'Suppose', continued the Nawāb, 'you were to be invited to see and converse with even your earthly sovereign, would not your thoughts be too much taken up with him to admit of your giving, on your return, an account of the things you saw about him? I have been several times to see you, and I declare that I have been so much taken up with the conversations which have passed, that I have never noticed the many articles I now see around me, nor could I have told any one on my return home what I had seen in your room—the wall- shades, the pictures, the sofas, the tables, the book-cases,' continued he, casting his eyes round the room,' all escaped my notice, and might have escaped it had my eyes been younger and stronger than they are. What then must have been the state of mind of those great prophets, who were admitted to see and converse with the great Creator of the universe, and were sent by him to instruct mankind?
'I told my old friend that I thought his answer the best that could be given; but still, that we could not help thinking that if Muhammad had really been acquainted with the nature of the heavenly bodies, and the laws which govern them, he would have taken advantage of his knowledge to secure more firmly their faith in his mission, and have explained to them the real state of the case, instead of talking about the stars as merely made to be thrown at devils, to give light to men upon this little globe of ours, and to guide them in their wanderings upon it by sea and land.
'But what', said the Nawāb, 'are the great truths that you would have had our holy prophet to teach mankind?'
'Why, Nawāb Sahib, I would have had him tell us, amongst other things, of that law which makes this our globe and the other planets revolve round the sun, and their moons around them. I would have had him teach us something of the nature of the things we call comets, or stars with large tails, and of that of the fixed stars, which we suppose to be suns, like our sun, with planets revolving round them like ours, since it is clear that they do not borrow their light from our sun, nor from anything that we can discover in the heavens. I would also have had him tell us the nature of that white belt which crosses the sky, which you call the ovarious belt, "Khatt- i-abyāz", and we the milky-way, and which we consider to be a collection of self-lighted stars, while many orthodox but unlettered Musalmāns think it the marks made in the sky by "Borak", the rough-shod donkey, on which your prophet rode from Jerusalem to heaven. And you think, Nawāb Sāhib, that there was quite evidence enough to satisfy any person whose heart had not been hardened to unbelief? and that no description of the heavenly bodies, or of the laws which govern their motion, could have had any influence on the minds of such people? '[65]
'Assuredly I do, sir! Has not God said, "If we should open a gate in the heavens above them, and they should ascend thereto all the day long, they would surely say, our eyes are only dazzled, or rather we are a people deluded by enchantments."[66] Do you think, sir, that anything which his majesty Moses could have said about the planets, and the comets, and the milky way, would have tended so much to persuade the children of Israel of his divine mission as did the single stroke of his rod, which brought a river of delicious water gushing from a dry rock when they were all dying from thirst? When our holy prophet', continued the Nawāb (placing the points of the four fingers of his right hand on the table), 'placed his blessed hand thus on the ground, and caused four streams to gush out from the dug plain, and supply with fresh water the whole army which was perishing from thirst; and when out of only five small dates he afterwards feasted this immense army till they could eat no more, he surely did more to convince his followers of his divine mission than he could have done by any discourse about the planets, and the milky way (Khatt-i-abyāz).'
'No doubt, Nawāb Sāhib, these were very powerful arguments for those who saw them, or believed them to have been seen; and those who doubt the divinity of your prophets mission are those who doubt their ever having been seen.'
'The whole army saw and attested them, sir, and that is evidence enough for us; and those who saw them, and were not satisfied, must have had their hearts hardened to unbelief.'
'And you think, Nawāb Sāhib, that a man is not master of his own belief or disbelief in religions matters; though he is rewarded by an eternity of bliss in paradise for the one, and punished by an eternity of scorching in hell for the other?
'I do, sir, faith is a matter of feeling; and over our feelings we have no control. All that we can do is to prevent their influencing our actions, when these actions would be mischievous. I have a desire to stretch out this arm, and crush that fly on the table, I can control the act, and do so; but the desire is not under my control.'
'True, Nawāb Sāhib; and in this life we punish men not for their feelings, which are beyond their control, but for their acts, over which they have no control; and we are apt to think that the Deity will do the same.'