Clearing up misconceptions about Islam ( the religion ) , and a request . . . . . .

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The next part of the article :

Encyclopedia of Islam

Every single Muslim historian of medieval India lists temples which the ruler he is writing about has destroyed and the mosques he has built instead. In his famous work, Sita Ram Goel reproduces some of these account verbatim1. Doing nothing but this, without any comments at all, takes over 170 printed pages of the book.

Nor was the practice confined to India, or to temples. Here are just two paragraphs from the 75 pages long entry. In the Encyclopedia of Islam2 "...it is rather doubtful whether the process (of acquiring churches) was a regular one; in any case the Muslims in course of time appropriated many churches to themselves. With the mass-conversions to Islam, this was a natural result. The churches taken over by the Muslims were occasionally used as dwellings3. At a later date, it also happened that they were used as government offices, as in Egypt in 146.4 The obvious thing, however, was to transform the churches taken into mosques. It is related of ‘Amr b, al-Asi’ that he performed the salat in a church (Makrizi, iv. 6) and Zaid b. ‘Ali says regarding churches and synagogues, ‘Perform thy salat in them: it will not harm thee5. It is not clear whether the reference in these cases is to conquered sanctuaries; it is evident, in any case, that the saying is intended to remove any misgivings about the use of captured churches and synagogues as mosques. The most important example of this kind was in Damascus where al-Walid b. ‘Abb al-Malik in 86 (705) took the church of St. John from the Christians and had it rebuilt; he is said to have offered the Christians another church in its stead6. He is said to have transformed into mosques ten churches in all in Damascus. It must have been particularly in the villages, with the gradual conversion of the people to Islam, that the churches were turned into mosques. In the Egyptian village there were no mosques in the earlier generation of Islam7. But when al-Mamun was fighting the Copts, many churches were turned into mosques8. It is also recorded of mosques in Cairo that they were converted churches. According to one tradition, the Rashida mosque was an unfinished Jacobite church, which was surrounded by Jewish and Christian graves9. In the immediate vicinity al-Hakim turned a Jacobite and a Nestorian Church into mosques10. When Djawhar built a palace in al-Kahira, a dir was taken in and transformed into a mosque11. Similar changes took place at later dates12 and synagogues also were transformed in this way13. The chief mosque in Palermo was previously a church14. After the Crusades, several churches were turned into mosques in Palestine15.

"Other sanctuaries than those of the ‘people of the scripture’ were turned into mosques. For example a Masjid al-Shams between Hilla and Kerbela was the successor of an old temple of Shamash16. Not far from Ishtakhr was a Masjid Sulaiman which was an old 'fire-temple'. the pictures on the walls of which could still be seen in the time of Mas’udi and al-Makdisi17. In Ishtakhr itself there was a djami’, which was a converted fire-temple18. In Masisa, the ancient Mopsuhestia, al-Mansur in 140 built a mosque on the site of an ancient temple19. The chief mosque in Dihli was originally a temple20. Thus in Islam also the old rule holds that sacred places survive changes of religion. It was especially easy in cases where Christian sanctuaries were associated with Biblical personalities who were also recognised by Islam: e.g., the Church of St John in Damascus and many holy places in Palestine. One example is the mosque of Job in Shekh Sad, associated with Sura xxi. 83, xxxviii. 40; here in Silvia's time (fourth century) there was a church of Job.

Prophet and Shariat

But could it not be that, like the Muslim rulers in India, these Muslim rulers of the Middle East were also doing all this in violation of the Shariat? As we know, the Shariat is based on what the Quran says and on what the prophet did, that is on the Sunnah. The Quran is sanguinary in the extreme, there can be little doubt on the matter. The only question therefore is about what the Prophet himself did.

The evidence is incontrovertible -- it leaves nothing of Shahabuddin's latest argument. The Prophet's companions as well as his biographers -- the earliest. all devout Muslim, whose accounts are the most authoritative sources we have of the Prophet's life -- report his ordering the destruction of a mosque as it had been set up by persons he did not think well of, they report his ordering new converts to demolish a church and establish a mosque instead at the site, they report his converting what had on all accounts become a pagan temple, with idols, paintings and all, into the greatest mosque of all -- that is, the Kaba itself. There is space to recall just an incident or two.

We learn from Ibn Sa’d’s book and widely used collection of Hadis, of a delegation of 13 to 19 members of Banu Hanifah calling upon the Prophet. We learn of them being looked after generously -- with bread, meat, milk, butter, dates. They receive instruction in Islam. They swear allegiance to the Prophet. It is time to leave. Talq b. Ali, who was in the delegation, states: "We went out as a deputation to God's messenger and swore allegiance to him and prayed along with him. We told him that we had a church in our land, and we asked him for some of the leavings of the water he used for ablution. He called for water, performed ablution, then poured it out for us into a skin vessel, and gave us the following command. ‘Go away, and when you come to your land break down your church, sprinkle this water on its site, and use it as a mosque’. We told him that our land was distant, the heat severe, and that the water would evaporate, to which he replied, ‘Add some water to it. for it will only bring more good to it23.’

Upon returning they did as the Prophet had commanded. Our narrator. Talq b, Ali, became the muezzin of the mosque and recited the azaan. The friar of the church. the reverential Ibu Sa’d records. "heard it (the azaan) and said, ‘It is a word of truth and call to truth’. Then he escaped and it was the end of the regime’24. Any ambiguity there?

Nor can Shahabuddin's claim that Shariat forbids the destruction of temples etc. in peace time be sustained in view of what the Prophet himself commanded and did. His earliest biographers -- Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Sa’d, for instance -- record instance after instance in which idols and temples were smashed, destroyed and burnt down at his orders. The temples of al-Uzza, al-Laat, and al-Manaat -- the three goddesses who are subjects of the Satanic verses in the Quran -- the temples around Ta’if, those of Fils and Ruda in Tayys -- are all reported by them to have been destroyed on the direct orders of the Prophet. Similarly, the biographers report the Prophet's joy when converts came and reported to him that they had destroyed this temple or that, or smashed to smithereens this idol or that. These were not instances when during a battle an army over-ran a site which happened to be a temple. These were instances of persons or tribes having come over to Islam, and then, as part of their new commitment, destroying the places of worship.

Nor, it must be noted, was the Prophet less stem about some refractory party setting up even a mosque. His orders at Dhu Awan are well known. Ibn Ishaq reports that as the Prophet approached the town, the devotees approached him saying, "We have built a mosque for the sick and needy and for nights of bad weather, and we would like you to come to us and pray for us there". The Prophet, Ibn Ishaq records, said that "he was on the point of travelling, and was preoccupied, or words to that effect, and that when he came back, if God willed, he would come to them and pray for them in it". But at Dhu Awan, upon hearing about the mosque, he summoned the followers, "and told them to go to the mosque of these evil men and destroy and burn it". That is exactly what the followers then did. A revelation came down from Allah and sanctified the destruction25.

I just do not see where Shahabuddin derives his cumenical rule from.

A Conclusive Example

But the most telling example is that of the Kaba, and the Masjidal-Haram, the mosque -- the most revered in Islam around it. And it is to this that we should turn to settle the matter.

As we saw, Shahabuddin’s latest argument is that no Muslim ruler could ever have destroyed a temple to build a mosque as doing so is prohibited by the Shariat. The Shariat is derived pre-eminently from what the Prophet himself did and said. So, the question is; how does that argument fare in the light of what the Prophet himself did?

The conclusive answer to this matter -- as to several others which have cropped up in the Ramjanmabhoomi controversy -- lies In the history of the Kaba and the Masjid al-Haram in which it is situated.

Mat the Kaba was

Till the very day the Prophet took it under his control after his conquest of Mecca, the Kaba and the structure around it were a place of pagan worship with idols and paintings of all sorts of gods and goddesses.

From the earliest to the most recent biographers of the Prophet, all speak of it as such. Recalling days long before the Prophet, Ibn Ishaq reports the answer of the Hudhaylis to the king when he asked them why they too would not do in regard to the Kaba -- circumambulate the temple, venerate it, shave their heads etc. -- as they were exhorting him to do , "They replied that it was indeed the temple of their father Abraham, but the idols which the inhabitants had set up round it, and the blood which they shed there (by sacrificing animals) presented an insuperable obstacle. They are unclean polytheists, said they -- or words to that effect". We learn of the Prophet's arguments with the Controllers of the shrine about the idols. We learn of their fear that should his iconoclasm prevail they would lose the livelihood they now secured out of the pilgrims who came to worship the idols, and accordingly their fierce opposition to the Prophet. We learn of his returning to Mecca for "the lesser pilgrimage" and going to the Kaba "cluttered with idols though it was." Such are the accounts in the earliest and most authoritative of his biographies. The accounts continue to this day.

An Iranian Scholar’s views

"Why did so many tribes sustain the wealth and power of the Qoraysh by coming to the Kaba?", the Iranian scholar, Ali Dashti, asks about pre-Islamic times in his justly-acclaimed book Twenty Three Years 26, "The reason was that the Kaba housed famous idols and contained a black stone which the Arabs held sacred... Each group of pilgrims had to shout its entreaties to its idol while circumambulating the Kaba and running from Safa to Marwa". "The Kaba," he writes, recounting the setting in which Islam was established, "was an important idol-temple, much visited by Beduin tribesmen and greatly respected as a holy place... The livelihood of the Meecans and the prestige of the Quoryash chiefs depended on this coming and going. The Beduin came to visit the Kaba, which was an idol temple. If the new religion required destruction of the idols, they would not come any more..." Ali Dashti refers to the Kaba repeatedly as "the idol-temple which the tribes had revered..." as "the famous idol-temple."

The temple had several idols, among them 360 statues. The Quran itself mentions the three goddesses -- al-Lat, al-Uzza and al-Manaat -- who were worshipped there. The most prominent idol however was that of Hubal, "who", the first Encyclopedia of Islam states, "may be called the God of Mecca and of the Kaba". A male figure, it was made of red carnelian. The statue stood inside the Kaba, says the new edition of the Encyclopedia, above the sacred well which was thought to have been dug by Abraham to receive the offerings brought to the sanctuary. Though a stellar deity, its principal function was that of a "cleromantic divinity", it being the custom to consult the idol by divining arrows. Hubal, the number of idols -- 360 -- as well as the rites associated with them, have all been taken to point to an astral symbolism, and the temple has accordingly been taken to have been dedicated to the sun, the moon and the planets.

How it was transformed

The temple continued in this condition till the very day on which the Prophet re-entered it upon capturing Mecca. That moment of triumph is recorded in great detail by the biographers. The accounts establish both sets of facts -- they establish what was in the temple at that moment, and what the Prophet did to it. Notice that the moment was exactly the kind of moment which would test Shahabuddin's claim about what is and what is not allowed by the Shariat; this was not a situation of war, quite the contrary -- the Meccans had surrendered without a real fight; the protagonist was the Prophet himself, so there can be no doubt about what the Shariat -- based as it pre-eminently is on what he said and did -- would entail; the structure had, as we have seen, been a house of worship of an altogether un-Islamic kind forages.

Upon entering, the Prophet went round the Kaba seven times on his camel. He then climbed into the cube -- the Kaba proper. Inside he found a dove made of wood, said in the Encyclopedia to having been possibly devoted to the Semitic Venus. "He broke it in his hands," records Ibn Ishaq, "and threw it away," He then saw paintings of Abraham. Jesus and Mary inside the structure; by one set of traditions he had all of them destroyed, by another he had all except those of Jesus and Mary destroyed. At the noon prayer that day "he ordered," Ibn Ishaq reports, "that all the idols which were round the Kaba should be collected and burned with fire and broken up." That was done. Soon enough idolaters were forbidden from the shrine.

Here then was a structure which before the Prophet had been for several generations a place of worship of an altogether inclusive, pagan kind. The Prophet took it over -- or reclaimed it, as the faithful would say -- and transformed into the greatest mosque of Islam. Where does that leave the Shahabuddin thesis - "No temple could have been destroyed to build a mosque as doing so is against the Shariat"?

Prophet Adopts Pagan Rituals

Nor does the story end there. While, as the Encyclopedia puts it, "all the pagan trappings which had adhered to the Kaba were thrust aside," "it is incontrovertible that an entire pre-Islamic ritual, previously steeped in paganism, was adopted by Islam after it had been purified and given a strictly monotheistic orientation. "Treating the area as consecrated ground, treating it as a refuge, the sacrificing of animals (shifted now from the Kaba to Mina), the various elements connected with the Haj, including among these, the stoning of the Devil by throwing pebbles, the rushing between Safa and Marwa, the halt at Arafat -- all these, as the Encyclopedia and Ali Dashti etc. point out, date from the pre-Islamic period. Some things, as Ali Dashti notes, were just a bit transformed. The pre-Islamic Arabs approaching for instance the goddess Manaat would call out, "Here I am at your service, (labbayka) O Manaat." The same call was now addressed to Allah; "Labbayka Allahomma labbayka." "Here I am at your service, Allah, at your service". The retention of these -- even after transformation -- led to great disquiet. Even Umar, one of the most devoted adherents of the Prophet, is said to have exclaimed on approaching the Black Stone, for Glance. "I know that thou art a stone, that neither helps nor hurts and if the Messenger of Allah had not kissed thee, I would not kiss thee". The special veneration accorded to the stone, to the structure, to everything which comes in contact with it -- for instance, the rain water which falls off it through the spout, the cloth which is used to cover it and which is cut into pieces and sold to the pilgrims after being taken down -- have continued to be contrasted with the strict admonitions against idolatry. The disquiet has not settled. Here is Ali Dashti on the decisions the Prophet handed down upon entering Kaba:

"The Prophet Mohammed's decision to set out on a visit to the Kaba in 6 A H / 628 A D is puzzling. Did he really believe the Kaba to be God’s abode? Or did he make this move in order to placate followers for whom the Kaba-visitation was an ancestral tradition? Was his decision, which came unexpectedly in view of the resolve of the hostile Qoray****es to prevent Moslems from entering Mecca, and which led to the disappointing truce of Hodaybiya a political stratagem designed to impress the Qoraysh chiefs with Moslem numerical and military strength and to draw ordinary unfanatical Meecans to the new religion? How could the man who had introduced the new religion and laws and had repudiated all the beliefs and superstitions of his own people now revive the main component of the old tradition in a new form? Islam's zealous founder and legislator had above all insisted on pure monotheism, telling the people that belief in the One God is the only road to happiness and proclaiming that 'the noblest among you in God's sight are the most pious among you." 27 Had he now succumbed to national or racial feeling? Did he want to make veneration of Ishmael’s house a symbol of Arab National identity?

Continued in next post

 

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And the next . . .

Why Pilgrimage to Mecca?

"However that may be, the decision was so surprising and so inconsistent with Islamic principles that many Moslems were upset. Several believers objected to the running between Safa and Marwa because it had been a pagan Arab rite; but its retention was imposed by verse 153 Sura 2, "Safa and Marwa are among God's waymarks". According to well authenticated reports, Omar b, ol-Khattab, who was one of Mohammad's greatest and wisest companions, said that he would never have kissed the black stone if he had not personally seen the Prophet kiss it. Ghazzali, whose authority in Islamic matters deserves respect, wrote frankly that he could find no explanation of the hajj ritual but obeyed because it was an accomplished fact.

"There is one verse in the Quran which sheds some light on the matter and is perhaps an answer to questions about it. This is verse 28 of Sura 9 (ot-Tawba); "O believers, it is a fact that the polytheists are unclean. Therefore they shall not approach the mosque of the Sanctuary (i.e. the Kaba) after this year of theirs. If you fear poverty, God will enrich you from his bounty". According to the Tafsir Ol-Jalalayn, this meant that God would compensate the Arabs with victories and receipts of tribute. The Sura of repentance (ot-Tawba) is chronologically the last in the Qoran, having been sent down in 10 A H / 631 A D, well after the Moslem conquest of Mecca. The ban on visitation of the Kaba by non-muslim tribes was likely to disquiet the people of Mecca, whose livelihood and flourishing trade depended on the coming and going of Arab tribes and groups. Although the Meecans were of the same tribe as the Prophet, most of them had only become Moslem under duress. If Mecca should lose its prosperity, there might be a risk of widespread apostasy. That risk would be averted by making pilgrimage to Mecca incumbent on Moslems.

"This explanation is of course a mere hypothesis; to what extent it corresponds to the reality can never be known. In any case no rational or religious justification can be found for the retention of ancient pagan practices in the ritual of the Islamic hajj..."

And it is said that it is Hinduism which "swallows" other religions by incorporating their rituals and making Avtaars of their deities; However that may be, the Black Stone -- the veneration in which it is held, the powers which are attributed to it, the benedictions which are assumed to flow from seeing, touching and kissing it; the fact that the rituals followed can so directly be traced to pre-Islamic times, and that their retention has continued to bewilder devout Muslims like Umar and Ghazzali -- all these themselves put two things beyond doubt; the Kaba was a place of pagan idol worship with an elaborate set of rituals and an entire mode of life to go with it; second, the Prophet took it over and made it the holiest shrine of Islam.

Where does that leave Shahabuddin's latest argument?

"But where is the proof?"

When Shahabuddin was expounding his thesis about the Shariat not allowing the destruction of a temple for constructing a mosque, I alluded to what the Kaba had been and how the Prophet himself had made it into a mosque.

Not true, said Shahabuddin. The Kaba was not a temple. It was a mosque from times immemorial, the foundations of it having been laid by Abraham and Ishmael -- the latter are prophets of the Jews but have been proclaimed by the Quran to have been the forbearers of the Prophet.

If the VHP had said something like that about the Ram Janmasthan, Shahabuddin, and of course our "Secular" polemicists, would have asked. "But what is the Proof that Abraham and Ishmael built the Kaba?" Well, what is the proof?

"The Arabs possess no historical or semi-historical records of the origin of the Kaba," says the Encyclopedia", and we as little. "For the entire period of the Prophet's stay in Mecca after he began receiving the revelations -- thirteen years -- and for the first year and a half after he went to Medina, the faithful were required to bow in prayer, not towards the Kaba, but towards Jerusalem. Then came the revelation to change the Qibla to Kaba. From the point of view of dogma, the Encyclopedia notes, "this volte-face was justified by an appeal to the ‘religion of Abraham’ which was specially invented for the occasion.28

The "proof" of Abraham and Ishmael laying the foundations of the Kaba therefore is just the fact that it is so stated in the Quran29. Now, whether an affirmation just because it is in the Quran is to be regarded as proof is entirely a matter of faith. To insist that we must accept it as such would be to urge that exact kind of proof which the Babri Masjid protagonists have been rejecting so emphatically in the case of Ram's birth-place.

The only other circumstances bearing on the affirmation in the Quran is the Makaam Abraham a sort of mark on a stone which lies near the Kaba. The faithful believe that once, after the building had risen to some height. Abraham stood on that stone, and the mark on it is his footprint. The Muslims look upon the footprint with the same reverence with which Hindus would views similar marks believed to be of their Avtaars. But that mark in the stone does not settle the matter -- for it is as difficult to prove that the maker in that stone is indeed the impress which Abraham’s foot made on it as it is to prove the original affirmation in the Quran that Abraham built the Kaba. One has thus to fall back on the continuity of the tradition over such a long period, we have to fall back for proof on the fact that Muslims have long believed that Abraham built the Kaba. But that is exactly how the Hindus have long believed the spot now occupied by the Babri Masjid to have been the place at which Lord Ram was born.

The Navel of the Earth

Why is the Kaba vital? After all, a point to which I shall revert in a moment, had the Prophet not said that every spot on earth is sacred, that Allah has made the entire earth a masjid? There are two views regarding the importance of Kaba. One is that the Kaba is the navel of the earth. It is believed to have existed before the earth was created by Allah -- on one account 40 years earlier, on one 2000 years earlier. Allah created heaven, we are told, and then the earth by stretching out the substance of the earth around this navel. Creation competed, the Kaba we learn, now is the highest point of the earth, and its position corresponds exactly to that of the Pole Star, which we also learn, is the highest point in the heavens. As heaven is above the earth and as Kaba is the highest point on earth, it is the place by being in which one is nearest to heaven.

The other view is that it is not just the centre of the earth, but of the universe. The universe, in this account, consists of seven heavens -- one above the other -- and seven earths -- one below the other. All the fourteen levels are perfectly aligned -- the highest point in each lies perfectly in line with the highest of other levels. Now, the highest point of the seventh heaven is the Throne of Allah, the highest point on earth -- and exactly in the centre of the universe -- is the Kaba. The Kaba we see in Mecca, we are further instructed, is an exact replica of the original structure which is in heaven and which is made of gold.30

Myths or History?

But why was it necessary to create this replica on earth? The accounts differ. As we have seen, on one account it is Abraham who laid its foundations and with Ishmael built it one the prompting of Gabriel, the angel who, as we know, was later to transmit the revelations from Allah to the Prophet. On the other account, the structure was built by Adam.

Originally Adam was so tall that he could hear the heavenly songs around Allah's Throne directly. But after his fall he shrunk so much that the upper realms were out of his reach. Upon his importuning God sent him the tent around which and through which he could attain to the beatitudes, and this later was made into the Kaba, in answer to his pleas that Mecca had no one, that the shrine had no worshipers Allah promised that it would become the centre of pilgrimage, and that promise Allah fulfilled. The original structure was later washed away in the Great Flood. The angels spirited away and kept safe the Black Stone. That is how Abraham came to rebuild the structure later on, and Gabriel brought the Black Stone, back to him. We learn that the Stone itself -- now in three large and several small pieces held together by a silver band as it split in the course of a fire -- was originally white; it became black upon contact with the sinfulness of the pagan period31.

Such are the reasons on account of which the Kaba and the Black Stone are of such extraordinary holiness.

Now, which of these elements of the legends can be "proved" in the way proof of Ram's birthplace is sought? Yet it is precisely because of them that the Kaba is so sacred.

The Al Aqsa Mosque

After the Masjid al-Haram in which the Kaba lies, the mosque held most sacred by the faithful is the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. And why so? The rock around which it is built has a mark. It is believed to be the imprint the Prophet's foot made as he alighted from the winged horse after his night's journey to this point in Jerusalem and thence to heaven : in heaven, as is well known, he met Moses and Jesus etc. Which elements of this can we prove? Heaven? The winged horse? The night's journey? That the mark is the imprint of a human foot? That the foot of which it is an imprint was that of the Prophet? (Incidentally the mosque is built on the site where according to the other set of beliefs stood the church built by Justinian). The Masjid al-Khaif in Mina is also built around a stone which the devout hold sacred; they put their heads on it, why? Because the stone has a mark which, it is said, was made by the Prophet placing his head on it. The Masjid al-Baghla in Medina enshrined the footprints of the Prophet's mule in stone. The Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Egypt was built where Musa, that is Moses, talked with the Lord... And so on. In each instance, ask that what proof can I provide for the proposition on which this structure is built?

The Prophet's distinction

Today we are being told that a mosque can never be dismantled or shifted. It is not just that the inviolability which is being attached to the structure of a mosque is a later -- much later -- accretion into Islam; the first mosque in Basra, the place being an encampment then, was built of reeds so that, as the Encyclopedia notes, it could be taken down with the camp. It is not just that even the most revered mosques -- the Kaba itself, the Prophet's mosque in Medina -- have been dismantled more than once so as to replace them with more imposing structures. It is not just that to this day in the Middle East mosques are broken and then another structure bearing that name built elsewhere for purposes as mundane as widening highways. It is that doing so would seem to accord with the Prophet's view of the matter.

"I have been given five things," the Prophet said, "which were not given to any amongst the Prophets before me". Among these he said was; the fact that "The earth has been made for me (and for my followers) a place for praying and a thing to perform tayammum. Therefore my followers can pray wherever the time of a prayer is due". (The other four things were: "Allah made me victorious by awe (by His frightening my enemies) for a distance of one month's journey"; "Booty has been made halal (lawful) for me (and was not made so for anyone else)"; "Every Prophet used to be sent to his nation exclusively but I have been sent to all mankind"; and, "I have been given the right of intercession (on the Day of Resurrection)"32. There are interesting variations in the precise words in some traditions, the words 'the earth (which) has been made clean and a place of worship' become 'the treasures of the earth which were placed in my hand."

In accordance with this view that the whole earth was a place of worship, the very first mosque he founded -- the one in Medina -- was constructed at a site which because of accretions to Islam since then, in fact in large part due to what it has adopted of other religions, would leave our protagonists looking askance. Soon after his arrival in Medina, the Prophet asked the Banu-An-Najjar to sell him a particular plot of land so that he may build a mosque on it. They would not accept a price for it saying they would seek it from Allah, and they turned the plot over to the Prophet. "There were graves of pagans in it", the hadis goes, "and some of it was unlevelled and there were sonic date-palm trees in it. The Prophet ordered that the graves of the pagans be dug out and the unlevelled land be levelled and the date-palm trees be cut down..." All this was done and the mosque built in land which till that moment had contained the graves of pagans in it. The adherents today would regard such a site polluted, and yet that is where the Prophet himself constructed his mosque33.

Conclusions

Our brief survey suggests three conclusions. Each of these strikes at the very root of the arguments which are being asserted by the Babri Masjid protagonists, and each does so in a different way:

The latest argument -- that no Muslim ruler destroyed any temple simply because doing so is against the Shariat -- does not hold, not only because of what Muslim historians have themselves recorded abound. innumerable instances, but also because there seems to be no warrant for the rule in view of what the Prophet himself did:

It is as difficult to prove the reasons for holding the most revered mosque sacred as it is to prove that Lord Ram was born at a particular place;

The shifting of mosque is permissible not only in view of the practice to this day in the most orthodox Islamic countries, but also in view of the Prophet's acclamation that Allah had made the entire earth, that is each and every spot in it a place of worship.

These are conclusions which follow in regard to the immediate issue at hand. But I think an even more important lesson is implicit in the foregoing.

I have all too often seen persons lose patience as protagonists of the Babri Masjid shift their arguments, as they obfuscate what they had said earlier, as they adopt one set of criteria for one issue -- to justify overturning the Shah Bano verdict for instance -- and another set for another issue -- in regard to adhering to the court verdict on some aspect of the Ayodhya issue for instance. But such exasperation must be eschewed. Instead, every assertion of the protagonists must be examined in detail. Every argument they advance must be examined logically and in the light of evidence.

Whatever be the outcome in regard to one structure, such an exercise -- of treating the arguments seriously, of dealing with them rationally, of examining event statement thoroughly, of looking up the law, the history books -- such an exercise will itself yield inestimable returns; instead of hurling calumny and threats at each other, we will learn to talk to each other: we will learn to settle issues rationally and by evidence: we will -- all of us, Muslims as much as-others -- will get to know these leaders and their politics: most important, we will open up all parts of our heritage -- Islam as much as Hinduism -- and every aspect of each part to exhumation, and thus to discourse.

Footnotes:

1. Sitaram Goel, Hindu Temples: What Happened to them (New Delhi, Voice of India, 1991)

2. "Masjid", Encyclopedia of Islam, pp. 1931-36.

3. Tabari, i. 2405, 2407.

4. Makrizi iv.35; of for Kufa, Baladhuri, p.286.

5. Corpus jurisdi Zaidb. ‘Ali, ed Griffini, No. 364.

6. ibid, Bi; and also J.A. 9 Sec., vii 369 sqq. Quatremere, Hist. Sult Mamt. 11/1,262 sqq. and the article "Damascus"

7. Makrizi, iv. 28 sq.,30.

8. ibid., 9.30.

9. Makrizi, iv.63,64.

10. ibid. p.65.

11. ibid. p. 269.

12. ibid. p. 240.

13. Masjid Ibn al-Banna, ibid., p. 265.

14. Yakut, Mu’djam i. 719.

15. Sauvaire, Hist. De Jerus, it d’Hibron,, 1876, p. 77; Quatremere, Hist. Sult. Maml., I/II., 40.

16. see Goldziher, Muh, Stud., ii.331 sq.

17. Mas’udi, Murudi, iv. 77; B.G.A., iii.444.

18. ibid., p. 436.

19. Baladhuri, p. 165 sq.

20. (Ibn Battuta, iii.151); as to Ta’if of. Abu Dawud, Salat, bab 10.

21. Mas’udi, 1.91; Baedeker, Palast, u. Syrun, 1910, p. 147.

22. Kitab at-Tabaqat Al-Kabu, (Pakistan Historical Society, Karachi, Publication No. 46, Volume I. Pp 373-4) Mishkat Al-Masabih

23. 1 ibid.

24. Kitabal-Tabaqat at-Kabir, op.cit., Volume I, pp. 373-4.

25. Quran 9. 108.

26. Twenty Three Years, A Study in the Prophetic Career of Mohammed (George Allen and Unwin, London, 1985).

27. Sura 49, verse 13.

28. Sura ii, 129, iii, 89 etc.

29. Quran 2. 121.

30. The Quran too, as is well known, is an exact reproduction of the text of two tablets - also of gold - which are lying in heaven.

31. On all this see, for instance, the Encyclopedia of Islam’s entry, Ka’ba.

32. Shahih Al-Bukhari, the Book of Salat, tradition 429; also Sahih Muslim, the Book of Salat, traditions 1056-1067.

33. Sahih -Al-Bukhari, the Book of Salat, tradition 420; also Sahih Muslim, the Book of Salat, tradition 1068.

(The author is an eminent Indian Journalist.)

Dispute that , if you can .

 

[Babbler]

Oh and would you look at that? Buddhist terrosists too.

(This is off-topic) Speaking of Buddists, did you ever hear about life in Tibet under the Dalai Lama? It was no Shangri-La; it was just as cruel as Taliban Afghanistan or Puritan England.

 

[silver 2039]

First - a source for the second article , if you would ?

As for the Buddhist extremists part - find me one instance in whatever scriptures it is Buddhists have that tells them to do what they did . Just one . A single , solitary one .

Lastly - as said before , my criticism of Islam remains completely unaffected by your childlike and trollish abuse of Hinduism . You attitude is reminiscent of an animal which has been hurt in some sensitive spot , and lashes out wildly .

As said before , my criticisms of Islam have not been based on it's record , but on it's texts . The record is just icing . When someone shrieks "you did bad things too , so shut up , you're a bad man , you don't say warm-fuzzy stuff , you're not politically correct , I am not confortable with what you say , I hate your type in general" , I look on in bemusement . I expect criticisms of any other religion to be based on its texts , or on actions of adherents which are in accordance with these texts . Nobody has privovided me with that till now in the cases of Hinduism or Buddhism .

And silver - though I dislike veering away from the central topic , I will still demolish this "Ayodhya - Babri Masjid - Ram Janmabhoomi" thing once and for all , so as to ensure that you do not dare try using it again . Let me tell you the sequence of events that happened on that land , in brief .

Ayodhya at the time of Ram
Ram is born
Ram is acknowledged as an Avatar
A temple is built
Fast forward to Babar's invasion
Babar tears down the temple , builds a Mosque
Fast forward to current debate

Babri Masjid Action Committee demands proof that the Mosque was built on a temple , and says that if it is found that it was built on a temple , they will give the land away willingly

It is duly proven that it was built on a temple

Barbir Masjid Action Committee says that no , we don't like your evidence , we want more

Evidence is them produced from two sources , one being the court records of Babar , and the other being an inscription in the Mosque itself

BMAC then goes and sulks in the corner , not listening to any evidence put before it .

For a more detailed account , along with sources and references , let me quote Arun Shourie

http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=2153

Basing a religon off its texts rather than its actions is foolish. Just because the Hindus who killed thousands of Muslims in riots were not told to do it in their texts makes it justifable? In Christian texts there are as many orders to commit violence. Why do you just critizise Islamic text but not Christain texts?

JESUS ON PEACE (part 1) - Matthew 10:34
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."

JESUS ON PEACE (part 2) - Luke 22:36
He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one."

JESUS ON FAMILY VALUES (part 1) - Matthew 10:37
"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."

JESUS ON FAMILY VALUES (part 2) - Matthew 19:29
"And every one who hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life."

JESUS ON FAMILY VALUES (part 3) - Matthew 8:21-22
And another of his disciples said unto him, "Suffer me first to go and bury my father." But Jesus said unto him, "Follow me and let the dead bury their dead."

JESUS ON JEWS (part 1) - John 8:24 (NIV)
"I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins."

JESUS ON JEWS (part 2) - Matthew 23:33 (NIV)
"You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?"

PAUL ON JEWS (part 1) - Galatians 3:10-11 (NIV)
"All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.' Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, 'The righteous will live by faith.'"

PAUL ON JEWS (part 2) - Galatians 6:15 (NIV)
"Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation."

PAUL ON JEWS (part 3) - Romans 3:20 (NIV)
"Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin."

PAUL ON JEWS (part 4) - Romans 9:31 (NIV)
"but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it."

PAUL ON JEWS (part 5) - Romans 11:28 (NIV)
"As far as the gospel is concerned, they [of Israel] are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they

INCEST - Genesis 19:36
So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father.

VIRGINITY, RAPE AND PUNISHMENT (part 1) - Deuteronomy 22:23-24
If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of the city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.

VIRGINITY, RAPE AND PUNISHMENT (part 2) - Deuteronomy 22:28-29
If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.

VIRGINITY, RAPE AND PUNISHMENT (part 3) - Exodus 22:16-17
If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins.

VIRGINITY AND PUNISHMENT - Deuteronomy 22:20-21
If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl's virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father's house. You must purge the evil from among you.

SLAVERY AND CHILD ABUSE (part 1) - Genesis 9:22,24 (NIV)
Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers outside. When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, he said, "Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers." He also said, "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem. May God extend the territory of Japheth; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his slave."

WAR (part 1) - Deuteronomy 2:32-34
Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz. And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain.

WAR (part 2) - Deuteronomy 20:10-18
When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies. This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby. However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them-the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites-as the LORD your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God.

WAR (part 3) - Deuteronomy 20:13-14 (NIV) When the LORD your God delivers it [the city] into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder [slaves] for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies.

WAR (part 4) - Exodus 17:13
So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.

WAR (part 5) - 1 Samuel 15:3
"Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

WAR (part 6) - Numbers 31:7 (NIV)
They fought against Midian, as the LORD commanded Moses, and killed every man.

WAR (part 7) - Joshua 6:20-21 (NLT)
When the people heard the sound of the horns, they shouted as loud as they could. Suddenly, the walls of Jericho collapsed, and the Israelites charged straight into the city from every side and captured it. They completely destroyed everything in it – men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep, donkeys – everything.

WAR (part 8) - Joshua 8:24-25 (NLT)
When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the desert where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it. Twelve thousand men and women fell that day-all the people of Ai.

WAR (part 9) - Joshua 10:40
So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded.

WAR (part 10) - Joshua 11:11
Everyone in it they put to the sword. They totally destroyed them, not sparing anything that breathed, and he burned up Hazor itself.

WAR (part 11) - Joshua 11:14
The Israelites carried off for themselves all the plunder and livestock of these cities, but all the people they put to the sword until they completely destroyed them, not sparing anyone that breathed.

WAR (part 12) - Isaiah 13:9
See, the day of the LORD is coming - a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger - to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it.

WAR (part 13) - Isaiah 13:15-16
Whoever is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives ravished.

WAR (part 14) - Isaiah 13:18-29
Their bows will strike down the young men; they will have no mercy on infants nor will they look with compassion on children. Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the glory of the Babylonians' pride, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah.

WAR (part 15) - Ezekiel 32:5-7 (NAB)
"I will leave your flesh on the mountains, and fill the valleys with your carcass. I will water the land with what flows from you, and the river beds shall be filled with your blood. When I snuff you out I will cover the heavens, and all the stars will darken."

MOSES AND SPOILS OF WAR - Numbers 31:9-11 (NIV)
The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals.

MOSES AND WAR AND KILLING, VIRGINS AS SPOILS - Numbers 31:15-18 (NIV)
"Have you allowed all the women to live?" [Moses] asked them. "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man."

GOD ON SPOILS OF WAR - Numbers 31:25-35 (NLT)
And the LORD said to Moses, 'You and Eleazar the priest and the family leaders of each tribe are to make a list of all the plunder taken in the battle, including the people and animals. Then divide the plunder into two parts, and give half to the men who fought the battle and half to the rest of the people. But first give the LORD his share of the captives, cattle, donkeys, sheep, and goats that belong to the army. Set apart one out of every five hundred as the LORD's share. Give this share of their half to Eleazar the priest as an offering to the LORD. Also take one of every fifty of the captives, cattle, donkeys, sheep, and goats in the half that belongs to the people of Israel. Give this share to the Levites in charge of maintaining the LORD's Tabernacle.' So Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the LORD commanded Moses. The plunder remaining from the spoils that the fighting men had taken totaled 675,000 sheep, 72,000 cattle, 61,000 donkeys, and 32,000 young girls.

DAVID AND SPOILS OF WAR - 1 Samuel 18:27
Wherefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale to the king, that he might be the king's son in law. And Saul gave him Michal his daughter to wife.

BIBLICAL DEATH PENALTY: KILL (part 20) ANYONE WHO HAS SEX WITH ANIMALS - Exodus 22:19
"Anyone who has sexual relations with an animal must be put to death."

BIBLICAL DEATH PENALTY: KILL (part 21) FALSE PROPHETS - Deuteronomy 13:5 (NIV)
The false prophets or dreamers who try to lead you astray must be put to death.

BIBLICAL DEATH PENALTY: KILL (part 22) FALSE PROPHETS - Deuteronomy 18:20 (NIV)
"But any prophet who claims to give a message from another god or who falsely claims to speak for me must die."

BIBLICAL DEATH PENALTY: KILL (part 23) FALSE PROPHETS - Zechariah 13:2,3 (NIV)
"I will remove both the prophets and the spirit of impurity from the land. And if anyone still prophesies, his father and mother, to whom he was born, will say to him, 'You must die, because you have told lies in the LORD's name.' When he prophesies, his own parents will stab him."

BIBLICAL DEATH PENALTY: KILL (part 24) SONS FOR THE SINS OF THEIR FOREFATHERS - Isaiah 14:21
Prepare a place to slaughter his sons for the sins of their forefathers; they are not to rise to inherit the land and cover the earth with their cities.

BIBLICAL DEATH PENALTY: KILL (part 25) NON-VIRGIN BRIDES - Deuteronomy 22:20-21
If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl's virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father's house. You must purge the evil from among you.

BIBLICAL DEATH PENALTY: KILL (part 26) MALE HOMOSEXUALS - Leviticus 20:13 (KJV)
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."

BIBLICAL DEATH PENALTY: KILL (part 27) MALE HOMOSEXUALS AND OTHERS FOR MANY REASONS - Romans 1:26-32 (KJV)
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

BIBLICAL DEATH PENALTY: KILL (part 28) UNBELIEVERS - Acts 3:23
"And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear the prophet, shall be destroyed."

BIBLICAL DEATH PENALTY: KILL (part 29) THOSE DEVOTED TO DESTRUCTION - Leviticus 27:29
No person devoted to destruction may be ransomed; he must be put to death.

BIBLICAL DEATH PENALTY: KILL (part 30) THOSE WITHOUT THE MARK - Ezekiel 9:5-7 (NLT)
"Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, "Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all – old and young, girls and women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the mark.
Begin your task right here at the Temple." So they began by killing the seventy leaders. "Defile the Temple!" the LORD commanded. "Fill its courtyards with the bodies of those you kill! Go!" So they went throughout the city and did as they were told."

Quite frankly you are nothing but a rascist. Islam you judge on its texts but Chrisantiy you don't? The actions of the followers reflect the religon. If Hindus, or Buddhists, or Muslims, or Christains kill others in the name of their religon then they are representations of their religon. Islam is no more violent than Hindusims or Christanity or whatever.
As for Babu Masjad are you honestly trying to justify the destruction of a mosque from the 16th centuary and the killing of thousands of Muslims because 500 years ago they destroyed a tempal? Pfft...

 

[Shaihulud]

Which is more deplorable, a group that peverts its own religious teaching to commit wholesale violence? Or a group that obey its own religious doctrine bloody though it may be. I find both to be sickening actually. Hinduism as a religion or culture doesn't seems to be any less violent than Islam, its violence usually directed against people within India itself though. Look at all the violence directed against the lower caste inside Hindu society, is it any less despicable? Or the ancient habit of widows in Hindu societ to leap into her husband funeral pyre and don't forget it was a Hindu that killed Gandhi.

 

[aneeshm]

How very true.

Aneeshm,
all those Hindu-Muslim (or if you prefer, Muslim-Hindu) violence that occured in India the past decades, were they ALL instigated by the Muslims? Were the Hindus always the victims and never ever the ones going around killing Muslims at all?

That's a question you should answer , not me . And it is also completely irrelevant - I criticise the scriptures , not followers . Are you suffering from some physiological defect that you are unable to comprehend that , in the face of my repeating it al least ten times in this thread itself ? And can you not confine your criticism to scriptures and texts and actions which fit with them instead of your constant , though pathetic , ad homimen attacks ?

Or the Hindus who killed the Christian missionary a few years back and others who were accused of trying to convert Hindus to Christianity? Did they do it because it was written in the Hindu scriptures to kill those who try to convert people away from Hinduism?

That missionary was killed by a person not even associated with any Hindu organisation . And again , what you say is irrelevant to the debate and pointless in general .

The Hindu scriptures do not mention conversion at all . Hinduism comes from a time when there was no conversion . The world was not afflicted with the scourge of converting religions then .

This thread is just an excuse for aneeshm to rant on Muslims. Why is it allowed to last so long? If it was a racist thread it would have been closed 8 pages ago.

It is allowed to last so long precisely because I have not criticised Muslims , only Islam .

 

[aneeshm]

And yet traders brought Islam to the world most's populated Islamic nation, Indonesia.

An Islamic army never landed in Indonesia.

As said before , see where that has taken them - two bombings on the only remaining Hindu island in that nation .

Another reason why Islam spread to Indonesia through trade was because India bore the brunt of Islamic aggression . That is why temples have been systematically erased in the northern parts of India , and are far more concentrated in south India .


Lastly - Hinduism is undergoing a revival in Indonesia . In about a hundred years , Islam will be but a memory in that land .

 

[aneeshm]

What you made clear in the opening post was that you only listen to overbiased wackos who reiterate your point of view.

I listen to the people appointed by the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh. ) as the spokespersons of his religion - namely , the Ulema .

 

[silver 2039]

Lastly - Hinduism is undergoing a revival in Indonesia . In about a hundred years , Islam will be but a memory in that land .

Umm....right The biggest Muslim country in the world turning Hindu. Dream on....

 

[aneeshm]

http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=2153

Basing a religon off its texts rather than its actions is foolish. Just because the Hindus who killed thousands of Muslims in riots were not told to do it in their texts makes it justifable?

Of course that does not make it justified . But it absolves the religion of any responsibility in the whole affair . If , however , the texts tell the follower to do it , then it is the religion which has blood on it's hands . That's my point , and it's a simple one at that . Now do you understand what I've been trying to say all along ?

In Christian texts there are as many orders to commit violence. Why do you just critizise Islamic text but not Christain texts?

Because Christians are not the ones blowing up buildings and killing people in terrorist acts in the name of religion .

Quite frankly you are nothing but a rascist.

That's rather funny , actually , as I'm brown-skinned , a descendant of Rishi Jamadagni .

Islam you judge on its texts but Chrisantiy you don't?

Actually , I don't judge Christianity at all . I am not concerned with it , because Christians are not the ones baying for my blood in madarsad and terrorist training camps in Pakistan occupied Kashmir .

The actions of the followers reflect the religon. If Hindus, or Buddhists, or Muslims, or Christains kill others in the name of their religon then they are representations of their religon. Islam is no more violent than Hindusims or Christanity or whatever.

Here I disagree . Only a person living his life in accordance with the tenets of a given religion ( or appointed by the religious texts as a representative ) can be a representative .

As for Babu Masjad are you honestly trying to justify the destruction of a mosque from the 16th centuary and the killing of thousands of Muslims because 500 years ago they destroyed a tempal? Pfft...

Firstly - it was not a mosque since the beginning - it was a 16th century mosque built on a temple far older . Secondly - the mosque had not been used for namaz for over fifty years before its demolition .

The demolition was perfectly justified ( considering that the BMAC had said that they would "demolish the mosque themselves" if it was proven that it was built on top of a temple , and that later it was so proved ) . The following riots were not .

As expected , you did not bother to read what I posted ( wrt the mosque ) , did you ? Answer me here - did or did you not read it before posting ?

Lastly - the whole Babri debate is irrelevant ( to us here ) , because it has nothing to do with the texts , or with their influence on Islam .

 

[aneeshm]

To add a few more points to this debate: Trying to stick to the facts.

Yes, there were Islamic invasions of India and yes, there was Islamic rule in India.
Yes, temples were destroyed by the Muslims.
Yes, Aurangzeb and some of his ilk were rabid in their anti-Hindu activities.
Yes, there have been and were communal riots were hindus were killed.

These are the facts for which I provided sources .

These are facts.
Yet, the following are also facts and one must also take them into the account while drawing a fulll picture.

Hindu rulers also invaded Sri-Lanka and destroyed the Buddhist temples
Hindu rulers routinely saw destruction of temples as a way of striking at Buddhism and Jainism

Proof please ? And again - you deviate from the topic at hand . You are a law student , allhailIndia . I did not expect this from you .

Muslims were also killed in communal riots.

How could it be a communal riot without that happening ? It would be genocide otherwise ( if only people from one community were killed ) . That's a tautology .

How much of a person's violence can be attributed to religion is a great debate. Gandhi and Golwalkar both used the Bhagwad Gita to draw opposite conclusions on violence in the Hindu religion. Martin Luther King and the Crusaders both used the same text.

As a law student, I can point to a thousand judgments where the same rule has been interpreted in absolutely contradictory ways by the same courts, sometimes even the same judge. If religious texts presrcibe certain courses of action, will it not be possible that any person can interpret absolutely contrary to what another person may interpret it as?

But it the interpretation of the texts is also formalised in Islam , and it lies with the Ulema . And one point they all agree upon ( no matter their other differences ) is on the uncleanness of kafirs .

I have great respect for Arun Shourie and his work. However, I believe that he has come to the wrong conclusion. Presenting facts is one thing which he is brilliant at, and perhaps, it is easy to see a certain facts and come to the conclusion one wants, without looking at the broader picture.

I urge you to read his book , The World of Fatwas . As a law student , you will find it triply interesting - from a legal point of view , from a religious point of view , and from a historical point of view . Another book I recommend you read is his Eminent Hisorians . Both are brilliant .

On a side note, I challenge the very definition of Hindu and Muslim. Let me illustrate.

The word Hindu comes from the river, Sindhu, or the Indus as the Greeks called it. It is used to denote all the people who lived in the Indo-Gangetic plain upto the Himalayas. There is no separate word for religion as distinct from justice and belief. There never was, nor has there been a single unified "Hindu" religion. At the bare minimum, one can possibly say that there was a sort of adherence to the rules laid down in the Vedas and the Gita, but this too was more for 'classification' purposes as large groups of people followed differing interpretations of the same text. More appropriately, it was a way of life, and not a religion as understood in the western sense, like Islam, Chrisitianity. There was no prescribed mode of worship universal to all, no one deity universal to all, and not even one book which claimed to be THE truth. One can, technically, even be an atheist and be a hindu, because the word itself refers to a people and not a religion.

Islam on the other hand IS a religion. It is far, far more diverse than what it is made out to be, and India has numerous sects and sub-sects which are thrown under the broad classification of "muslim" for lack of a better term. When one gets down to it, one has to resort to go to shrink this definition to say that one who follows the Quran and who is not anything else. This in itself is a very broad, and all encompassing definition which, in the Indian context is grossly insufficient to describe what is too easily described as a homogenous community.

In fact, the labels, Hindu and Muslim, have only been used since the British times for administrative and divisive conveniences. Since the 1850s, one sees a more marked effort to try and categorize people in terms of caste, race, language and religion that was not present before.

But the Hindu subcontinent shares ( or rather , shared ) a cultural continuity which is the mark of formalised religion . An ascetic , for example , is a figure of respect from the northern tip of India to the southern parts of Indonesia . Hinduism is a culture and civilisation ( with its own concept of religion ) - a sanskriti - which needs to be healed and restored .

 

[aneeshm]

Umm....right The biggest Muslim country in the world turning Hindu. Dream on....

I think that is what they said to Adi Shankar .

That is precisely what he did , only on a much larger country - India . He was the one who orachestrated a peaceful reconversion to Hinduism in India , which was , during his time , predominantly Buddhist and Jain . If just one man in India could do it his short lifetime travelling all over the country on foot more than a thousand years ago , and that too without violence , then why cannot a number of groups working in tandem do it in what was , after all , once upon a time a Hindu country ?

 

[aneeshm]

Give me some proof of mass conversion by the sword yes, I know of the janissaries, but as a %age of the total non muslim population they were not a large group

Almost every single Hindu convert in India ?

Do you know the story of the Sikh Guru Teg Bahadur ? He was approached by a number of Hindus who asked him to save them from the missionary zeal of Aurangzeb . He went to Aurangzeb and said that if Aurangzeb could convert him , he could convert all those Hindus , and they would accept . The condition was that if he was not converted , he could not convert anyone . Aurangzeb agreed .

After that , Teg Bahadur was tortured , his relatives killed in front of him , his sons entombed alive in front of his eyes , but he did not convert . In fact , he did not convert even when his head was going to be chopped off , and chopped off it duly was . The Hindus who came to him for protection were , however , saved . And Aurangzeb hated Sikhs throughout his life . Sikhism is , in fact , a part of Hinduism ( a panth , or sect ) .

As for the proof - didn't you read the links I gave in the opening post ?

He might be a role model but that doesn't mean that everything that Mohammed did is sanctioned by Islam. Take as an example Mohammed's view on the Mut'a (temporary marriage) and Islam's view on the Mut'a.

What the Prophet did is ideal in all cases . If something contradicts what he did , then that something is wrong . End of story ( according to the Quran and the Hadis and the Ulema ) .

 

[aneeshm]

On a side note...

Ironically, it was also Jai Singh who defeated the supposed Hindu fanatic, Shivaji.

The "fanatic" who gave his troops standing orders not to destroy Mosques ? To treat any copies of the Quran that fall into their hands with respect ( or at least not desecrate them ) , and hand over them over to the maulvi in the next village they pass through ? To not loot ? Who took a Turk as an artillery commander ?

If this if fanaticism , I think the world needs more of these fanatics .

 

[aneeshm]

@aneeshm

I repeat my earlier point
One can look at ANY text and draw two possible interpretations of it. The kind of interpretations one draws can be consciously done to support a pre-emptive conclusion.
Simply put, people read what they want to read into books.

But the Prophet said that the interpretation of the Ulema is the correct one , and thus I go by the orthodox Ulema's interpretation .

One can, if one wants to, come to the conclusion that the Bhagwad Gita enjoins a person to slaughter his or her relatives if one disagrees with them if one chooses only a certain way of looking at the text.
It is not the text itself which as at fault. It was written in a different day and age, and every one can come to different conclusions in a different day and age.

Don't distort what the Gita says . If anyone is not following dharma ( righteousness ) , then appropriate action must be taken . If it so happens that your relatives try to usurp the throne that is rightfully yours , it is your duty to slaughter them . Not a wrong conclusion , I think .

Secondly , and more relevant , is the fact that Hinduism does not prescribe "one true way" of looking at the text . That is why such interpretations of the Gita are given their rightful place - in the rubbish bin . You cannot do that with Islam , as it tells you that the Ulema are always right .

 

[storealex]

I will not participate in the general discussion here, just point out that the Bible Quotes brought to you by Silver are placed in false contexts. For an example this one:

JESUS ON JEWS (part 2) - Matthew 23:33 (NIV)
"You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?"

This is not what Jesus said to or about the Jews, but what he said about the Scribes and the Pharisees. The fanatical orthodox rightwing of ancient Judaism. Jesus himself was a Jew, and saw himself as the man who reformed Judaism, not as the man who created a new religion.
Go look it up, it's in the Bible

Now we can all agree that there's a lot of BS in the Bible. I say this as a Christian, btw. But surely that is no reason to construct false contexts, unless your agenda is to blindly bash a religion, instead of at least trying to be objective.

 

[Renata]

I also thought that, but I think he was making the point that you can pick and choose nasty-sounding things out of Christian texts, too. It doesn't seem to matter to aneeshm whether his Koran quotes are in context or not, so the Bible quotes were a mix of in-context and out-of-context stuff also.

 

[silver 2039]

That's rather funny , actually , as I'm brown-skinned , a descendant of Rishi Jamadagni .

Brown skinned people can't be rascist? And what does your ansector have anything to do with this?

That is precisely what he did , only on a much larger country - India . He was the one who orachestrated a peaceful reconversion to Hinduism in India , which was , during his time , predominantly Buddhist and Jain . If just one man in India could do it his short lifetime travelling all over the country on foot more than a thousand years ago , and that too without violence , then why cannot a number of groups working in tandem do it in what was , after all , once upon a time a Hindu country ?

I thought you said Hindus did'nt believe in conversion?

How could it be a communal riot without that happening ? It would be genocide otherwise ( if only people from one community were killed ) . That's a tautology

Most of the recent communal riots have been incited by the Hindus with the ecourgament of governemnt officals and state governemnt.

 

[aneeshm]

Brown skinned people can't be rascist? And what does your ansector have anything to do with this?

Racism implies discrimination based on race . Where do you find any reference to race as a basis for criticism in what I have said ?

And I thought that at least you , being a Hindu , could get the joke about Jamadagni ( Jamadagni's son , Parashuram , is said to have been very aggressive , and to have destroyed the Kshatriyas a number of times when they grew arrogant of their power and tried to inflict suffering on the innocent or those they were supposed to protect . The fact that I was ( and am ) aggressive in this thread , and it's relation to my ancestor's aggressiveness , was the joke . Too bad you didn't get it . ) .

I thought you said Hindus did'nt believe in conversion?

Firstly , I didn't say anything of the sort . I said that Hinduism comes from a time when conversion was unknown , because the world was free of the scourge of the religions that required converts .

Now , however , it has to adapt to such a world . And adapt it shall , you can rest assured of that .

Another thing - Hindus don't believe in anything ( taken as one whole group ) . That is the scope Hinduism allows for the individual adherent . Even an agnostic or an atheist can be a Hindu .

The present situation requires that people who had been forced to convert to other religions be invited back . I think there is nothing wrong in sending out such invitations .

Most of the recent communal riots have been incited by the Hindus with the ecourgament of governemnt officals and state governemnt.

Which is why , of course , the number of Hindus killed in police firing in Gujarat is more than the number of Muslims . The state government and local officials surely supported the Hindus , so they killed more of them . Follows logically , no ?

 

[aneeshm]

Exactly one week after opening this thread , I see that nobody has seen fit to grant me my humble request , the one which I made in the opening post , to keep the discussion confined to an almost academic discussion of the texts of Islam .

Nor has anybody seen fit to actually read the soucres that I had posted before offering their ( no doubt scholarly ) opinions .