It is difficult, if not impossible, for any one not endowed with a spirit of sympathy, or the faculty of transporting the mind to the social conditions and moral needs of other times, to do justice to the Teacher of another Faith, especially if that Faith is imagined to be in rivalry with his own.
Generally speaking, the attitude of Christian writers towards Mohammed and his religion is akin to that of the critical Jew towards the Teacher of Nazareth, or of the philosophical Celsus towards Christianity.
In the brochure which the liberalism and enterprise of the publishers enables me to place before the public, I have endeavoured to outline from inside the essential teachings of Islâm and the prominent features of its History. For a fuller and more developed treatment of its ethics and philosophy, of the history of its civilisation and its work in the advancement of culture and humanitarian science, I must refer the student, with all diffidence, to my larger expositions.
It is to be hoped that this little book, by helping to give an insight into Islâm as it is understood by its professors, may become the means of removing some of the misapprehensions regarding its true aims and ideals, which are undoubtedly the cause of much of the antipathy prevalent in the West, and of the frequent incentives to a modern crusade.
A little more knowledge on both sides, a little more sympathy between two religions which have a common aspiration—the elevation of mankind—will largely conduce to the promotion of peace and good-will on earth.
AMEER ALI.
Reform Club, 1906.