Religious Problem in India

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

Page 17

ISLAM
They tear his followers in pieces; they thrust them through with stakes; they put them on the burning sand with faces upturned to the Arabian sun, and with heavy rocks upon their chests; they bid them deny God and his Prophet; and the disciples die murmuring: “There is but one God and Muhammad is His Prophet.” See! there is one man; they are cutting his flesh bit by bit from off his body, and as they cut it off, they laugh and they say: “Would not you rather that Muhammad were in your place, and you at home?” “As God is my witness,” answers the dying man, “I would not be at home with wife and children and substance, if Muhammad were for that to be pricked by a single thorn.” Such love he inspired in those who died for him.
At last, his followers begin to fly and seek refuge under other rnle, and listen for a moment, and hear how those whom he had redeemed from evil speak of this Prophet and of what he had done for them, for the testimony of the disciple is the best testimony to the teacher, and it is there that you will learn best how this man had tonched the hearts of his followers. “O King,” says the spokesman of the embassy that had fed for protection, “O King, we were plunged in the depths of ignorance and barbarism; . . . . we adored idols, we lived in uchastity; we ate dead bodies, and we spoke abominations; we disregarded every feeling of humanity, and the duties of hospitality and neighborhood; we knew no law but that of the strong'; when God raised among us a man, of whose birth, truthfulness, honesty and purity we