ABSTRACT
T h e contrasts on the surface between Hinduism and Islam are apparent. They form one of the chief difficulties now standing in the way of Indian national unity.
Hinduism accepts whole-heartedly the worship of the One Supreme-the “ One without a second,” the Advaita1-but at the same time allows the worshipper to employ pictures, symbols, images: Islam rejects idols altogether and will not allow pictures of any kind in any place of worship. Hindu ism is in some ways like the Roman Catholicism of the south of Europe in its sacramental use of the material elements, reaching down from the beauty of flower offerings to much lower types: Islam is sternly “ puritan,” so that not even a flower must be seen within a mosque where prayer is offered and where the word of God is recited. Hinduism makes its appeal to the multitude of ordinary people by means of music, religious processions, festivals, and elaborate ritual: Islam is so austere that music is altogether prohibited at the time of prayer. Hindu ism, once more, makes room for a Pantheon of deities in its conception of the Unseen and the Eternal: Islam, stark and bare from the Arabian desert, has avoided from the very first metaphysical
1 ie. without duality.
