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soon began responding to his arguments with letters, pamphlets, and articles in the Urdu press. Some of this correspondence appeared between January and August ١٨٤٥ in the Khair khwah-i-Hind newspaper. More substantial Muslim rejoinders quickly followed. Sir William Muir described this controversy in an article first written in ١٨٤٥, later revised; the most scholarly account of the exchange is by Avril Powell Pfander's own response was his Hall al-ishkal (Solution of difficulties), published in ١٨٤٧. In ١٨٥٤, after a decade of literary exchange (and one private debate with the ulema in his own bungalow), one of the leading Muslim respondents, Rahmat All (١٨١٨ - ٩١), invited Pfander to join him in a public debate, or munazara, of which there was an age long Muslim tradition. Less than half a century earlier, Henry Martyn had reluctantly accepted the same challenge. In sixteenth-century Agra, Jesuit missionaries had debated alongside representatives of other religions in the court of Emperor Akbar. Perhaps, though, all these debates took their cue from the very earliest period of exchange between Christian theologians and Muslim mutakallimun, in Syria in the seventh and eighth centuries, such as the famous debate between the Nestorian Catholicos Mar Timothy (in office ٧٨٠ - ٨٢٣) and Caliph Al-Mahdi (in office ٧٥٥٨٥). As had Martyn, Pfander expressed reservations about this type of debate. "I was well aware," he wrote to the CMS, "that very little good is done by such public discussion," although he also welcomed the fact, as he saw it, that "Mohammedans should try to support their religion by proof, and not by the sword."]٢٠[Nevertheless, he thought it prudent to accept their challenge.
The principal disputants, Pfander and Rahmat Ali, were each supported by a second and by a small team of assistants. Pfander chose as his second the young Cambridge graduate Thomas Valpy French (١٨٢٥ - ٩١), afterward first bishop of Lahore. William Kay (١٨٢٠ - ٨٦), later principal of Bishop's College, Calcutta, assisted. Rahmat All chose Dr. Wazir Khan as his second, and several assistants, including Imad-ud-Din. Also present was Safdar All, a civil servant. Other distinguished Muslims and Christians gave
