The Economic System of Islam — Page 75
75 call a Muslim mad or a fool for holding such beliefs, but as far as he is concerned and as long as his convictions remain what they are, missionary activity devolves upon him as a duty that he may not shirk in any circumstances. After all, if he wished well for mankind, he would feel obliged to deliver the message that he believes is for its benefit. No one would like his friend to fall in a ditch or be shot to death. How, then, can one reconcile himself to his friends being given the everlasting punishment and be deprived of Paradise and God’s nearness and pleasure. Call it what you like, for a person at- tached to his religion, it is a strong desire to help his brother im- prove his moral and practical life. There is no room for this sort of work under Communism; any such efforts would be politically curbed. I speak on this point from actual experience of conditions pre- vailing in Soviet Russia. Some time back, I had sent an Ahmadiyya Missionary to this country. But, far from letting him preach his message, the government threw him into prison where he was mer- cilessly tortured for a long time, and was forced to eat pork. (At this point, H u du r ra pointed to the missionary in question, who was pre- sent in the audience and asked him to rise from his seat so that oth- ers could see him. ) For almost two years this missionary was kept in captivity in various places—Tashkent, Ashgabat and Moscow—and while in prison, he was subjected to so much torture that he lost his mental balance. Then he was pushed across the border into Iran from where the British Embassy informed the Government of India about him and the information was sent to me, and at our request he was repatriated to India at our expense. There are political reasons why the Communists disallow reli- gious missionary work, which we need not pursue here. But the