Peace and Islam:
‘This history of man is an infinite process of mutual conflicts, sanguine battles and civil wars. In these circumstances can we have among mankind a constitution, the social life of which is based upon peace and security? The Quran’s answer is: yes, provided man takes for his ideal the propagation of the Unity of God in the thoughts and actions of mankind. The search for such an ideal and its maintenance is no miracle of political manoeuvring: it is a peculiar greatness of the Holy Prophetﷺ that the self-invented distinctions and superiority complexes of the nations of the world are destroyed and there comes into being a community which can be styled ummatan muslimata ’l-lak (a community submissive to Thee, 2: 128) and to whose thoughts and actions the divine dictate shuhadā’a ‘alā al-nās (a community that bears witness to the truth before all mankind,Quran;2:143) justly applies’ (Speeches, Writings and Statements of Iqbal,pp.262-63). [IQBAL's famous ‘Statement on Islam and Nationalism in Reply to a Statement of Maulana Husain Ahmed. Source: Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Lecture-6, THE PRINCIPLE OF MOVEMENT IN THE STRUCTURE OF ISLAM, http://www.allamaiqbal.com/works/prose/english/reconstruction/06.htm]
Humanity needs three things today - a spiritual interpretation of the universe, spiritual emancipation of the individual, and basic principles of a universal import directing the evolution of human society on a spiritual basis. Modern Europe has, no doubt, built idealistic systems on these lines, but experience shows that truth revealed through pure reason is incapable of bringing that fire of living conviction which personal revelation alone can bring. This is the reason why pure thought has so little influenced men, while religion has always elevated individuals, and transformed whole societies..... [Dr.Muhammad Iqbal, Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Lecture-6, THE PRINCIPLE OF MOVEMENT IN THE STRUCTURE OF ISLAM ] http://freebookpark.blogspot.com/2012/06/reconstruction-of-religious-thought-in.html
The idealism of Europe never became a living factor in her life, and the result is a perverted ego seeking itself through mutually intolerant democracies whose sole function is to exploit the poor in the interest of the rich. Believe me, Europe today is the greatest hindrance in the way of man's ethical advancement.. ..... [Dr.Muhammad Iqbal, Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Lecture-6, THE PRINCIPLE OF MOVEMENT IN THE STRUCTURE OF ISLAM ] http://freebookpark.blogspot.com/2012/06/reconstruction-of-religious-thought-in.html
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"Having lost faith early in that strange and heterogeneous medley of animism, fetishism, polytheism and pantheism, known as popular Hinduism, I have been in search of a truer faith from my very boyhood."
This is a
lecture delivered by Dr. Nishikant Chattopadhyaye in 1904, in Hyderabad. He
belonged to a well-known Bengali family, which earned much fame and popularity
as one of its family members, Sarojini Naidu, daughter of Agornath
Chattopadhyaye, played and eminent role in the freedom struggle. Dr. Nishikant
was a close relative of Mr. Naidu.
This
family migrated from Bengal to settle in Hyderabad during the British Period.
One of its learned members was Dr. Nishikant Chattopadhyaye, who also made this
migratory journey. Well versed in several languages, he was a true seeker in
the real sense of the word. He studied religion and its related disciplines in
detail. Finally he became fully convinced of the veracity of Islam. Having
found the answer to his quests he embraced the true faith. After his
acceptance, he delivered a lecture on the 26th August 1904, at the historic
Fateh Maidan in Hyderabad. That same year Luzac & Sons printed this
lecture, one copy of which is still extant in the British Museum in London. It
was later reprinted in 1971 from a copy found by Mr. Hasanuddin Ahmad of
Hyderabad in the library of Mirza Abul Fazl, also of Hyderabad.
Dr. Nishikant
Chattopadhyaye was principal of Hyderabad College and Professor of History at
the Maharaja College, Mysore. He was born in mid-nineteenth century in Bengal
and died in the first quarter of the 20th century in Hyderabad. His Muslim name
after conversion was Mohd Azizuddin. He said:
The present can be fully grasped and appreciated only by a
due reference to the past. In order, therefore, to set before you clearly the
reasons that have induced me to accept Islam in preference to the other great
religions of the world, it is necessary that I should give you a short sketch
of the various phases of doubt and faith through which I have passed from my
boyhood upwards to the present day.
Having lost faith early in that strange and
heterogeneous medley of animism, fetishism, polytheism and pantheism, known as
popular Hinduism, I have been in search of a truer faith from my very boyhood. Naturally
enough, I soon came in contact with the Brahmo Somaj and Christianity, then
engaged in an apparently bitter conflict for obtaining mastery over the minds
of the young Bengal. The star of Babu Keshab Chandra Sen was in the ascendant,
and I still recollect the thrill of fervour and enthusiasm with which I used to
pour over some of his eloquent sermons and discourses. The Brahmo Somaj
introduced me to some of the great Unitarians of England and of America,
notably to Theodore Parker of Boston, whom I began to regard as a prophet and
an apostle of God. I became so exceedingly fond of his works that it was my
habit in those days always to carry a volume or two of Theodore Parker’s books
with me wherever I happened to go, and to quietly read them over as others do
the Bible or the Quran. In this state of mind, I shipped myself off to Europe for
the sake of my education.
Arriving
in Scotland, I soon got into the society of some good Christian men and women
of an orthodox type, who began to take great interest in me, and to express
great concern for the salvation of my soul. I used to visit their houses and
join in their prayer-meetings. Once or twice I even attended some of the
revivalistic meetings then in vogue, and was greatly surprised to see strong,
bearded men bitterly weeping for their sins, while scores of delicately-framed
old spinsters were carried away in fainting fits. The emotional side of the
Scotch character of which we see so little in India, now stood revealed before
me in a most unequivocal manner. But however deep and genuine my love and
reverence for Christ was, however sincere my admiration for the general drift
of his essential teachings, I could by no means reconcile myself to two items
of the orthodox creed:
(1)
Atonement, and (2) Eternal Damnation. There was also a Unitarian chapel in
Edinburgh that I occasionally attended, and though their religious views and
mine were very similar in some respects, yet the general tone of the sermons
delivered there was somewhat too cold and sometimes too rationalistic for my
warm, oriental blood. In Edinburgh, I fell in with the writings of Thomas Carlyle,
who inspired me not only with a genuine love for German literature but also
with a real admiration for Luther, Goethe and Schiller. I began to study German
in right earnest, and quietly made up my mind to visit that great country which
had produced such a grand literature and given birth to such truly heroic souls
as mentioned above. The east winds of Edinburgh which ill-suited my naturally
delicate constitution, gave me a further plea, and I soon transhipped myself
over to Leipzig with a determination to study science, literature and
philosophy in the academic halls of that world-renowned University where
Lessing and Goethe had finished their studies a century ago. As I was
interested in biology and was soon greatly attracted by the Darwinian Theory of
Evolution, which was then creating a tremendous ferment all over the German
Fatherland, I soon read most of the writings of Buchner and Hackel, of Darwin
and of Huxley and above all, of Herbert Spencer. Herbert Spencer had made a
practical application of the Evolution Theory to religion and politics, art and
society; in other words, to all the multifarious branches of human thought and
feelings, and had done so with such a rare vigour of intellect and such an
exuberant wealth of illustrations, that I began to consider him as the greatest
philosopher that the world had ever produced since Plato and Aristotle, and his
Evolution Theory in its practical bearings as the Gospel of the future church
of mankind. This Theory of Evolution had, after all, solved all difficulties
and set all doubts at rest!
Here was
an indisputable terra firma on which to build the future superstructure of all
human thought and speculation! Did it not account for so many things that were
otherwise quite mysterious! True, but it left very little room for the
existence of an Almighty, all-knowing and all-good, personal God, for the need
of prayer, or for the “hypothesis” of a life after Death where men are to be
held responsible for their thoughts, words and deeds. In this manner, I became
a Positivist of the schools of Auguste, Comte and an Agnostic of the school of
Huxley, both at the same time, and was in a very suitable frame of mind to
intensely enjoy reading books like Strauss’s “The Old and the New Faith” and
John Stuart Mill’s “Three Essays on Religion” and particularly his charming
“Autobiography.”
Studying
some of the German philosophers and especially Arthur Schopenhauer, who was
then the philosophe a la mode in the
student circles of Germany, I soon became a convert to Buddhism which, in its earliest scriptures, inculcates a lofty
ethical code minus supernatural sanctions, and a Religion of Humanity minus
distinctions of caste, creed and country; Halloa! I had after much wandering
found the very religion I was in need of quite close to my own native land,
since Buddha had chiefly lived and worked at Gaya and Rajagriha which were
anciently included in Bengal and are just now situated on the very borders of
the same.
I got so exceedingly fascinated with the creed of Lord Buddha that I not only
read all the books on Buddhism in English and German that I could lay my hands
on, but even learnt Pali to be able to translate a portion of the Milinda
Prasana in vindication of the right meaning of the Nirvana as I then conceived
it to be. Professor Max Muller’s interpretation, which amounted to the same
things, was subsequent to mine. Within a short time I was asked by my German
friend to deliver a few lectures on Buddhism, which created quite a flutter in
all the clerical and orthodox circles of Germany, inasmuch as in comparing my
ideal Buddhism with a very orthodox form of Christianity then in vogue, I had
given an unquestionably higher place to Buddhism.
These two
lectures on “Buddhism and Christianity” were printed, read and criticized all
over the country and I had even the gratification of seeing one of them (The
Second Karma) translated into English and published by the Free Thought Society
of London then under the high auspices of Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant.
When after some 12 years I met Mrs. Besant in Hyderabad for the first time, we
were both Theosophists. But the inherent pessimism of Buddhism did not
appeal to me at all and I soon grew tired of it. Every limb of my body and
every faculty of my soul was quivering and aching, as it were, for work and
enjoyment, and here was a system of philosophy enjoining on me to deny some and
to entirely suppress others of the most natural instincts and emotions of my
youth and adolescence. There must be something morbid and radically wrong in a
system and a creed that goes against our Human Nature.
When I was
passing through this phase of my spiritual life, I had to go, in the first
place, to Paris and then a year later on to St. Petersburg. In Paris I soon
became quite familiar with the French language which I had already begun to
study in Leipzig. French opened altogether, a new world to me. It gave me, so
to say, a new soul. I began to study and take delight in the works of Moliere
and Racine, Voltaire and Victor Hugo, Renan and Taine. And quite particularly
Voltaire, who appeared and still appears to me the greatest literary genius
that the world has ever produced. But the works of Voltaire, though they
immensely tickled and amused me, served only to make me a more confirmed sceptic
than ever. The forty volumes of his Oeuvres completes which range over almost
all subjects of human thought and feeling had, however, the effect of laughing
me, for good, out of my German gaucherie and Buddhistic pessimism. The
influence of Renan, though sceptical, was far more ethical and artistic. His
“La Vie de Jesus” (Life of Jesus) is one of the best books I have ever read,
deeply impressing me with its poetical style and moral earnestness.
Renan led
me to take an interest in Semitic religions and in Semitic languages. The works
of Max Muller, with which I had been very familiar for several years, had
already taught me how to study languages and religions from a scientific
standpoint. Renan only continued what Max Muller had already begun, and I threw myself, heart and soul, into the
comparative study of all the great religions of the world, to wit: Judaism,
Zoroastrianism and Brahaminism on the one hand, and Buddhism, Christianity and
Islam on the other. Christianity for some time appeared to me as the
culminating point and the true reconciliation of the Semitic and the Aryan; and
I might have become a convert to Roman Catholicism some years ago but for the
dogmas of papal infallibility, transubstantiation and so on, which my German
university education had rendered untenable. Nevertheless, I was greatly
impressed by Roman Catholicism on its artistic and archaeological side and I am
still of the opinion, that there is no form of Christianity that affords
greater consolation or offers a surer haven to a weary soul tossed for years on
the tempestuous seas of modern scepticism, than the Church dedicated to St.
Peter in Rome. In this frame of mind I returned to India, and was soon
confronted with Theosophy as one of the leading movements of the day.
When I was
in the service of the late Nawab Sir Viqarul Umarah Bahadur, I was once
agreeably surprised to receive through the Nawab Saheb himself the following
three books as gifts: (1) Arnold’s “Light of Asia.” (2) Sinnet’s “Occult World”
and (3) “Esoteric Buddhism.” Who the donor actually was, whether a Tibetan
Mahatma or a friendly English book-seller, whence the books really came,
whether from the monasteries of Lhasa or from the bookstalls of London I have
not yet been able to discover, but the books were very useful and interesting
reading for some months to come. I soon came in contact with some of the
leading apostles of Theosophy and read all their books and pamphlets with great
zeal. Theosophy soon revived my old
interest in the comparative study of religion, and I now threw myself with
special earnestness into the study of Islam and of Zoroastrianism which I had
somewhat neglected before. My studies in the old Parsee religion culminated in
a lecture on “Zoroastrianism” which was so well appreciated by those for whom
it had been intended, that it was printed in a nice pamphlet form under the
auspices of the Parsee Panchyat of Bombay. My Islamic studies, for which besides
the particular environment of Hyderabad, I had ample resources placed at my
disposal in the library of the late Maulvi Cheragh Ali, and that of Mr Syed Ali
Bilgrami now in England, brought me into contact with a religion so simple
and intelligible, so reasonable and practical, that I should have taken the
step I have lately taken some 10 years ago, had not an untoward incident forced
me to publish a contradiction in the public journals and to leave Hyderabad
altogether for some years. But it was evidently not in the counsels of that
all-wise and all-merciful Providence who guides and controls everything, that I
should have made this public profession of Islam earlier than I have done.
Otherwise I should certainly have done so: He whom Allah guides is rightly
guided; but he whom He leaves in error shall find no friend to guide him. (18:17)
However, it is better late than never. God is my witness, I have accepted Islam
in all sincerity and earnestness, and the first reason that has moved me to do
so is its solid, historical groundwork. After wandering helplessly for several
years in the marshy bogs of divergent creeds and conflicting systems of
philosophy, with only the will-o-the-wisp of speculative reason to serve me as
a guide, my weary soul has at last found refuge and consolation in a religion
based on a Revelation that has remained unaltered ever since its first
compilation under the first Caliph, and in a creed that acknowledges as its
Prophet of God, one whose historical personality is not only unquestionable but
about whose youth, appearance, daily habits and even personal characteristics
we know almost as much as we do about those of Oliver Cromwell or of Napoleon
Bonaparte. You may slander or revile him if you choose, as so many Christian
and other writers have done for centuries, but you can’t throw even the least
shadow of doubt on the historical basis of that immense personality that has
stamped itself so deep on the rolls of Time as to make Christendom grow pale
before that august and illustrious name even to this day. But Christendom need
not grow pale at all. If it only knew his life and character as it really
was—so noble, so genuine and withal, so loveable, Christendom would admire,
honour and love him as all Muslims do. In
the Prophet Muhammad, may peace be upon him, there is nothing vague and
shadowy, mythical or mysterious, as, for instance, in Zoroaster and
Sreekrishna, or even in Buddha and Christ. The very existence of those
Prophets has been seriously doubted and even totally denied; but nobody, as far
as I am aware, has ever ventured to reduce the Prophet Muhammad, may peace be
upon him, either into a “Solar myth” or into a “fairy tale” as some eminent
savants of Europe have done with Buddha and Christ. Oh! What a relief to find, after all, a truly historical Prophet to
believe in!
As for the Quran, it is not a mere
heterogeneous compilation of a wilderness of stories and chronicles, of
Prophetic rhapsodies and of poetical biographies, produced at widely different
periods and by widely divergent men, and thrown into one single mould nobody
exactly knows when and how; but it is, on the contrary, one single Book bearing
the indelible impress of one great Soul to whom God in His mercy has chosen to
reveal it. There is such a marvellous continuity and uniformity running
throughout the whole Book, that no impartial critic or fair-minded reader can
ever doubt either its sincerity or authenticity. You may call it
tedious or monotonous, if you like, you may even point out some of its apparent
discrepancies, but you cannot deny its being exactly the same book as that
which was revealed to the Holy Prophet during his life-time at different
periods and on different occasions ever since that memorable night of the 27th
Ramadan (Lailatul Qadr) when the angel Gabriel stood before him and said:
“Read, in
the name of your Lord, who created, created man from clots of congealed blood.
Read! Your Lord is the Most Bountiful One, Who taught man by the Pen, Who
taught man what he knew not! Indeed, man transgresses in thinking himself
self-sufficient. Verily to your Lord is the return.” (96: 1-8)
This
historical groundwork of Islam has struck even such a sceptic as Ernst Renan
who in his “Etudes d’Histoire Religieu” (pp. 220, 230) makes some very
pertinent remarks about it. Professor Bosworth Smith holds similar views and
expresses himself in the following terms in his famous lectures on “Muhammad
and Islam”:
“We know
indeed, some fragments of a fragment of Christ’s life; but who can lift the
veil of thirty years that prepared the way for the three? ... But in Islam
everything is different; here, instead of the shadowy and the mysterious, we
have history. We know as much of Muhammad as we do even of Luther and Milton.
The mythical, the legendary, the supernatural is almost wanting in the original
Arab authorities, or at all events, can easily be distinguished from what is
historical. Nobody here is the dupe of himself, or of others; there is the full
light of day upon all that light can ever reach at all...... In the Quran, we
have beyond all reasonable doubt the exact words of Muhammad without
subtraction and without addition. We see with our own eyes the birth and
adolescence of a religion” (pp. 17, 18, 22).
And the
last but not the least, Carlyle in his famous book: “Heroes and Hero Worship”
has stated the following about the Quran: “When once you get this Quran fairly
off, the essential type of it begins to disclose itself: and in this there is
merit quite other than the literary one. If a book came from the heart, it will
contrive to reach the hearts: all art and author-craft are of small amount to
that. One would say, the primary
character of the Quran is that of its genuineness, of its being a bona-fide
book. Sincerity in all senses seems to me the merit of the Quran.”
The next reason that has induced me to accept
Islam is, that it is so eminently reasonable. In Islam, we haven’t
got to believe in Thirty-nine Articles bristling with dogmas that are either
unintelligible to our ordinary reason or inconsistent with our common sense. All that
we have to do, is to declare our sincere faith in one simple formula called
kalima: La ilaha illallah, Muhammudur
rasullullah, that is to say, “There is no deity save Allah, and Muhammad
is His Prophet”. Nay, there is a well-known Hadith which distinctly says
that even “he who believes only in one God will go to heaven,” or in
other words is a Muslim (Man Qala la
ilaha illallah fa dakhalal jannah!).
And is
there any human being, from the poorest beggar to the most highly exalted
Prince, from the most ignorant poor to the most highly cultured philosopher,
who can refuse his sincere adherence to the Unity of God? Every sound and
normal man with his human institutions not perverted either by false philosophy
or gross depravity, every man, I say, who is not a hopeless atheist or an
inveterate agnostic, must readily give his assent to that simple and sublime
truth: The Unity of God. All the greatest philosophers of ancient as well as
modern times have enunciated it in some shape or other, while saints, apostles
and prophets, whose names are so deeply enshrined in the sacred altars of
collective humanity, have lived and died for it.
What is the verdict of our modern Science on
the Unity of Being?, that is to say, the Unity of both force and
of matter which compose that Being. Dr. J.C. Bose’s recent researches have only
scientifically demonstrated what apostles and prophets have invariably and
persistently proclaimed ever since the days of Adam and Noah, Abraham and
Moses. In Islam, we are not asked to believe in three gods—in One as in the
Athanasian creed, or in thirty millions of gods and goddesses as in popular
Hinduism, but only in that one great Being who is the Creator of the Universe,
who is all-knowing and all-wise and who is, at the same time, also the most
merciful and the most compassionate: “Your God is one God; there is no God but
He, the Most Merciful. In the creation of the Heavens and Earth, and the
alternation of night and day, and in the ships that sail the ocean, laden with
what is profitable to mankind, and in the rain and the water which God sends
from Heaven, quickening again dead earth, and the animals of all sorts which
cover its surface, and in the movements of winds and the clouds balanced
between heaven and earth are signs to people of understanding; Yet there are
some who worship other objects besides Allah, bestowing on them the adoration
due to Allah.” (2: 164-65).
As to the second part of the kalima, it is not a “necessary fiction”
as Gibbon chooses to call it, but a very necessary and highly valuable truth
consistent with reason, and appealing to the highest aspirations of our
spiritual life. Whenever the fundamental truths, on which our moral and
religious life is based, are either obscured or forgotten, whenever men become
too worldly and avaricious, too immoral and materialistic, there appear, in the
history of races and nations, men so highly spiritualised by birth and breeding
as to be called prophets and apostles of God, and whose sole mission in life is
to remind men of what they have forgotten and to revive what they have lost. “I
am no more than a public preacher. I preach nothing new. I only try to bring
home to you certain eternal truths proclaimed by all true prophets of God which
you have evidently forgotten.” This is being constantly repeated in the Quran. And
that the Prophet Muhammad, may peace be upon him, was all that he
claimed to be, namely a Prophet of God in the highest sense of that word, will
be evident to all fair-minded men, unbiased by missionary or sectarian
prejudices, who take the trouble to study his life and teachings and
particularly the Quran which has been called the “autobiography of Muhammad.”
All the Traditions represent him as uncommonly true and just, liberal and
generous, good and pure. He has been the beau ideal of a Perfect Man to
one-third of our race for the last 13 centuries. It is absurd to suppose, that
“a wicked impostor” as Christian writers commonly represent him to be, should
have had that immense and abiding influence on such vast masses of men for such
a long time as Muhammad. After all, Carlyle’s dictum, contained in his lecture
on “Heroes and Hero-worship” which I have already referred to, will be found to
be true:
“This
deep-hearted son of the wilderness with his beaming black eyes, and open,
social, deep soul had other thoughts in him than ambition. A silent, great
soul, he was one of those who cannot but be in earnest; whom nature herself has
appointed to be sincere. While others work in formulas and hearsays, contented
enough to dwell therein, this man could not screen himself in formulas: he was
alone with his whole soul and the reality of things. The great mystery of
existence glared upon him with its terrors, with its splendours; no hearsays
could hide that unspeakable fact, ‘Here am I.’ Such sincerity as we named it
has, in truth, something of the divine. The word of such a man is a voice
direct from nature’s own heart. Men must listen to that, or to nothing else;
all else is wind in comparison. From of old, a thousand thoughts in his
pilgrimages and wanderings had been in this man ‘What am I?’ ‘What is Life?’ ‘What is Death?’ ‘What am I to believe?’
‘What am I to do?’ The grim rocks of Mount Hira, or Mount Sinai, the stern,
sandy solitude answered not. The great Heaven rolling silently overhead with
its blue glancing stars, answered not. There was no answer. The man’s own soul
and what of God’s inspirations dwelt there, had to answer!”
These two
fundamental principles, whose profession makes a man a Muslim, are thus based
on the highest dictates of our intuitive reason. This has been
admitted even by Christian writers such as Edward Montet who, in his book
called “La propaganda chretienne et ses adversaires Mussalmans” has written the
following:
“Islam is
a religion that is essentially rationalistic in the widest sense of this term,
considered etymologically and historically. The definition of rationalism as a
system that bases religious beliefs on principles furnished by the reason,
applies to it exactly. To believers, the Muslim creed is summed up in belief in
the Unity of God and in the mission of His Prophet, statements that, to the
religious man rest on the firm basis of reason. This fidelity to the
fundamental dogma of the religion that has been proclaimed with a grandeur,
majesty, and an invariable purity and with a note of sure conviction which it
is hard to find surpassed outside the pale of Islam, the elemental simplicity
of the formula in which it is enunciated, the proof that it gains from the
fervid conviction of the missionaries who propagate it, are so many causes to
explain the success of Muslim missionary efforts. A creed so precise, so
stripped of all theological complexities and, consequently, so accessible to the
ordinary understanding, might be expected to possess and does indeed possess a marvellous
power of winning its way into the consciences of men.” (pp. 17-18)
The third reason why I have accepted Islam
is, that it is so thoroughly practical. Its ethical code is
based on the actual needs of human nature, and not on some imaginary or
exaggerated standard of virtue which is unattainable. The standard set up by
other religions, for example, by Buddhism and Christianity might, in a certain
sense, be called loftier or more transcendental; but is it possible to realise
it in actual life? The test by which an ethical code is to be judged is not its
poetical beauty, but its practical utility, by its complete adaptation to the
needs and requirements of our human nature as it is. As Emerson has beautifully
put it: “Sirius may be loftier than the Sun, but it does not ripen my grapes!”
We may admire Quixotic perfections in novels and romances, but they are utterly
useless in the struggles of our everyday life. We may admire, for example, the
poetic excellence of the precept: “When
thy brother smites thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the left also,” but
does any Christian, good, bad or indifferent, ever practise it? Take again
the doctrines of celibacy and marriage. Both Buddhism and Christianity,
though they tolerate marriage, yet exalt celibacy as a higher virtue. Islam
does not tolerate celibacy at all, but, on the contrary, enjoins matrimony as a
religious duty binding on every true Muslim.
This
system of universal matrimony, joined to occasional polygamy amongst the
wealthier classes, makes it, that there is almost a total dearth in Muslim
countries of those professional out-castes such as you invariably come across
in such shockingly large figures in the streets of London and Paris, Vienna and
St. Petersburg. Canon Isaac Taylor, a dignitary of the Anglican Church, had the
courage to deliver himself in the following manner before a Church Congress
held at Wolverhampton on the 7th October 1887: “Muhammad limited the unbounded
license of polygamy; it is the exception rather than the rule in the most
civilized Muslim lands—European Turkey, Algiers and Egypt. Polygamy, with all
its evils, has its counterbalancing advantages. It has abolished female
infanticide and gives every woman a legal protector. Owing to polygamy, Muslim
countries are free from professional outcasts, a greater reproach to
Christendom than polygamy to Islam. The strictly regulated polygamy of the
Muslim is infinitely less degrading to women and less injurious to men than the
promiscuous polyandry which is the course of Christian cities and which is
absolutely unknown in Islam. The polyandrous English are not entitled to cast
stones at polygamous Muslims. Let us first pluck out the beam from our own eye,
before we meddle with the mote in our brother’s eye.” Now, which matrimonial
code, do you think, is more practical, more consonant to the actual needs of
human society and more conducive to its highest development from a moral and
spiritual point of view? I could bring forward other moral precepts of Islam
and, contrasting them with those of other great religions of the world, point
out how in each case there is in Islam a far more harmonious blending of
practical wisdom and spiritual insight than anywhere else. But that would
lead me too far and demand a separate lecture by itself. For this occasion I
shall only content myself by quoting the following passage from Amir Ali’s
famous book, The Spirit of Islam: “The practical character of a religion, its
abiding influence on the common relations of mankind, in the affairs of
every-day life, its power on masses, are the true criteria for judging of its
universality.....In Islam is joined a lofty idealism with the most
rationalistic practicality. It did not ignore human nature, it never entangled
itself in the tortuous pathways which lie outside the domain of the actual and
the real. Its object, like that of other systems, was the elevation of humanity
towards the absolute ideal of perfection, but it attained or tries to attain
this object by grasping the truth, that the nature of man is, in this
existence, imperfect.” (p. 278).
These are
some of the chief reasons, practical and speculative, that have induced me to
accept Islam in preference to the other great religions of the world. There are
also the reasons which have always appealed strongly in favour of Islam to some
of the greatest minds of Europe in the past as well as in the present. It would
be quite out of place here to allude even en passant to what Voltaire, Goethe,
Gibbon in the 18th, and a host of great men in the 19th century have said about
Islam. All that is possible to do in a lecture like this is to make a passing
allusion to a few Europeans of the present day, who have expressed their
sympathy and admiration for the faith of Islam.
Not long
ago, we all read of a distinguished English nobleman (Lord Stanley of Alderley)
who is reputed to have declared before his death that he had all his life been
a Muslim! I can assure you, that there are hundreds and thousands all over
Europe and America, who would do exactly the same, if they had the requisite
moral courage to brave the social and other disadvantages attending on such a
step.
It was not less a man and a savant than Ernst Renan who has said the following
in his famous lecture on “L’ Islamisme
and la science” (p.19):- “Je ne suis jamais entré dans une mosquée sans une
vive emotion, le dirai-je? sans un certain regret de n’être pas un Mussulman!”
that is to say, “I have never been
inside a mosque without feeling a strong emotion, shall I confess it? Without a
certain amount of regret that I am not a Muslim”! When a great scholar and
great sceptic like Ernst Renan could make a declaration like that, what of
humbler persons and individuals—what about the ordinary unlettered people of
the world? Since it is well-known that Islam, owing to its simplicity,
intelligibility and practicality, is specially suited for the masses of mankind
and that it is with the masses that it always had its most signal success and
achieved its greatest triumphs, the Rev. Marcus Dodd, D.D. in his book on
“Muhammad, Buddha and Christ” has stated the following about the same:
“The
extreme simplicity of the creed of Islam greatly favoured its rapid
propagation. No elaborate explanations were required to teach the
ignorant....The rude Negro could understand it on its first recital....It
demanded no long novitiate....it was a creed for which the human mind has an
instinctive affinity, and which has never roused abhorrence even in the mind of
a polytheist. To men who had begun to despair of finding the truth amidst the
bewildering subtleties of a metaphysical theology, it was a relief to find
themselves face to face with a simple creed and to be compelled to believe it.”
(pp. 100-7)
Hence, I
feel sure, that if a comprehensive Islamic mission were started in Hyderabad
(or any other central place) to preach the simple and sublime truths of Islam
to the people of Europe, America and Japan, there would be such a rapid and
enormous accession to its ranks as had not been witnessed again ever since the
first centuries of the Hijra. You all know the good work which Abdulla W.H.
Quilliam has been doing for several years in Liverpool. Besides winning actual
converts whose number runs up to some two hundred in all, he has rendered
valuable service to the Muslim world by his books and pamphlets which have
dissipated prejudices and awakened a lively interest in Islam all over the
civilised world. Some of his pamphlets are widely read all over India and
Burma, and have, I believe, been translated into Burmese, Hindustani, Persian
and Arabic. Don’t you feel that it is your bounden duty to strengthen his hands
as much you are able to do, and to help him to disseminate the faith of Islam
in Europe as he has been doing with such signal success for so many years? Will
you, therefore, organise a grand central Islamic Mission here in Hyderabad and
open branches in Europe, America and in Japan? God’s choicest blessings will
descend on Hyderabad, and especially on the Head of its beloved and beneficent
Ruler: Mir Mahboob Ali Khan, His Highness the Nizam of Hyderabad!
It has
been well said, that our choice even in the most exalted matters often proceeds
from mixed motives. Shall I tell you
what further subconscious motive or reason has had its influence in deciding my
choice of Islam? It is this: To consecrate for the remainder of my earthly days
what gifts God has given me and what knowledge and capacity I have acquired,
either in Europe or in Asia, from books as well as from travels, to the service
of that great community to which I have now the privilege to belong. Will you
then accept me as a brother, as a friend and as a servant? Allow me now to
finish this lecture of mine that has already taxed your patience longer than I
had intended, with the following verse from the Holy Quran:
“Say: “My
Lord has guided me to a straight path, to an upright religion, to the faith of
the upright Abraham; for he was not one of those who join gods with God. Say:
Verily, my prayers, and my worship, and my life and my death are unto God, Lord
of the Worlds. He has no associate, and this I am commanded; and I am the first
of those who submit to His will.” (6: 161-162)
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A Case of. Discovery. Lecture by. Dr. Nishikant Chattopadhyaye. With an Introduction by. Maulana Wahiduddin Khan yw/m/ ...
