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CHAPTER  XXVI.

ON   THi:   SHAPE   OF   HEAVEN   AND   EAKTH   ACCORDING   TO Page 132.
THE   HINDU  ASTRONOMERS.

This and similar questions have received at the hands
of the Hindus a treatment and solution totally different
from that which they have received among us Muslims.
The sentences of the Koran on these and other subiects The Koran,

.a certain

necessary for man to know are not such as to require a and clear

.                           ,         .            ,                                            .   .                    basis of all

strained interpretation m order to become positive cer- research.
tainties in the minds of the hearers, and the same may
be said regarding the holy codes revealed before the
Koran. The sentences of the Koran on the subjects
necessary for man to know are in perfect harmony with
the other religious codes, and at the same time they are
perfectly clear, without any ambiguity. Besides, the
Koran does not contain questions which have for ever
been subjects of controversy, nor such questions the
solution of which has always been despaired of, e.g.
questions similar to certain puzzles of chronology.

Islam was already in its earliest times exposed to the isiam

...                  P11                                                 -I             •     •        ^       falsiaed:

machinations of people who were opposed to it m the i. By a
bottom of their heart, people who preached Islam with party.
sectarian tendencies, and who read to simple-minded
audiences out of their Koran-copies passages of which
not a single word was ever created (i.e. revealed) by
God. But people believed them and copied these
things on their authority, beguiled by their hypocrisy ;
nay, they disregarded the true form of the book which
they had had until then, because the vulgar mind is