in the foreword, the editor, mawlana wajihuddin qadri writes that mufti azam mawlana mustafa raza khan expressed his desire to see the work of his grandfather, mawlana naqi ali khan published and thus it was published.
mawlana fayzan ali began the work based on the copy made from the manuscript and the
original manuscript could not be found.
in this
copy of the manuscript, the editor notes that in places, pages, lines and words are missing - and in some places, the same lines are repeated. and in some places, they are moth-eaten.
wherever it was possible, corrections were made based on the context, filling the words/lines based on before and after the missing ones; and where it was incomprehensible, places were left blank.
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the editor mentions that every effort was expended to ensure that the book was published as close to the
available copy of the manuscript, and in spite of this care, if errors have crept in, this must be deemed the shortcoming of the publishers and not the author.
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the original manuscript was lost.
a copy from the manuscript survived. we do not know the copyist's name
even this copy had words and lines - even pages missing.
in places, the writing was unclear
and in some other places, it was moth-eaten
so the editors filled in what was best possible
and where it was impossible to guess, they left the place blank.
the editors have taken upon themselves the blame for any error that might have crept in.
note that this was
first published in 1975 - a full
105 years after the passing of the author.
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so we reject any accusation by devbandis that mawlana naqi ali also translated the verse as such.
this is the first proof in absolving mawlana naqi ali.
more will follow, in sha'Allah.