Religious Problem in India

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

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THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM IN INDIA
you that you shonld never take a second wife unless yon could love her as much as the first, and treat her with absolute equality and justice ; and what man can lore two women with equal love and equal justice? If that be not done, then more than one wife is not permtted by the Prophet, and I think he said it so that gradually monogamy might take the place of polygamy, and that this shame -might be wiped away from his faith.
Tenderness to parents is incnlcated—one quotation mmst suffice: “ Thy Lord hath commanded that ye worship none beside Him ; and that ye show kindness unto your parents, whether the one of them, or both of them, attain to old age with thee. Wherefore say not unto them, fie on you! neither reproach them, but speak respectfully unto them ; and submit to behave humbly towards them out of tender affection, and say : 0 Lord, have mercy upon them both, as they mursed me when I was little.” *
And how just and liberal is the treatment enjoined towards slaves ; “Unto such of your slaves as desire a written instrument allowing them to redeem themselves on paying a certain sum, write one, if ye know good in them : and give them of the riches of God, which He hath given yon.” †
Let us come to the personal duties which have to be performed. The daily repetition of the Kalimah or Creed : “ There is no God but Goch, and Muhammad is His Prophet.” Zakāt, the giving of alms, to be nsed
* Ibid, Chap. xvii. † Ibid, Chap. xxiv.