Conversion: A Healthy Historical Process

This encounter continued for several hundred years in the form of dialogue and conflict until a new intellectual revolution was produced within the European nations and they finally bade good-bye to the old and opted for the new. This revolution is known as the Renaissance. It was this revolution, which enabled the European nations to perform the greatest feat of history by emerging from the traditional age into the age of science. The truth is that the human mind is a treasure house of unlimited power. In normal situations the human brain remains in a dormant state. It is only external shocks, which awaken it, and the greater they are, the greater the intellectual revolution within man. This shock treatment produces in man what psychologists call brainstorming. This brings about a new intellectual change, a conversion that elevates a normal man to the level of superman who is then able to perform great feats. Religious conversion is only a small part of this whole process. When the dialogue-conversion process is set in motion it cannot have limits set to it. It is not possible to allow one kind of conversion and to prohibit another. Being a stormy process, it is boundless. It must be appreciated that there are two major kinds of religious conversion—inner faith conversion and inter faith conversion. Now let us take an example of inter faith conversion. There was a multi-lingual Bengali Doctor of Philosophy, Nishi Kant Chattopadhyaye, who, having first studied philosophy, then all major religions, faced intellectual confrontation with different faiths. Finally, he made an intellectual discovery in consequence of which he left his ancestral religion, Hinduism in favor of Islam. His Muslim name was Azizuddin. He wrote a book, Why I have embraced Islam, which describes in detail the story of his intellectual development.