" 5. WHAT IS NOT ISLAM 29 " 6. "ISLAM" AND "NOT-ISLAM" 35 " 7. WHY IS ISLAM THE BEST RELIGION? 43 " 8. UNITY & UNION 49 " 9. PERFECTION & SELF-HELP 57 " 10. MODERATION & VIA MEDIA 63 " 11. EVOLUTION & SURVIVAL 73 " 12. "RELIGION BEGINS WITH THE FEAR OF THE LORD AND ENDS IN THE LOVE OF MAN" 79 APPENDIX: MUSLIM REFORMATION 87 OUR PRAYER 97 Worship Truth Love Humanity.--_Islamic Maxim_ +THE MUSLIM PRAYER.+[1] _Surai Fatiha_ Praise be to Thee my God, Lord of the Worlds! O Merciful, Compassionate art Thou! The King of all on Day of Reckoning, Thee only do we worship and adore, To Thee, most merciful, we cry for help; O guide us ever more on the straight path, The path of those to whom Thou gracious art On whom Thine anger falls not then nor now, The path of them that from Thee go not stray. Amen. Grant that the knowledge I get may be the knowledge worth having.--_Thomas a Kempis._ NOTES ON ISLAM +Note 1.+ _Introduction._ Two of you--Lateef and Altaf--will recollect that more than a year ago you wrote to me saying that you were puzzled by certain questions which a Missionary had put to you. I remember that Amjud or Mahmood even went so far as to ask what was the good of Islam, when countries and people professing that faith had weak governments and were crumbling to pieces under the influence of Christian Powers.[2] I answered your queries only in a general way as your University education had not then advanced far enough. But I think the time has now come when I should try to explain to you what I conceive to be the true spirit of the religion of our fore-fathers. I firmly believe that Islam is the best[3] religion in the world--I mean, Islam rightly understood and interpreted and _not_ the Muhammadanism[4] of some of our formularist Maulavies,[5] who say that a man goes to Hell or Heaven according as he wears his trousers lower or higher than his ankles! They have degraded our religion by paying undue attention to formulas and forms to the exclusion and neglect of its living spirit and reality[6]. The poet Hafiz rightly stigmatised their vain controversies when he said that [Persian: Chon nadiden haghighat afsaneh zadend] "since they did not see the fact, they ran after fiction." I am more than ever convinced of two characteristics of Islam:-- _1st._--It is not inconsistent with _true_ Christianity, or with any other _true_ religion[7] of which the fundamental principle is [Arabic: Tawhid] One God [Arabic: waḥdahū la šarīka lahū] "the Peerless One."[8] _2nd._--It conforms to modern scientific ideas better than any other religion.