Religious Problem in India

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

Page 41

ISLĀM
33
losophie truths, pure Vedānta, my Hindū brothers, as all true kuowledge ends in that. The names of Ibu Sina and Ibn Rushd here stand supreme.
Such the outburst of learning for six centuries that followed on the footsteps of the Prophet. Oh! if my brothers of Islām to-day would take these great works of their mighty men, and translate them into modern tongues; if they would teach them, as they do not teach them, to their boys; if they would traini them, as they do not train them, in the knowledge of their own philosophy; then they would lift high the name of Islām among the philosophies of the world ; and every child of Islām who is an educated man should know this teaching as a Hindū knows his Vedānța, and so should be able to justify his Prophet in the eyes of the intellect of the world.
I said that part of a religion is mysticism, and Islām must have a mystic side. Ali again the beginner, and the followers of Ali the transmitters. In the year following the flight from Mecca, forty-five poor men bound themselves together to follow God and His Prophet, to live as a community, and to observe ascetic practices. It is the seed of Sufism, the mystic side of Islām. They teach that “all is from God”.* They teach there is nought save God and that all the universe is but a mirror of thim. They teach that there is one perfect beauty and that all that is beautiful is only a ray from Ilim. They teach there is only one love, the love of God, and all other loves are only loves as tliey form part of that.
* Al Quran, Chap. iv.