Real Revolution — Page 5
5 the new ideas go out to catch the minds of the people, are discussed, often with great heat, and come to be accepted. For instance there was a time when it was believed that the earth was flat. In fact even at this late day one sometimes comes across people who still believe that the earth is really flat. Once in Labore where. I was invited to speak in the Islamia College Hall, my discourse was interrupted by a man from the audience who asked if there would be time for questions. The chairman inquired what he desired to ask. He replied that he wished to say that the earth was flat and wanted a discussion on the question. The chairman said that this was entirely irrelevent to the discourse in hand, but the man obstinately insisted that the question was of such basic importance that it deserved to be discussed in any case. . This means that even now there are people who believe that the earth is flat, though their number is small; but in the earlier eras all except the Muslims held that the earth was flat. Among the Muslims of course the view prevailed that the earth was round; but the people of Europe held the opposite view, and later when the question of the earth being round came to the forefront, the Europeans stoutly repudiated the theory. . When Columbus thought of going in search of America, he had picked up that idea in the course of his contact with the Muslims. He had studied with a Muslim scholar who was a disciple of Hazrat Mohy-ud-Deen. Ibn-'Arabee. on the basis of some of his dreams and