كتاب منهج دراسة الأديان بين الشيخ رحمت الله الهندي والقس فندر
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acquired knowledge of the various Islamic sciences: Jurisprudence, Interpretation, Traditions, Literature, Logic, Philosophy, etc. When I was still a student and knew little about the religious disciplines of Islam, doubts about the truth of Islam began to bother me through my association with several Christians. But the mawlawis and other Muslims rebuked and frightened me so that I quickly abandoned any such thoughts.
Likewise my friend Safdar Ali, at that time a college student and later Deputy Inspector of Schools in Jabalpur, was much distressed on hearing about my doubts. He was a zealous, orthodox Muslim and I can vouch for his honesty, integrity, good conduct and learning. He told me: "You are being led astray. You have still not studied books about Islam. The Christians have misled you. Get rid of such ideas, carefully study books on the religion of Islam and see who is right."
Mawlawi Safdar Ali then took me to Mawlawi Abdul Halim, a great scholar and preacher, who was in the service of the Nawab of Bandi. At the time, I was readingKitab Hamd-Ullah. Though he could not answer the criticisms which I presented, he recited many Quranic verses for my benefit and revealed his great displeasure also. Both of us left depressed. Then and there, I set aside the idea of comparing the two religions and commenced to expend all my energy in a systematic study day and night, and continued in this manner for some eight to ten years. Since I understood all knowledge to be a means of apprehending the Lord, I considered all the time spent on study as an act of worshipping God.
Thus I acquired a reasonable knowledge of the various Islamic religious disciplines and was filled with zeal for the cause of Islam. Yet still another trap awaits the student of Islam. When one who seeks the truth becomes entangled in this net, he becomes thoroughly deluded and even simply wastes away his life. It is as follows: Muslims at first explain to the enquirer for a long period of time the external aspects of the Law, the formal disciplines of daily life, baseless myths and useless rules for discussion. In order to stifle his progress, they then deceitfully tell him that all he has learned deals only with external laws and esoteric knowledge. If he wishes to enquire after reality and is pleased to acquire a true knowledge of God, he is to go to the Sufi saints and serve them for years. They have that esoteric knowledge which stems from Muhammad and is conveyed secretly from saint to saint. To have this esoteric knowledge is the goal of life.
I also was caught in the same trap. Dr. Wazir Khan, who had come to Akbarabad as the sub-assistant surgeon and who was a bigoted Muslim, considering himself to be among the saints of God, deceived and entrapped me in this affliction. This hidden knowledge is called tasawwuf (Sufism). For the sake of this knowledge Muslim scholars have written books which fill libraries, drawing form the Qur'an, Hadith, their own intelligence, as well as practices from the Hindu Vedanta, Romans, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and the customs of the monks and other pious people. They do contain some things which are truly spiritual, since the origin of Sufism can be traced back to those Muslim scholars who sought after spiritual reality. Unable to fulfil their longing through the teachings of Islam alone and to satisfy their restless spirits, they assembled these other doctrines from every quarter to pacify their spirits. Had they then read the Injil and the Tawrat, they would have
