ISLAM

Thus he sums up the true spirit of Islamic education
:
THE CHRISTIAN AND MOSLEM ALPHABETS 119
cussion on questions of law. The immense
growth of legal knowledge, however, soon let
on subjects such as were, at first sight, remote
from religion. Thus under one and the same
roof the pious said their prayer and the philologist
explained a poet." "Hariri, well-known
to the West, delivered in a mosque at Basra,
lectures on poems that were far from religions."*
"What then is the lesson which the history o
Islamic Education reinforces ?
Its outstanding feature
is its freedom from state control, an anticipation
of the most enlightened modern view of to-day. The
entire system owed its existence and continuance to
a pure and pressing demand for light and lore. It
was a system not imposed from above, but which
drew its sustenance and support entirely from the
people. It was liberal, for it set no barriers to light ;
it was free, for with a free hand it lavished its gifts ;
it
was widespread, for few escaped its influence ;
it was
corporate and organised, for it knit the whole of the
Islamic world into one indivisible cultural unity ;
it
was bold, challenging, scientific, shirking no conclusion,
fearing no consequences, disdaining no guidance.
It was positively not education as is to-day, a mere
stepping stone to a government post It was an end
in itself, the end being the glory of the mind, the
* Khuda Bukhsh History of Islamic Civilisation^ Vol. II,
page 46.