beginning, its Prophet, his Ashab (companions) and Ummat (followers), especially the notable ones. If you like them, choose that religion! Follow your mind, not your nafs! Your nafs will mislead you by infusing feelings of shame and fear into you pertaining to your family, your friends and wicked and miscreant men of religion. The harms such people may give you is a mere nothing when compared with everlasting torment. A person who realizes this fact fully will choose the Din-i-islam. He will believe in Muhammad 'alaihis- salam', who is the last Prophet. Besides, Islam enjoins a belief in all Prophets. It teaches that their religions and canonical laws were true, that each new Messenger invalidated the Shariats prior to him, and that by the same token the advent of Muhammad's 'alaihis-salam' Shariat invalidated all the earlier Shariats. A person's realizing that the religion he has been used to following is a wrong one, abandoning this religion and having iman in Muhammad 'alaihis-salam' will be very difficult for his nafs to tolerate. For the nafs has been created in a nature inimical to Allahu ta'ala, to Muhammad 'alaihis-salam', and to his Shariat. This inimical nature of the nafs is called Hamiyat-ul- jahiliyya (mistaken zeal, fanaticism, bigotry). Parents, teachers, vicious friends, [radio and television programs, statesmen] in the wrong religion will support this bigoted feeling. Hence the saying, "Teaching the child is like inscribing on stone." For eliminating this bigotry it is necessary to strive hard, to struggle against the nafs, and to convince the nafs through reason. If you read my following writings with attention, it will help you with this struggle of yours:

Adapting oneself to a certain religion is for attaining eternal happiness and securing oneself against everlasting disasters. It is not for boasting about a religion which one has inherited from one's parents. And each Prophet is a human being who possesses the qualifications of prophethood and conveys the injunctions of Allahu ta'ala to His born servants. One has to adapt oneself to a Prophet who has these qualifications and enter his religion. People who worship icons and idols called Wasani (Veseni) and godless people called Dahri, [also freemasons and communists] are like beasts. Also, the Nazarani (Christian) and Judaic religions have become obsolete for the following reasons:

1- In the Islamic religion, Allahu ta'ala has attributes of perfection. He does not have attributes of deficiency. The worships are easy to perform. Social relations are based on justice. Worships and social relations taught in the other religions, however, have changed in the course of time, so that they are no longer reasonable or practicable.

2- A comparative study of the lives of Muhammad, Isa (Jesus) and Musa (Moses) 'alaihimus-salam' will show that Muhammad 'alaihis-salam' is of the highest lineage, the noblest, the bravest, the most beneficent, the most knowledgeable, the wisest, the most superior, and the most sagacious in knowledge pertaining to this world and the next. On the other hand, he was ummee (illiterate). In other words, he had never read books nor learned anything from anybody.

3- The mujizas (miracles) worked through Muhammad 'alaihis-salam' were much more numerous than the total of those wrought through the others. The mujizas of the others are past and over. A number of Muhammad's 'alaihis-salam' mujizas, on the other hand, especially the mujiza of Qur'an al-karim, have been continuing and will last till the end of the world. And the karamats of his Ummat (Muslims), especially those wrought through the Awliya, have been occurring continually and everywhere.

4- Among the reports communicating these three religions to us, those which are conveyed through Qur'an al-karim and Hadith-i-Sharifs are more numerous and more dependable. All of them have been committed to books and spread throughout the world. Muhammad 'alaihis-salam' was forty years old when he was informed that he was the Prophet. And he was sixty-three years old when he passed away. His prophethood lasted for twenty-three years. He passed away after the whole Arabic peninsula had obeyed him, after his religion had spread and had been learned everywhere, after his call had been heard in the east and in the west, and after the number of his Ashab had reached 150 thousand. He performed his Farewell Hajj together with his 120 thousand Sahabis, and passed away eighty days after this. The third ayat al-karima of Maida sura, which purports, "Today I have completed your religion and consummated my blessing on you and called Islam as your religion," was revealed during this Hajj. All these Sahabis were faithful and true. Most of them were profoundly learned in Islam and were Awliya. They spread Rasulullah's religion and mujizas over the earth. For they traveled to other countries for Jihad. Wherever they went they conveyed the religious teachings and mujizas to men of knowledge living there. And these people, in their turn, taught others. Thus, scholars living in each century taught many other scholars belonging to the next generations. And these scholars wrote these teachings in thousands of books, and also wrote the names of those people who conveyed these teachings. They classified the hadith ash-Sharifs they learned in a number of categories and gave them such terms as Sahih, Hasan, etc. They did not let false statements fabricated by liars [and Jews] in the name of hadiths enter their books. They were very stringent, extremely sensitive in this respect. Owing to their stringent efforts the Islamic religion was established on very solid foundations and spread without any change. None of the other religions spread in such a healthy way. The mujizas of our beloved Prophet Muhammad 'alaihis-salam', substantially proves that he is the true Prophet, Islam's fundamental and essential teachings, existence and unity of Allahu ta'ala, His Attributes of perfection, prophethood of Muhammad 'alaihis-salam', that he was faithful and dependable and the highest of all Prophets, that people will rise again after death and will be called to account, the bridge of Sirat, blessings of Paradise, torments in Hell, that it is fard (a plain Islamic commandment) to perform the prayer called namaz five times daily, the fard (obligatory) parts of noon, afternoon and night prayers have four rak'ats each, that (the fard part of) morning prayer contains two rak'ats and (that of) evening prayer contains three rak'ats, that it is fard to begin fasting when the new moon for the month of Ramadan is seen in the sky and to celebrate the Bayram (feast) called Fitr when the new moon for the month of Shawwal is seen, that it is fard (or fard) to perform (the worship called) Hajj once in one's lifetime, that it is haram (forbidden) [for women and girls to go out without covering their heads, their hair, (for everyone, men and women alike) to practice pederasty] to commit fornication, to drink wine [or even a drop of any hard drink which would intoxicate in case it were taken in large amounts], for a person who is junub (canonically unclean, needing a ritual washing) and for a menstruating woman to perform namaz, to perform namaz without a ritual ablution, and all the other essential religious teachings were conveyed correctly to all Muslims, educated and ignorant ones alike, and eventually to us without any changes having been made in them. This fact is known by reasonable Christians and Jews as well. These people acknowledge that the means by which they learned their own religion do not have equally dependable authenticity. Because Muhammad's 'alaihis-salam' time is closer to ours and because the number of scholars who conveyed the Islamic religion to us is enormous, it has not been possible to insert superstitions into Islam. Christianity and Judaism do not possess these two blessings. There is a space of about six hundred years [according to historians] between the bi'that [appearing] of Isa 'alaihis-salam' and that of Muhammad 'alaihis- salam'. For [they say] that there are six hundred and twenty-one years between Isa's 'alaihis-salam' birth and Muhammad's 'alaihis-salam' hijra (migration) from Mecca to Medina. [On the other hand, this space of time is one thousand years according to Islamic scholars]. During this space of time ignorance was widespread all over the earth. It was therefore very difficult to distinguish between true reports and false ones.

Isa's 'alaihis-salam' call did not last long. Allahu ta'ala raised him up to heaven when he was thirty-three years old. During this short time he was weak and defenseless against unbelievers. The conditions were not convenient enough for him to carry out successfully the duty which his Rabb had assigned to him. The time's Jewish community and their government were an additional impediment. Nor did he have any supporters except those few people called Hawaris (Apostles). His only believers were these twelve Apostles, who were no more than poor, ignorant hunters. After his ascension to heaven, various reports and narrations were compiled in [four] books called the Injil, which, being transferred from one incompetent hand to another and being translated from one language to another, underwent various interpolations. Much of the information contained in these gospels therefore is contradictory with one another and illogical. In fact, reports given in one of them confute and belie those written in another. The same case applies to different versions of the same gospel. To eliminate these differences and contradictions, priests had to convene in every century and correct the existing gospels, thus making additions and excisions and meanwhile inserting absurdities that have nothing to do with religion. They forced people to believe these books. Most of the statements in these books do not belong to Isa 'alaihis-salam' or to his Apostles. As a result, they parted into various groups. New sects appeared in every century. Most of them dissented from earlier ones. And they all know that the gospels they have now are not the holy book teaching the religion brought by Isa 'alaihis-salam'.

So are the Judaic books narrating the religion and the mujizas of Musa 'alaihis-salam'. The space of time here is longer. Musa 'alaihis-salam' passed away two thousand three hundred and forty-eight (2348) years before Muhammad's 'alaihis-salam' hijrat. During the long time of ignorance between them it was impossible to convey the Judaic religion correctly. In addition, Jewish men of religion were killed by cruel tyrants like Nebuchadnezzar, and others were taken as captives and transported from the Bayt-ul-muqaddas to Babylon. In fact, there were times when Jerusalem did not contain one single person educated enough to read the Torah. Danyal (Daniel) 'alaihis- salam' knew the Torah by heart, so that he would recite and dictate it. This served to delay its being interpolated only till after this blessed Prophet's death. As a matter of fact, the additions made after him were far too amoral to be attributed to Allahu ta'ala or to Prophets.

That ignorance did not become widespread after the time of Muhammad 'alaihis-salam' is known by all peoples. In fact, knowledge became a widespread common attribute among all Muslims, great Islamic states were established and they spread knowledge, science, justice and human rights everywhere. Now, if a wise and reasonable person examines these three religions, he will definitely adapt himself to Islam. For the purpose is to find the true religion. Lying and slandering are haram in Islam. Ayat al-karimas and hadith ash-Sharifs vehemently prohibit these two vices. When it is a grave sin to slander an ordinary person, it is much worse, much more haram to slander the Messenger of Allah. For this reason, there cannot be any lies, any errors in books telling about Muhammad 'alaihis-salam' and his mujizas. A wise person should overcome his pertinacity, abandon the religion that will lead to perdition, and adapt himself to the true religion which will guide him to happiness. Life in this world is very short. Its days are passing by and turning into mere visions one by one. Every human being will end in death, whereafter there is either eternal torment or an everlasting life of blessings. And their time is approaching everybody with great speed.

O man! Have mercy on yourself! Remove the curtain of oblivion from your mind! See what is wrong as wrong and try to get rid of it! See what is right as right and adapt yourself to it, hold fast to it! The decision you will make is very great, very important. And the time is very short. You will certainly die! Think of the time when you will die! Prepare yourself for what you are going to experience! You will not escape everlasting torment unless you adapt yourself to Haqq. Repenting when it is too late will be useless. Confirming the truth at the last breath will not be accepted. Making tawba after death will not be valid. That day, if Allahu ta'ala says, "O My born servant! I gave thee the light of mind. I commanded thee to use it for knowing Me and for having belief in Me, in My Prophet Muhammad 'alaihis-salam', and in the Islamic religion revealed through him. I informed in the Torah and the Bible about the advent of this Prophet. I spread his name and religion in very country. You cannot say you did not hear about him. You worked day and night for worldly earnings, worldly pleasures. You never thought of what you were going to experience in the Hereafter. In a state of unawareness you fell into the talons of death," how will you answer?

O man! Think of what is going to happen to you! Come to your senses before your lifetime is over. People you had been seeing around you, you had been talking to, you had been sympathizing with, you had been afraid of, died one by one. They do not exist now. They came and went by like fancies. Think well! What a horrible thought it is to burn in eternal fire! And how great a fortune it is to live in everlasting blessings. You have the choice now. Everybody will end up in one of these two extremes. Another alternative is impossible. It would be utter ignorance, insanity not to consider this and take precautions accordingly. May Allahu ta'ala bless us all with following reason! Amin.

It is stated as follows in the book Qawl-us-sabt fi rad-d-i-'ala deaw-il-protestanet: Allama Rahmatullah Hindi (79) states in his book (Iz-har-ul-haqq), "Before the beginning of Islam there were no original copies of the Torah or the Bible left anywhere. The existing ones today are history books made up of true and false reports. The Torah and the Bible mentioned in Qur'an al-karim are not the existing books in the name of Torah and Bible. Of the teaching written in these books, the ones affirmed by Qur'an al-karim are true and those which it rejects are false. We would not say true of false about those which are not mentioned in Qur'an al-karim. There is no documentary evidence to prove that the four Gospels are the word of Allah. A British priest with whom I spoke with in India admitted this fact and said that all the documents in this respect had been lost through tumults that had happened in the world until A.D. 313". It is written in the second volume of the interpretation of the Bible by Heron, in the sixty-fifth page of the first volume of the historian Moshem's history, printed in 1332 [A.D. 1913], and in the hundred and twenty-fourth page of the fifth volume of the explanation of the Bible by Lardis that the Gospels underwent various interpolations. Jerome says, "As I translated the Bible, I saw that different copies contradicted one another." Adam Clark says in the first volume of his interpretation, "The Bible underwent various interpolations during its translation into Latin. Contradictory additions were made." Ward Catholic says on the eighteenth page of his interpretation, printed in 1841, "Oriental heretics changed many parts of the Bible. Protestant priests submitted a report to King James I and said: The Psalms in our book of prayers are unlike the ones that are in Hebrew. There are almost two hundred changes. On the other hand, Protestant priests made even more changes." Numerous examples of these changes are given in the book Iz-har-ul-haqq. Interpolations in various editions of the Gospels are exemplified also in the book Al-fasilu-beyn-al-haqq wal-batil, by Izz-ad-din Muhammadi, and Tuhfat-ul-arib, by Abdullah Tarjuman.

All priests know that Isa 'alaihis-salam' did not write anything. Neither did he leave behind any written documents nor have anyone write anything. He did not teach his Shariat in written form. After his ascension to heaven, disagreements began among the Nazaranis. They could not come together to consolidate their religious knowledge. As a result, more than fifty Gospels were written. Four of them were chosen. Eight years after Isa 'alaihis-salam' the Gospel of Matthew was written in the Syrian language in Palestine. The original copy of this Gospel does not exist today. There is a book said to be its Greek version. The Gospel of Mark was written in Rome thirty years after him. The Gospel of Luke was written in Greek in Alexandria twenty-eight years after him. And thirty-eight years after him, the Gospel of John was written in Ephesus. All these Gospels contain narrations, stories, and events that happened after Isa 'alaihis- salam'. Luke and Mark are not among the Apostles. They wrote what they had heard from others. Authors of these Gospels did not call their books Injil (Bible). They said that theirs were history books. Those who called them the Bible were those who translated them afterwards.

This book, Qawl-us-sebt, was written in 1341 [A.D. 1923] by Sayyid Abd-ul-qadir Iskenderani as a response to the book Aqawil-ul-Qur'aniyya, written in Arabic and printed by a Protestant priest in Egypt; in 1990, (Hakikat Kitabevi) reproduced this book together with the books As-sirat-ul-mustaqim and Hulasa-t-ul-kalam.

The original Injil was in the Hebrew language and was destroyed by the Jews when they arrested Isa 'alaihis- salam'. Not even a single copy of the original Holy Book was written during the three years, the period of Isa's 'alaihis-salam' call. Christians deny the original Injil. The four Gospels which they call the Bible do not contain any system of worship. All they contain are the discussions between Isa 'alaihis-salam' and the Jews. However, a religious book must teach forms of worship. If they should claim to have been doing their worship in accordance with the Torah, then why do they ignore its very important commandments such as observing the Sabbath [on Saturday], circumcision, and abstention from eating pork? Their Gospels do not contain any information telling that these commandments should be disregarded. On the other hand, Qur'an al-karim covers detailed knowledge pertaining to all sorts of worships, ethics, law, trade, agriculture, and science, and encourages these branches. It prescribes solutions for all sorts of physical and spiritual problems.

For fourteen hundred years no poet, no man of literature, no obdurate unbeliever has been able to express a statement similar to any one ayat of Qur'an al-karim, try as they would. That not a single one of its ayats could be said in its exactitude, despite the fact that the vocabulary used in it consists of commonly used ordinary words, shows clearly that it is a mujiza (miracle wrought through a Prophet). The other mujizas of Muhammad 'alaihis-salam' are past events; they exist only in name today. As for Qur'an al-karim; it shines as brightly as the sun, always and everywhere. It is a medicine for every illness, a remedy for every disease. Allahu ta'ala, the Most Kind, has bestowed it on His Habib-i-akram (Blessed beloved one) and revealed it to him so that all His born servants could be happy. With His infinite Kindness and Compassion, He has protected it against changes and interpolations. He did not make this promise concerning other heavenly books.

The Shariats of all Prophets, having been suited (by Allahu ta'ala) to the requirements of the times they lived in, were naturally different from one another. Tenets of belief, however, were identical in all of them. They all taught that Allahu ta'ala is One, and that there will be a resurrection after death. It is stated in the fourth chapter of the Torah, "The owner of earths and heavens is one", in the sixth chapter, "O thou the Israelite! Hark! Thine Allah, thine Rabb, is one." In II Kings Sulaiman (Solomon) 'alaihis-salam' is quoted as having said, "O Thou, Allah of Israel! Neither on earth nor in heavens is there another Rabb like Thee. Thou willst not go in earths or in heavens, nonetheless for the house I have built," after building the Bayt-ul-muqqaddas (the Masjid al-Aqsa in Jerusalem). It is written in the fifteenth chapter of I Kings that Prophet Samuel said, "The blessed One, that is, Allah and Rabb of Israel, will not lie, nor will He repent. For He is not human." It is stated as follows in the forty-fifth chapter of the book attributed to Prophet Isaiah: "I am Rabb! There is no Allah besides Me. I, alone, create light and dark, good and evil." It is written in the nineteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, "Someone said unto him: 'O good teacher! What good should I do so that I attain eternal life?' He answered him: 'Why do you call me good? There is no one good except One. He is Allah. If you want to attain eternal life, do His injunctions'." It is stated as follows in the twelfth chapter of Mark: "One of the scribes said: 'What is the first injunction?' Isa 'alaihis-salam' answered him: 'The first injunction is that our Rabb is one. Love thine Rabb with all thine heart, with all thine energy. The second is that He does not have a likeness'." Muhammad 'alaihis-salam' stated so, too.

A person who contradicts [disbelieves] Muhammad 'alaihis-salam' will have disbelieved all Prophets. Belief in Trinity [existence of three Gods] means to deny all the Prophets. The doctrine of the Trinity appeared long after Isa's 'alaihis-salam' ascension to heaven. Formerly, all the Nazarites held the belief of Tawhid (Unity of Allah) and observed most of the principles in the Torah. When a number of idolaters and Greek philosophers joined the Nazarites they mixed their former belief, the Trinity, with the Nazarani religion. It is written in a French book, which was translated into Arabic and given the title Qurrat-un-nufus, that the person who interpolated the doctrine of the Trinity into the Nazarani religion first was a priest named Seblius, in the year 200 of the Christian Era, and that this first interpolation caused much bloodshed. At that time many scholars defended the belief of Unity and said that Isa 'alaihis-salam' was a human being and a Prophet. It was sometime around the year 300 when Arius of Alexandria proclaimed the belief of Unity and announced that the doctrine of the Trinity was wrong and void. In the (first) Nicene council convened by Constantine the Great in 325, belief in the Unity was rejected and Arius was excommunicated. They themselves do not know what they mean by the name Holy Ghost (or Spirit), which they suppose to be the third god of the Trinity. They say that it was the Holy Ghost through which Isa 'alaihis-salam' came into being in the womb of his mother, Mary. Islam teaches that the Ruh-ul-Quds (the Holy Spirit) is the Archangel named Jabrail (Gabriel) (80).

Shams-ad-din Sami Bey wrote in the 1316 [A.D. 1898] edition of Kamus-ul-alam: The Islamic Prophet is Muhammad 'alaihis-salam'. His father is Abdullah and his grandfather is Abd-ul-muttalib bin Hisham bin 'Abd-i- Manaf bin Qusey bin Kilab. According to historians, he was born in Mecca towards a Monday morning, which coincided with the twelfth day of Rabi'ul-awwal month, the twentieth of April, in 571 A.D. His mother is Amina, the daughter of Vahab and his grandfather is 'Abd-i-Menaf bin Zuhra bin Kilab. Kilab is Abdullah's great grandfather. Abdullah passed away at a place called Dar-un-nabigha in the vicinity of Medina on his way back from a commercial expedition to Damascus. He was twenty-five years old. He did not see his son. He (Muhammad 'alaihis-salam') stayed with his wet nurse Halima among her tribe for five years. This tribe, which was called Bani Said, were the most eloquent people of Arabia. For this reason, Muhammad 'alaihis-salam' spoke very eloquently. When he was six years old Amina, (his blessed mother), took him to his maternal uncles in Medina and passed away there. His nurse, Umm-i-Eymen, took him to Mecca and delivered him to Abd-ul-muttalib, (his blessed paternal grandfather). He was eight years old, when Abd-ul-muttalib passed away and he began to stay in the home of his paternal uncle Abu Talib. When he was twelve years old he joined Abu Talib on a commercial journey to Damascus. When he was seventeen years old his paternal uncle Zubair took him to Yaman. When he was twenty-five years old he went to Damascus as the leader of Hadija's 'radi-allahu anha' caravan on a commercial expedition. He became famous for his excellent manners, beautiful moral character, and industrious habits. Two months later he married Hadija. When he was forty years old the angel named Jabrail (Gabriel) visited him and he was informed of his prophethood. Hadija was his first believer, and she was followed by Abu Bakr, then Ali, who was a child yet, and than Zayd bin Harisa. When he was forty-three years old he was ordered to invite everybody to Islam. Heathens persecuted him severely. He was fifty-three years old when he migrated to Medina-i- munawwara. He arrived in the Kuba village of Medina on Monday the eighth of Rabi'ul-awwal, which coincided with the twentieth day of September, in the 622 nd year of the Christian era. It was during the caliphate of hadrat 'Umar when this year, (i.e. A.D. 622), was accepted as the beginning of the Muslim era and the first day of the month of Muharram as the first day (new year's day) of the Hijri Lunar year. It was the sixteenth day, a Friday, in the month of July. And the twentieth day of September was accepted as the first day of the Hijri Solar year. The 623 rd new year's day of the Christian era took place during the first Hijri solar and lunar years. When the first commandment to perform Ghaza and Jihad against the unbelievers was given (by Allahu ta'ala), the Ghaza (Holy War) of Badr was made in the second year of the Hijrat. Of the nine-hundred-and-fifty-strong army of unbelievers, fifty were killed and forty-four were taken as captives. In the third year, the Ghaza of Uhud was made. The number of unbelievers was three thousand, whereas Muslims numbered seven hundred. Seventy-five Sahabis were martyred. In the fourth year the Ghaza of Hendek (Trench) and in the fifth year the Ghaza of Bani Mustalaq were made. It was during this same year when women were commanded to cover themselves. The Ghaza of Hayber and the peace agreement called Bi'at-ur-ridwan, at Hudaybiya, were made in the sixth year. In the seventh year the Kaiser and the Chosroes were sent letters of invitation to Islam. In the eighth year the Ghaza of Muta was conducted against the Byzantine army under Heraclius' command, Mecca was conquered and the Ghaza of Hunayn was taken place. In the ninth year an expedition for the Ghaza of Tabuk was made. In the tenth year the Hajj of Wada' (Farewell) was made. In the eleventh year, after suffering fever for thirteen days, the blessed Prophet passed away in the room adjacent to his masjid on Monday the twelfth of Rabi'ul awwal, when he was sixty-three years old.

Rasulullah 'sall-allahu alaihi wa sallam' was always affable and soft-spoken. There was a nur shining on his blessed face. Those who saw him would fall in love with him. His mildness, patience, beautiful moral habits are written in thousands of books. He had four sons and four daughters from Hadija 'radi-allahu anha'. And he had one son from Mariya of Egypt. All his children except Fatima passed away while he was alive. This is the end of our citation from Kamus-ul-alam.

Imam-i-Ghazali wrote in his book Kimya-yi Saadat, "Allahu ta'ala sent Prophets to His born servants. Through these great people He informed His born servants about ways guiding to happiness and those leading to disasters. The highest, the most superior and the last of the Prophets is Muhammad 'alaihis-salam'. He is the Prophet for all people, for all nations. All people all over the world have to believe in that exalted Prophet." A person who believes him and adapts himself to him will attain blessings in the world and in the Hereafter. He who does not believe him, on the other hand, will be subjected to everlasting torment in the Hereafter.

FOOTNOTES

(79) Rahmatullah Hindi passed away in Mecca in 1306 [A.D. 1889]

(80) The Turkish book Izah-ul-maram was written by Abdullah Abdi bin Destan Mustafa Bey of Manastir 'rahmat-ullahi alaih'. He passed away in 1303 [A.D. 1885]. The book was printed in the print-house that belonged to Yahya Effendi, the shaikh of Mustafa Pasha convent immediately outside Edirnekapi, Istanbul.