Key of Knowledge

SR No.: 006702
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 1204
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

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986
THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE,
suficient to found a religion of the world, to satisfy the metaphysical need of innumerable millions of men for twelve hundred years, to become the foundation of their morality, and of no small contempt for death, and also to inspire them to bloody wars and most extended conquests. We find in it the saddest and the poorest form of theism. Much may be lost through the translation; but I have not been able to discover one single valuable thought in it."*
If our Mahomedan brethren would escape criticism like that of Schopenhauer, they must endeavour to put a inore sensible interpretation on their tenets than they have done hitherto, for in the modern days of advancing intellectualism it is the force of reason which commands respect, not that of the sword of jehad.
There is a great deal of truth in what Schopenhauer says about the Qur'an, but we are sure that that great book is not without its special merit. After a weary and tiresome plodding through its pages, which, for the most part, contain variants of the earlier traditionst of the Sabians, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Jews and others, the patient reader must acknowledge that the cardinal doctrine of the Qur'an is the great principle of absolute resignation to one's destiny. Most of us would regard a doctrine like this as fatalism pure and simple, but if we would reflect a little, we should see our error at once. Fatalism is essentially passive, and, for that reason, but another name for laziness, but religious life demands an active attitude of the soul, and would mean stagnation without it. Here we find the Bhagavad Gita explaining the situation admirably :
Thy business is with the action only, never with its fruits ; so
* See " The World as Will and Idea," Vol. II. pp. 361-362. See. The Sources of The Qur'an,' by Dr. Tisdall,