Religious Problem in India

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

Page 24

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THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM IN INDIA
patching his own worn-out cloak, clouting his own shoes, when thousands were bowing to him as Prophet—and gentle to all around. “ Ten years," said Anas his servant, "was I about the Prophet, and he never said so much as 'Uff' to me."*
Two main accusations have been brought against him—one, that in his later years he married nine wives. True. But do you mean to tell me that the man who in the full Hush of youthful vigor, a young man of four and twenty, married a woman much his senior, and remained faithful to her for six and twenty years, at fifty years of age when the passions are dying, married for lust and sexual passion? Not thus are men's lives to be judged. And if you look at the women whom he married, you will find that by every one of them an alliance was made for his people, or something was gained for his followers, or the woman was in sore need of protection.
But, they say, he preached war and extermination, and brutal bloody slaying of the imbeliever. It has erer been held, and laid down by the Muslim legists that when there are two commands, one of which is absolute, such as: “Slay the infidel;" and the other conditional, such as : “ Slay the infidel when he attacks you, and will not let yon practise your religion," that the condition, the limitation, is to be added to every such absolute command; and this muling is borne out over and over again by the words of Al Qurin itself, as well as by the practice of the Prophet. I will not put it in my words, lest you
* Ibid, p 221.