Religious Problem in India

Author(s): Annie Besant
Publisher: Theosophist Office Adyar

Page 11

ISLĀN
inclusion of every faith. That is our work on this anniversary, and may the work be blessed by the Prophets of all the world's religions, so that their disciples may lore as They love each other, and may be bound in one as They are one. Then indeed India shall become a nation as never she has been before ; then India shall be one people from the Himālayas in the North to the Cape Comorin in the South; then the name India shall be known as the name of one mation in a mighty empire. That shall be the triumph of religion, and to that work you are called by your faith and by your love to-dar.
There are four things to study in a religion :
Its Founder--whose life and character will be impressed on it.
The exoteric religion, for the masses of the people.
The philosophy, necessary for the learned and the cultured.
The mysticism, expressing the universal yearning of the human Spirit for union with its source. Let us this study Islām.
Now come with me to Syria and Arabia. When the sixth century of the Christian Era had broken over the world, come with me, and see what is the state of Arabia the fair, of Syria, the land trodden by the Christ. Religious war on every side that breaks up homes and separates the people; quarrels brutal and bloody; blood-feuds that last from generation to generation; hatreds that divide man from man, and clan from clan, and tribe from tribe.