The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c22.2

c22.2

MUHAMMADANISM is one of the principal elements which are combined in the Indian synthesis. The fierce struggle which took place before it was fused together with Hinduism was born of racial antipathies and material interests rather than of intellectual or spiritual differences. Ages before the time of Muhammad Hinduism had settled for itself by the peaceful arguments of philosophy all the problems which Islam set out to determine by the sword. The missionaries of Asoka were the first to prepare in Western Asia the soil in which Islam grew. Its iconoclastic madness was only the religious zeal of a primitive, warlike race inspired by the principles of Hînayâna Buddhism as they were re-stated by the prophet of Mecca. The monotheistic idea which Islam propounded was as old as the Vedas, and even Buddhism itself had accepted it long before the Hegira.