need or it was inappropriate, he complied with the laws of divine practice and followed the general course of things. And it was requisite that he did so.

Brother! This note is of the same type as the premise (mukaddeme) of the First Way. It lost its way and place due to forgetfulness and ended up here. Keep these points firmly in mind, for now we are embarking on the conclusion.

Consider this, my brother! The Islamic Shari'a and religion, which are founded on rational proofs, comprise the sum and substance of the sciences and branches of knowledge. These include the science of refining the spirit, and of training the heart, and of educating the conscience, and the science of physical training, and domestic science, and the science of local government, and that of international relations, and the legal sciences, and so on. The Shari'a explains and elucidates where necessary or needed, and is concise where it is not necessary or people's minds are not ready or the times do not allow, and it lays down principles that can be elaborated, deduced, and expanded through consultation and the exercise of reason. At the present time, all these sciences or even a third of them after thousand three hundred years — having grown through the meeting of minds and expansion of their results — could not be found in a single person even in a civilised place and among clever people. In all fairness, your conscience could not prevent your affirming this.

Virtue is such that enemies even cannot deny it. The New World's most famous philosopher, Carlyle, [^12] quoted a German thinker and politician, who after conducting some close studies, asked himself: "If Islam is thus, wouldn't present-day civilisation flourish within the bounds of its truths?" He replied to himself in the affirmative. The punctilious scholars of the present are living

[^12]:The famous historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) was actually Scottish. He was born in Scotland and died in London. The sentences here are loosely quoted from his work On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History (London: 1841), the chapter entitled: The Hero as Prophet. Mahomet: Islam.