Muslims picture the Supreme Truth as a beautiful citadel built on the top of a steep mountain. Different religions are but so many paths مذا هب leading to it from different directions. In their estimation Islam is the best and the easiest path of all. This fanciful idea implies that some of the paths might cross each other at different parts of their course, and others might run parallel to one another or even run together for a considerable distance. Many religions may therefore have certain doctrines bearing close resemblance to each other like parallel paths. Some religions may even have certain doctrines in common, like paths running together. All religions are, and purport to be, paths leading to one and the same citadel of Truth.[72] None the less has each of them an individuality of its own and a claim that it is better and easier than all others.[73]
III.
Principle of Moderation.
I have prefaced this Note with the above remarks because the Principle of Moderation and the connected Maxim of the Mean, which are indicated in the third and last part of the Sura, were enunciated by Plato فلا طون and his disciple Aristotle ارسطو who lived more than 1,000 years before Muhammad. Some Muslims count those great sages of ancient Greece among the innumerable (1,800,000) Messengers of God who preceded our Prophet.[74] The records[75] صحايف possess an authority second only to that of the Qur'an itself, being in fact revelations which God vouchsafed from time to time for the benefit and guidance of mankind.
1. I need not repeat what I have already said as to 'the Path of Grace' صراط الذين انعمت عليهم being the mean between two extremes, 'the Path of Sin' غير المغضوب عليهم and 'the Path of Error' و لا الضالين. I may however explain that the pursuit of the Path of Grace implies the Principle of Moderation in the sense that we should fully and freely exercise all our mental and physical powers with due regard to their respective limitations. For all practical purposes, you may take Reason, Passion and Action as the principal representatives of a man's powers, and view Reason as the guiding force in his constitution,
Passion as the moving force, and Action (voluntary acts and omissions) as the resultant of the guiding and moving forces thus:—
Now, the Principle of Moderation means simply that you should not allow your passions to influence your actions unduly, nor should you allow your reason to control your passions unduly; but you should ever try to hold the balance even between them in order that the resultant action might be quite right—might discharge the three-fold duty of man,—and might thereby tend (be it in ever so small a degree) to the perfection of the individual and the race. If at any time your passion over-rides your reason, you commit Sin; and on the contrary, if you exercise your reason so much as to stifle your passion altogether, you fall into Error. If you permit neither reason, nor passion to discharge their respective functions, you lapse into Inaction which is again an Error. Undue suppression of Passion, and over-exercise of Reason, as well as non-exercise of both—militate against the Principle of Moderation, the essence of which is (as Aristotle pointed out) that no power should tyrannize over any other in our constitution.