TEN PRINCIPLES OF ISLAM

contributed to tearing a large hole in the life-giving ozone layer of the upper atmosphere. This has proved to be an insoluble challenge to all life forms, human and otherwise. This shows that industries have to be pollution free so that consumer goods may be produced in a non-injurious way. But it has proved well-nigh impossible for man to rid industry of its pollutant factors. Buddhism Buddhism, which has gained great popularity among the educated classes of the present day, is another such example. The secret of this popularity is the same as that described above under the heading of causation, i.e. Buddhism applied the principle of cause and effect to the phenomenon of life and death. People of the mindset formed under the influence of modern science felt justified in upholding this principle. All the resources on which a material paradise were conceived will soon be destroyed. In present times we find that some are born in poverty, others in affluence; some live in difficult circumstances, some have a life of comfort. Buddhism supposedly discovered a cause for this—that everyone was inevitably suffering the consequences of his actions in his previous birth. Because this explanation was apparently based on the principle of ‘cause and effect’ it appealed greatly to the modern mind. It was as if the non-material God had been replaced with a material cause. But, according to scientific research, this explanation given by Buddhism was entirely without foundation. Research conducted in the field of psychology has proved that the human memory is an inseparable part of the human personality. This means that when a person is ‘re-born’, thus entering upon a life which he merits exactly in terms of the deeds of his previous lifetime, he must surely retain memories of his previous life. For, according to this theory of reincarnation, re-birth means that it is his previous personality which has reappeared in the form of a new body. But, as we all know, no one remembers what happened during his previous life. If we are to believe the ideology of Buddhism, all