Religious Problem in India

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

Page 15

7
ISLAM
and he stands up, now no longer simply Muhammad, but the Prophet of Arabia, the Man who will turn Arabia into a settled state, a mighty power, and whose followers will carry the torch of science and re-light it in Europe where it had died, and found mighty empires, and who will be moved by a devotion to the Founder second to that felt in no other faith. For this you should ever remember, you who are not of the faith of the Prophet of Arabia, that among all the many creeds of men, there is none that is more earnestly believed, more passionately followed, than that spoken by the month of the Arabian Prophet, and if the proof of belief, as Bain says, be in conduct, then watch his followers and see how his word rules still the actions of their lives. Never is a Musulman ashamed to kneel for prayer, thongh scoffers may be around him, and those who hate his Prophet. See how faith in him has overcome all fear of death. Where do you find heroism greater than that of the African dervishes, who charged over the space swept by the Gatling guns, and died, row upon row, ere they could even reach their enemy, going to death as other men go to their bridal, for the love of the Prophet and the faith of Islam?
Such a faith must have a future in the world. Such a faith should stand higher than it stands to-day.
To come back to our Prophet with only one disciple, his wife. His next disciples are his nearest relatives. That says something for the man. It is