I have accepted Islam in all sincerity and earnestness, and the first reason that has moved me to do so is its solid historical groundwork. After wandering helplessly for several years in the marshy bogs of divergent creeds and conflicting systems of philosophy, my weary soul has at last found refuge and consolation in a religion based on a Revelation that has remained unaltered ever since its first compilation under the third Caliph, and in a prophet whose historical personality is not only unquestionable but about whose youth, appearance, daily habits and even personal characteristics we know almost as much as we do about those of Oliver Cromwell or of Napoleon Bonaparte. You cannot throw even the least shadow of doubt on the historical basis of that immense personality that has stamped itself so deep on the roll of time as to make Christendom grow pale before that august and illustrious name even to this day.

In the Prophet of Islam there is nothing vague and shadowy, mythical or mysterious, as, for instance, in Zoroaster and Srikrishna, or in Buddha and Christ. The very existence of those prophets has been seriously doubted and even totally denied; but nobody, as far as I am aware, has ever ventured to reduce the prophet of Islam either into a “solar myth” or into a “fairy tale” as some eminent savants of Europe have done with Buddha and Christ.

Oh! What a relief to find, after all, a truly historical prophet to believe in.

From “Why Have I Accepted Islam?” A lecture delivered on the 26th August 1904, in Hyderabad, by Dr. Nishikanta Chattopadhyaya (Muslim name: Muhammad Azizuddin). □

CURBING ANGER MAKES ONE GROW IN FAITH

Abdullah Ibn Abbas reports the Prophet’s saying: “There is nothing dearer to God than a person should curb his anger. When one curbs one’s anger for God’s sake, He fills one’s soul with faith.”