The Maulavi exults that his adversary has been driven for examples of the
Trinity to the tenets of idolatrous nations and heathen philosophers, and
quotes the proverb, "The drowning man clutches at every straw," to
intimate that he could only have adopted so dangerous an expedient from the
badness of his cause.1 He warns him that religion is a serious and
a delicate subject, and that we are not here, as in worldly matters, to seek
assistance from all by force or by fraud.2 These remarks show how
totally he misunderstands Pfander's argument, which is to prove the
consistency of a species of plurality in unity with human reason: now, the
Grecian philosophers, for instance, had certainly, by nature as strong and
sound a faculty of reason as our adversaries or we possess; and since it is
upon reason, unaided by revelation, that the Mohammedan hangs his
cause, it is surely reasonable in us to adduce the evidence of impartial
reasoners, whose minds, unwarped by any of our supposed prejudices, directed
the intensest thought towards the discovery of the mode in which the Divine
Being exists: such deductions, surely we may safely oppose to the simple
ipse dixit of our adversaries, without being suspected of any intention to
countenance the doctrines themselves. The Sufies are abused by the
Maulavi, as unbelievers still worse than ourselves, but he will not admit that
their views in any degree assist us; because, first, they hold a greater
variety of manifestations than mere intelligence and will, and
the analogy, therefore, proves too much; and, secondly, their doctrines are
not allowed by the orthodox Mussulmans. He likewise accuses Pfander of
inconsistency in first representing these Sufie philosophers as believing in a
trinity,
