Al-Risala (English), December 1984

By way of introduction to the Islamic way of life, I would like to put some sayings of the Prophet Mohammad before you: “Let him who believes in God and the Last Day either speak good or keep silent; and let him who believes in God and the Last Day honour his neighbour; and let him who believes in God and the Last Day be generous to his guest.” “Fear God wherever you are, and follow up a bad deed with a good one and it will wipe it out, and behave well towards people.” “Righteousness is good-naturedness, and evil is what wavers in your soul, and you would not like people to find out about.” “None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” A man came to the Prophet and said: “Messenger of God, tell me something which, if I do it, will win me the love of both God and men.” The Prophet said: “If you renounce the world God will love you, and if you renounce what people possess they will love you.” Failing in exams is no reason of fail in life In 1881 A.E. Houseman failed disastrously in his classical honours exam at Oxford University. He did not even manage to answer many of the questions. The reason for his failure was his dislike of Oxford’s approach to the classics, with its emphasis on ancient philosophy. After leaving university he started intense research, according to his own taste and interest, into Latin and Greek—the very subjects in which he had failed at Oxford. He spent all his free time at the British Museum Library, researching manuscript minutiae and carefully correcting errors in the texts of classical authors Ovid and Propertius. He published about twenty-five articles in scholarly journals. Just eleven years after his dismal failure at Oxford, he applied for the professorship of Latin at University College, London. His application was accompanied by 17 testimonials—from classicists all over the world—confirming his brilliance as a Latin and Greek scholar. He was granted the post and went on—before his death in 1936—to assume the professorship of Latin at Cambridge and be recognized as one of the greatest critics of classical texts of all time. Norman Page A.E. Houseman: A Critical Biography (Schocken, 1984).