Muntakhab al-tawarikh 379.3

379.3

is in the position of that beast which shall come forth as the first sign of the Judgment Day, for it stamps on the foreheads of the circumstances of the folk of this last age the words ‘this one is a Muslim,’ or ‘this one is an infidel,’ exalting some to God's mercy and setting apart others as accursed, and the saying of the prophet (may God bless and assoil him,) is clear on this point, ‘O God, I have not blessed in my prayers any but him whom Thou hast blessed, and I have not cursed in my cursings any but him whom Thou hast cursed.’ It is related that that chief of the prophets (may God bless and assoil him while the sun and the moon shall rise) invoked curses on the polytheistic ‘Arabs and on the chiefs of the Quraish, and particularly on one mentioned by name, for a whole month after he had been slandered by the wicked, and said, ‘O God, curse the infidels, who stray from Thy way, who make Thy prophet a liar, and who slay Thy saints. Thou art Lord of this world and the next. O God, preserve me in safety, and join me to the pious!’ And, since the end is but a return to the beginning, there is, in these days when the faith is exiled (for ‘the faith appears as a stranger, and verily, it has become as it appears’) every occasion for the constant recital of the following prayer, ‘O God, assist him who assists the religion of Muhammad and forsake him who forsakes the faith of Muhammad!’ The author of the Mirsadu-l-'Ibad four hundred years ago uttered his complaint and said: