Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity) by BS Murthy (epub read online books .TXT) š
- Author: BS Murthy
Book online Ā«Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity) by BS Murthy (epub read online books .TXT) šĀ». Author BS Murthy
PV Narasimha Rao unshackled it with the Manmohanamic wrenches!
Whatever, we may delve into the factors that kept Islam going strong in India, and that too with certain vigor; to start with, the mundane condition of the marginalized Hindus had admirably fitted into Muhammadās Quranic glove that Islam is. Besides enhancing their self-worth, the cult of Muhammad promised them a certain heaven that Hinduism denied them anyway. While their social depravity was addressed by the equality before Allah Taāala, their economic poverty was solaced by the Islamic deprecation of life āhereā and its extolment of joys āthereā. While in their Hindu state they were kept out of its social fold as untouchables or retained as retinues at the social fringes, their religious transformation as Musalmans would have enabled them to develop a sense of solidarity in their ranks, easing the burden of their former social exclusion. All this could have inculcated a āfeel goodā in the converts about their newness āhereā all the while assured of the mouthwatering āHereafterā, owing to the happy circumstance of their having become Musalmans.
How remarkable that the temporal condition of a set of people and the religious dogma of a faith that makes deprivation a virtue should serve the cause of both! Their new-found religious status could have enabled those converts to perceive themselves, no longer as Hindu outcasts but as Musalmans in a pan-Islamic world. Above all, the satisfaction of belonging to the religion of the ruling class, not only in India but also of the best part of the world then, would have countervailed the plaguing caste Hindu contempt for them. So, their religious conversion shouldāve enabled them to gloss over the drudgery of āhereā aided by the hope the āHereafterā, which in turn would have cemented their faith in their new faith.
Besides, the converts could have perceived every humiliation of the Hindus, at the hands of their coreligionists, alien though, as an Act of Allah dispensing His poetic justice for their unjust oppressions of the past. While Muhammad exploited the Arab psyche of deprivation to nurture Islam in Arabia, providence helped sync it with the hurt of the outcasts of Hindustan, which had afforded the Abrahamic creed an unabated growth in it. And it was not long before Muhammadās irresistible socio-religious mix had spread far and wide in the land of the Hindus, to eventually transform it as the most populous Muslim part of the planet, albeit facilitated by the Brahman follies and abetted by the Rajput foibles. Thus, with no change in the ground realities, and in spite of the burden of an unyielding religious dogma coupled with its tedious practices that the faith imposed upon them, yet the converts remained enthusiastic about their lot, thereby illustrating the power of Islam over the minds of the poor, to be precise on the poor men.
Why not, on the personal front, Islam has a lot to offer to the men of its faith, and sadly for the outcaste woman, as is the case with all womanhood, it was her man who calls the conversion shots for her and her children as well. Surely, variety being the spice of life, the appetizing prospect of āfour wivesā the alien cult grants its men, as opposed to the native norm of āmonogamous monotonyā, would have made many a male, not religiously attached with Hinduism, enamoured of it. As for divorce that is an anathema to the sanÄtana dharma, the alien faith provided the Indian convert a free passage to get rid of any or all his boring wives. With no questions asked that is, and naturally that would afford the economically poor Musalman a sway in his home with his wife or wives in thrall, which is bound to bloat his ego sag.
Thus, while Islam gives its poor males a sense of invincibility within their homes, in spite of their vulnerability outside of it, for its privileged men, it accords the ālicense of levityā for an unabated indulgence in the ways of the flesh. Sadly though, Islam, save the āHereafterā, has nothing on offer for its women, who in the confines of the burka take the whims of their man as the diktats of the God, and thus subject themselves to their inimical Islamic order in perpetuity, so it seems.
It would be interesting though to speculate about the course Islam would have taken in Hindustan had the Sultans, with religious zealousness, made sharia ā civil as well as penal part of it - mandatory for all the converts. Surely the rigours of the Islamic penal code - chopping off the hands for theft, stoning to death for adultery, beheading of the apostates, lashing the backs for breaking the laws etc. - would have put off even the hapless outcasts to ever contemplate about touching it even with a barge pole. That being the case, would there have been even one willing convert to Islam by vouching that āThere is no God but Allah ān Muhammad is His Messengerā to face the music of the sharia? Doubtful, isnāt it?
In proof of it, while being enamored with the civil sharia that affords them medieval conjugal privileges and affords them deliverance from a nuptial contract of diminishing returns through triple talaq, the Musalmans of the day wouldnāt lament for the shelving of the penal sharia in India and elsewhere as well. Isnāt it a blessing in disguise for the Indian Musalmans that the kafirs have left the penal sharia alone to let them save their errant limbs and remain the masters of their homes, of course, contrary to what Allah Taāala had willed for them? That is about the hypocrisy of the Musalmans regarding shariaās immutable divinity that is touted as the unalienable essence of Islam!
Chapter 21
Paradise of Parasites
The discovery, in 2,000 C.E., of a submerged city of 7,500 B.C.E. vintage, off the Gulf of Khambhat, would have made the 3,500 B.C.Eās Mohen jo daro ān Harappa seem modern in the ancient Arya Varta. As the North America and the Europe have proved in the modern times that economic well-being and social development are but the obverse and the reverse of the ānationalā coin of healthy work ethics, it can be inferred that without a sound work culture, the Khambhats and the Harappas wouldnāt have happened in the Bharat Varsha in the antique era. But then, how come the Indians of the day bade goodbye to the moral values of yore and came to yearn for easy money in the corridors of corruption!
The Aryans, who emerged after Mohen jo daro, in spite of their emphasis on spirituality, didnāt seem to have hampered the work ethos of yore as would be evident from the ārecordedā prosperity of the populace in the bygone eras. Maybe the karma siÄhanta that exemplified the Brahmanical concept of linking the fate of men to the deeds of their past births could have even encouraged the have-nots to strive for bettering their lot in the birth to follow that is through good deeds in the life on hand. By the same token, the kÄrmic theory guarded man from the debilitating effects of envying the better-off, and that helped one and all build a society of happy souls striving to better themselves in word and deed, never mind their economic lot, well, till the mid 20th Century or so, before the āwhy not meā phenomenon began to boot out the age-old Hindu wisdom from its karma bhÅmi.
That being the case, we might search for the possible influence of the Islamic religious credo on the Indian work culture exposed as it were to it for a millennium. The Islamic way of life is best described by Freeland Abbot in his Islam and Pakistan of Cornell University Press, New York, as quoted by Mayram Jameelah in her book, Islam and Orientalism (Adam Publishers & Distributors, Delhi).
āThe community held that the important thing in life was not to improve oneās well-being but to get to heaven when oneās earthly life was over. And the road to heaven was chartered as a clear path. That path, preserved and sharply defined by the traditionalists, included prayers and creed but it did not include so living as to avoid measles and small pox. The basic premise of Islam is that the faithful are the servants of Allah who are ordained to pray Him five times a day. This concept of faith presupposes that Allah is the provider to the faithful He being their Master. As though to make the prayer regimen a viable proposition the Hereafter was advocated as the be all and end all of life. As though to keep up the morale of the faithful to stick to prayer at the cost of the benefits of life that hard work entails, their eternal existence in the Hereafter is made peaceable and enjoyable.ā
If anything, the Tablighi JamÄtisā total disregard for their, as well as the othersā, lives at the outbreak of the ānovel corona virusā in the early 21st Century, would only prove that Musalmansā stupidity of faith is an attendant feature of their life and times, in any age and time.
Be that as it may, in Martin Lingsā biography of Muhammad, the following account of his meeting with Moses, in the wake of his ascent, along with Archangel Gabriel, to The Lote Tree of the Uttermost End illustrates the stress on prayer in Islam.
āAt the Lote Tree the Prophet received for his people the command of fifty prayers a day; and it was then that he received the Revelation which contains the creed of Islam: The messenger believeth, and the faithful believe, in what hath been revealed unto him from His Lord. Each one believeth in God and His angels and His books and His messengers; we made no distinction between any of His messengers. And they say; we hear and we obey; grant us, Thou our Lord, thy forgiveness; unto Thee is the ultimate becoming.
They made their descent through the seven Heavens even as they had ascended. The Prophet said:
āOn my return, when I passed Moses ā and what a good friend he was unto you! - he asked me: āHow many prayers have been laid upon thee?ā I told him fifty prayers every day and he said: āThe congregational prayer is a weighty thing, and thy people are weak. Return unto thy Lord, and ask Him to lighten the load for thee and thy people.ā So I returned and asked my Lord to make it lighter, and He took away ten. Then I passed Moses again, and he repeated what he had said before, so I returned again, and ten more prayers were taken from me.
But every time I returned unto Moses he sent me back until finally all the prayers had been taken from me except five for each day and night. Then I returned unto Moses, but still he said the same as before; and I said: āI have returned unto my Lord and asked Him until I am ashamed. I will not go again.ā And so it is that he who performeth the five in good faith and in trust of Godās bounty, unto him shall be given the meed of fifty prayers.ā
What should make the Musalmans ponder over this extraordinary ādivine encounterā is that while Moses felt that even a five-prayer regimen is a weighty thing, their prophet, in the first place, didnāt even deem it fit to seek from his Lord any relief for them from the self-defeating, day in and day out burden of fifty prayers a day! Well, would fifty congregational prayers in a twenty-four hour cycle āhereā leave any time for them to sire their progeny to carry their faith forward? Even if they were to scrape through the procreative front with their libido, would there be any time
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