It is strange that a subject surrounded, as we might imagine, with so many
attractions for the Oriental student, as that of the early records of Islam,
should be almost unknown in India. For the English, it may be said that they
have in this country small leisure from the busy work of life, to turn aside
to the task; and for the Hindoo it would prove hardly a congenial subject. But
to educated and thoughtful Moslems, as involving the first beginnings and the
development of what they hold to be most sacred and precious, one might have
expected the study to be fraught with the deepest interest. The sword of Omar
no longer checks freedom of inquiry; the right of private judgment and of
discussion is here in India as free as the air we breathe; and yet their mind
would seem still dwarfed and scared by the apparition of that sword. The
honest and enlightened Moslem ought not to shrink from a domain of inquiry,
opening up a long vista of history and literature, which he naturally looks up
to with veneration, and portions of which he may justly regard with pride. The
Christian missionary, too, might draw many a polished shaft from the same
armoury. In our seats of learning, a branch of study so closely affecting an
important section of the human race, and India in particular, might find a
fitting place. And upon the learned men who preside at those Institutions
devolves the responsibility of rendering that study popular in our Indian
empire.
