obligatory by Divine command. Among those idolators, the Brahmins according to the Moslem belief, are the grossest idolators. Therefore the followers of Islam, always being excited by religious zeal and having in the past and the present been desirous of carrying out the orders of God, have not failed to do their utmost to kill and persecute the polytheists and unbelievers in the prophetic missions of the last of Prophets * (may Divine Benediction rest on him and on his disciples). Now, are these contradictory precepts or orders consistent with the wisdom and mercy of the great, generous and disinterested Creator or are these the fabrications of the followersof religion? I think a sound mind will not hesitate to prefer tho latter alternative. Then, it is to be considered, which of these two is proper, i. e., either to attribute these injunctions and precepts For to God or to reject these contradictory traditions at once. instance, one party on the authority of their scripture, say that prophetic mission has been closed with their leader, and another party claim that the prophetic mission is to end in the generation of David according to an authority from God. And these two sayings are in: fact reports or foretellings and not sl or precepts of law that they will be subject to repeal. Because in holding one to be true the falsehood of the other must follow, while the probability of (change) or perversion is equally applicable to both. It is strange to say, that after the lapse of hundreds of years from the time of these religious leaders, with whom the prophetic mission is said to be closed, Nanak and others in India and other countries. raised the flag of prophetic mission and induced a large number of people to become their followers and were successful. In the body of religious teachings the gates of gaining [selfish] objects will remain open for the superficial and inexperienced from eternity to eternity, and it is daily observed that hundreds of persons in the hope of gaining some honor or a little profit make themselves subject to various kinds of physical privation and hardship, such as the keeping of perpetual fasting and holding one of the hands motionless. and burning the body, &c. Hence it is not strange that (in by-gone days) some ambitious persons in order to obtain the honour of becoming leaders of people at large or making themselves objects of reverence of the people should have subjected themselves to the hardships and dangers of the time.

There is a saying which is often heard from the doctors of different religions, which they quote as an authority for giving strength to their creed. Each of them says that his religion which gives information about future reward or punishment after death, is either

Mahomed.

true or false. In the second case, i. e., if it be false and there be no future reward or punishment, there is no harm in believing it to be true; while in the first case, i. e., its being true, there is a great danger for the unbelievers. The poor people, who follow these expounders of religions, holding this saying of their leaders to be conclusive argument, are always boasting of it. The fact is that habit and training make the individuals blind and deaf notwithstanding their having eyes and ears. The above fallacy becomes clear in two ways. Firstly, their saying that in the second case there is no harm in acceptance, is inadmissible. Because faith in the truth of a thing is gained by each individual man after belief in its existence, and faith in the existence of such things as are remote from reason, and repugnant to experience, is not in the power of a sensible man. Secondly, in case of having faith in those things, it may become the source of various mischiefs and troubles and immoral practices owing to gross ignorance and want of experience, i. e., bigotry, deceit, &c. Nevertheless, in case of assuming this argument to be true, from this the truth of all forms of religion is to be proved; for the followers of each religion may equally produce the same argument. Hence there will be a great perplexity for a man to believe all religions to be true or adopt the one or reject others. Therefore as the first alternative is impossible, consequently the second must be considered. And in this case, he has again recourse to the enquiry into the truth and falsehood of various religions. And this is the chief object of my discourse. Another argument produced by them is that it is necessary that we should follow the ceremonies and creeds which were adopted by our forefathers, without any enquiry into their truth and falsehood, and to hate and neglect them or deviate from them, leads to worldly and religious disgrace: and that such conduct is in fact contempt and insult of our forefathers. This fallacious argument of theirs, produces a great effect on the minds of the people who entertain a good opinion and a reverence towards their ancestors, and consequently hinders them from any enquiry into the truth and adopting the righteous way. The fallacy of this argument will be evident to all on a little consideration. For it is equally applicable first, to those persons who having been founders of some (new) religion attracted the people to themselves; and secondly, to those who after receiving the doctrines of their leaders, have deviated from the old way of their forefathers, and tried to pull down the foundation of their ancestor's creeds. If a man only by attributing his own inventions to God, is to be vindicated from such charges, then this is the easiest way to be adopted. The fact is that renouncing one religion and adopting another which was common amongst the ancient people, implies that conversion from one religio a

"

to another, is one of the habits of mankind. Besides, the fact of God's endowing each individual man with intellectual faculties and senses, implies that he should not, like other animals, follow the examples of his fellows, but should exercise his own intellectual power with the help of acquired knowledge, to discern good from bad, so that this valuable divine gift should not be left useless. The followers of different religions sometimes seeing the paucity of the number of believers in one God in the world boast that they are on the side of the majority. It is to be seen that the truth of a saying does not " depend upon the multiplicity of the sayers and the non-reliability Zo of a narration cannot arise simply out of the paucity of the number of the narrators. For it is admitted by the seekers of truth that truth is to be followed, although it is against the majority of the people. Moreover, accepting the proposition, viz., the paucity of the number of the sayers leads to the invalidity of a saying, as universal, proves to be a dangerous blow to all the forms of religion. Because in the beginning of every religion there were very few supporters of it, viz., its founder and a very few sincere followers of him, who had the same object with him, and afterwards on their precepts thousands of large books and series of arguments have been written and produced like a mountain resting upon a straw, while belief only in one Almighty God is the fundamental principle of every religion. Those who prefer the so-called invented revelation of mankind to the natural inspiration from God, which consists in attending to social life with their own species, and having an intuitive faculty of discriminating good from evil, instead of gaining the union of hearts with mutual love and affection of all their follow-creatures without difference in shape and colour or creeds and religions, which is a pure devotion acceptable to God, the Creator of nature, consider some especial formulæ and bodily motions to be the cause of Salvation and receiving bounty from Almighty God. They in fact, pretend a change in the self of the Deity and think that their physical actions and mental emotions, have power to change the state of the unchangeable God. Our actions can by no means be the cause of appeasing the wrath of God and attaining His forgiveness and favour. A little consideration will expose this heresy.

"So many hypocritical acts of the Shaikh, the Spiritual Leader, are not worth a mite; give comfort to the hearts of people, this is the only Divine Doctrine."

In short, the individuals of mankind with reference to those who are deceivers and those who are deceived and those who are neither, are of four kinds.

Firstly. A class of deceivers who in order to attract the people to themselves wilfully invent doctrines, creeds and faiths and put the people to troubles and cause disunion amongst them.

2ndly.-A class of deceived people, who without inquiring into the fact, adhere to others.

3rdly.-A class of people who are deceivers and also deceived; they are those who having themsolves faith in the sayings of another induce others to adhere to them.

4thly.-Those who by the help of Almighty God are neither de-ceivers nor deceived.

"Be not after the injury of any being and do whatever you please. For in our way there is no sin except it (injuring others)." (Hafiz).

These few sentences, short and useful according to the opinion of this humble believer in God, have been written without any regard to men of prejudice and bigotry, with the hope that people of sound mind will look at thom with a just and corrective eye. I have left the detail of it to another work of mine entitled Adyan,* "Discussion of Various Roligions."

Here ends "A present to the believers in one God."

Manazaṛutul Adebate

• Manazara is a work in the form of a dialogue in which two or more persons are intro

duced to discuss a given subject.

INDEX.