A Case of Discovery (Part-II

elevation of humanity towards the absolute ideal of perfection, but it attained or tries to attain this object by grasping the truth, that the nature of man is, in this existence, imperfect.” (p. 278). These are some of the chief reasons, practical and speculative, that have induced me to accept Islam in preference to the other great religions of the world. There are also the reasons which have always appealed strongly in favour of Islam to some of the greatest minds of Europe in the past as well as in the present. It would be quite out of place here to allude even en passant to what Voltaire, Goethe, Gibbon in the 18th, and a host of great men in the 19th century have said about Islam. All that is possible to do in a lecture like this is to make a passing allusion to a few Europeans of the present day, who have expressed their sympathy and admiration for the faith of Islam. Not long ago, we all read of a distinguished English nobleman (Lord Stanley of Alderley) who is reputed to have declared before his death that he had all his life been a Muslim! I can assure you, that there are hundreds and thousand all over Europe and America, who would do exactly the same, if they had the requisite moral courage to brave the social and other disadvantages attending on such a step. It was not less a man and a savant than Ernst Renan who has said the following in his famous lecture on “L’ Islamisme and la science” (p.19):- “Je ne suis jamais entre dans une mosquee sans une vive emotion, le dirai-je? Sans un certain regret de n’etre pas un Mussulman!” that is to say, “I have never been inside a mosque without feeling a strong emotion, shall I confess it? Without a certain amount of regret that I am not a Muslim”! When a great scholar and great sceptic like Ernst Renan could make a declaration like that, what of humbler persons and individuals—what about the ordinary unlettered people of the world? Since it is well-known