Religious Problem in India

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

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THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM IN INDIA
other obstructions from the road is charity; giving water to the thirsty is charity.”* Salāt, the five stated times of prayer-very beautiful and noble are the prayers. Roza, the thirty days' fast of Ramazan ; Hajjitha, the pilgrimage to Mecca, if a man can do it leaving sufficient support for those he leaves behind him. These are the five duties incumbent on all. Wine is strictly forbidden.
We must pass on. We have not the time to deal, and it matters not, with the great division into Sunnis and Shiahıs, and the question of Imāmsinteresting trnly ; but I unst leave that untouched, for time is passing.
After the exoteric side of a religion comes its philosophy. Now here in modern Islām there is much to miss ; but what Islām was in the days of the might of its thought, 110 words can be too strong to express. "Acquire knowledge,” the Prophet says in one of luis Sermons, “because he who acquires it in tlie way of the Lord performs an act of piety ; who speaks of it, praises the Lord ; who seeks it adores God; who dispenses instinction in it bestows alms; and who imparts it to its fitting objects performs an act of devotion to God. Knowledge enables its possessor to distingnish what it forbidden from what is not; it lights the way to heaven ; it is our friend in the desert, our society in solitude, our companion when bereft of friends ; it guides is to happiness ; it sustains us in misery ; it is our ornament in the company of friends ; it serves
* Spirit of Islam, p. 135.