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RECONCILIATION.
1031
doctrine of re-incarnation, but actually supports and upholds it. Indeed, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that no consistent philosophy of Islam is possible which does not include transmigration as an article of faith. This finishes our survey of the philosophy underlying the religion of Al Qur'an.
There remains the question of the ritualism of Islam, which is of a very simple type, consisting, as it does, in prayers, fasts, alms-giving and pilgrimage. These all aim at the purification of mind, and, as such, are steps in the right direction, though taken by themselves they are quite insufficient to enable the soul to attain nirvana.
We may now turn to the objections raised against the Qur'an by non-Muslim writers, which have been specified on page 989 ante.
(1) The first category refers to the errors of the Qur'an. But, as we have pointed out more than once in the course of the preceding pages, the contradictions in the description of persons and the accounts of their doings are due to a desire to guard against an historical interpretation of the traditions. They might, no doubt, be due to the Prophet's ignorance of these traditions, as Tisdall and other European writers maintain, but we prefer to believe that the non-historical hypothesis furnishes the better explanation of the two. We explained one of such contradictions in reference to the crucifixion of Jesus in the chapter on resurrection, and probably the same method would yield satisfaction in respect of inost of the remaining contradictions between the Bible and the Qur'an.
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