Life of Ahmad — Page 378
SIR SAYYID CORRECTED as 378 of the educated an attitude that boded ill for religion. The former were ludicrous in their insistence upon the letter of the law and the latter were vain in their total denial of the essence of Faith through an undue respect for western arts and sciences. The mullahs would have us believe that the man Jesus as was still alive in the heavens in the flesh and that he would come down in clouds and actually restore the dead to life and create birds. They banned all modern education. But the so-called educated men would deny the very existence of the Almighty by curtailing His powers to nothing. By their wholesale adoption of the western ways of life they introduced a canker in the Muslim world, which would fast eat up the entire Government gives to the Muslims of India by her peace and her toleration of all. ' It may also be mentioned here that, in their wanton, unprovoked and cruel mockings, the enemies of Ahmad as call his writings as 'the merest trash besides The Spirit of Islam ', which is a well-known work of the Rt. Hon. Sayyid Am i r Ali, another rationalist and westernised advocate of Islam. This apologetic publication is decidedly superior to the writings of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan; yet no Muslim worth the name will fail to deplore the various modifications of the religion of Islam, which he regards as essential for its acceptance in the West. In his Preface, page xii, the Rt. Hon. Sayyid Am i r Ali says: 'The Islam of Muhammad, with its stern discipline and its severe morality, has proved itself the only practical religion for low natures, to save them from drifting into lawless materialism. It is probable, however, that should the creed of the Arabian Prophet sa receive acceptance among European communities, such of the rigid formalism which has been imparted to it by the lawyers of Central Asia and Irak will have to be abandoned. ' Sayyid Am i r Ali is also guilty of wrongfully thinking, to his own lasting reproach, that the Holy Prophet sa once compromised with idol-worship 'by making a slight concession to the bigotry of his enemies. ' Purdah too, he says, is not enjoined by the Holy Prophet sa.