Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Again, to Ruzan Shah

Dear Ruzan Shah,

You are pretty fast in your replies. It means you are ready with facts on your fingertips. Congratulations. Excuse me if I am slower, but I shall definitely strive to keep our conversation going. I can see that you are a very sincere person.

1. I said that you ought to judge a religion by the best of its followers, not the worst. You have only to compare Maulana Mawdoodi and Ramakrishna Paramahans to know the difference between the best of Islam and the best of Hinduism. The former was intolerant of differing religious views while the later was an epitome of accommodating all sorts of religious views.

2. I would say that Umma is a community of not just any good people, but those who believe in Islam. Umma means universal brotherhood of the believers, i.e. Muslims, only.

3. Caliphate was simply and purely a political entity. Where is the Caliphate today?

4. Translation by Mr. Picthall is the very one I read. I have always admired the brilliance of his language – comparable to the King James’s version of the Bible.

5... You say that if you want to understand the Quran perfectly you have to read it in its Arabic original. This might be so. But what of us poor folks who are not Arabic or did not have the opportunity to learn Arabic? Can we never know the Quran perfectly? Do we have to take the word of an Arab to know its meaning? No wonder someone talked about Arabic Imperialism in Islam.

6... Of course there are no words like Shia or Sunni in the Quran. This is because these phenomena appeared after the appearance of the Quran. Sunnis and Shias are really the consequence of the battle for Mohammad’s throne after his demise. Nothing religious about it. Purely political in the name of religion. (We have a lesson here vis-à-vis the terrorists of today. There are a purely political phenomena in the name of religion.)
7.. I said Hinduism is a culture – a culture of religions and spirituality. Systems are what could come under the term Smriti – the changeable, like Manusmriti. Shruti is that vision which is eternal as of the Vedas. A parallel could be the Shariat and the Quran. (Though Muslims say that both are one and the same, they will sooner than later realize the difference between both, what with all the Talaq, Talaq, Talaq debates going on.)

8. If you say your God gave His final word to you, that is OK. But you have no right to say that God gave the final word. God is so many things to so many people. What it is to you is only your own little faith, wholly valid for you as others’ faith are wholly valid for them.

9. Look, I think you are missing the whole point of spirituality when you speak of final authorities. Krishna, Rama, Budhha, Jesus, Mohammad etc. are only people who have had a high level of spiritual experiences and they have expressed it variously and they have been celebrated by the followers each in their own way and culture. No Hindu expects all Hindus to take any of them as the final authority. That is upto the individual Hindu’s experience and preference. Still, if asked to say what has been the Hindu culture’s final authority, I would say that throughout the ages it has been the Vedas(with its ultimate message to man – thou art perfect!). But even here, those who have rejected the Vedas have also been accepted as Hindus.

10. Muslims keep saying that there is only one God. I think the Hindus go one step better by saying that everything is God, or there is only God. (I have always felt that the famous verse of Quran – La illah illa-Allah actually means this - that there is only God - and not that there is only one God.)

11. Islam is not the refinement of all religions. The refinement of all religions is spirituality and spirituality is better represented by Sufism than Islam, certainly.

12. When you talk of the last prophet, what you mean to say is that the clock stopped in the middle ages with Mohammed.

13. Quran is not the updated final version for all mankind, as you say. It might be so for the Muslims - for within the Muslim world you disallow the coming up of any new religions. There is a blanket ban on any other religions, actually. But outside the Muslim world, many spiritual savants have come after Mohammad. What about the founder of the Bahai faith, of the Sikh faith, of the Sai faith etc? Why, Sai Baba claims he is an Avatar (a whole lot more than a messenger) or even God, and his followers believe so.

14. I must confess I do not know what is the Agni Rahasya of Vedas or that “Vedas was there in Vedas 5000 years ago”. You might want to enlighten me, if you may please.

15. You talk about Sufism taking on Islam. Why would anyone want to take on Islam. It is quite possible that Sufism pre-dates Islam and they wanted nothing but the freedom to express themselves, which Islam did not allow. However, to the greatness of Sufis, they never confronted Islam but instead sought to merge into Islam, and spread their radiance from within.

16. If Quran was there from the beginning, then why did Allah have to dictate the whole thing again to Mohammad? Does it mean that the Quran we have at present will be lost once more and Allah will have to find a new Mohammad to dictate it to again?

Please do write.

Love,
Venu