[ايم نعبد We worship Thee alone.]
"2. Help and guidance in the practical management of life.
[واياك نستعين We seek help from Thee alone.]
"3. Ability and willingness to follow the light withersoever it leads."
[اهدنا الصراط المستقيم Guide us into the right path]
Compare the verses I have placed in brackets with what Sir Oliver says, and you will observe how well he has interpreted the Qur'an. It looks as if he had the Opening Sura سورة فاتحة before him when he wrote. Even the sequence of his ideas corresponds practically with the order of the verses. But you may be quite sure that he never thought of the Qur'an at all. He evolved it all from his own inner consciousness well trained by scientific studies.
Maxim of Self-help.
2. There are numerous verses in the Qur'an which enjoin "purification تز كيم of one's self" and prohibit "cruelty ظلم to one's own mind". They obviously imply the rule of conduct which I have called the Maxim of Self-help. No one has expressed it more beautifully and truthfully than Shakespeare in the well-known speech of Polonius.
This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Herbert Spencer, Prof. T.H. Green, Lecky (Historian), Profs. Muirhead, Mackenzie, and Sen.