Little more education for Mansoor

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Jul 2, 2016 at 11:38

Dear Dr Pipes, Your reader Mansoor from Pakistan extolled praise on Islam and called Hinduism the worst religion on the planet. Books can be written about how Mansoor's beliefs are wrong but I will give him two things to meditate upon. For the purpose of this message, meditation ('manan' in Hindu thought) means reflective thinking on a topic with peace in mind. First I will describe to Mansoor a serious fault of Islam and then I will tell him one good thing about Hinduism. He should think about both. There is no cultural supremacy on my part here. Mansoor will find some elements of both these thoughts in Islamic doctrine as well.

First a serious fault of Islam. Islam hopelessly mingles politics with spirituality. Non-separation of church and state actually does more harm than good to Islam. When a bad Muslim tyrant, for example, does atrocities on others, the blame inevitably falls on the religion and religion has no place to escape. During this month of Ramadan almost 500 people were killed in murders by Muslims from Dhaka to Kabul to Orlando. And because religion and politics are so deeply intertwined in Islam, religion has no place to hide when the world blames it for all the violence. Ironically, due to this non-separation, Muslim Tyrants are Muslims first and tyrants later. Something to think about for all Muslims in general and for Mansoor in particular. By the way, a seed for separation of church and state exists in Islam as well when Islam says that there should be no compulsion in religion.

Second something good about Hinduism. Hinduism's practice of attaching idols with God is much maligned by the western religions including Islam. I think it a great pragmatic idea. Believe me, we Hindus, choose millions of symbols, idols and even people to remind us of God but we really do not think that there are millions of Gods sitting in every direction to guide this world. We also believe that the ultimate truth is One. That said, doctrine of manifested God --when we say that God adopts forms because He loves humans-- allows us easily reconcile differences between followers of different divine thoughts. The followers of Jesus and Muhammad have been arguing for 1500 years deciding who was true and by how much. Among Hindus we have no such conflict. Rama and Krishna are not adversaries. They are two forms of God that came to us at two different times with the same purpose. And all good that we know can be attributed to them all bad can be set aside. A seed for this thought is present in Islam as well when Islam says that God sent prophets to all people at different times.

Meditate over these two points, dear Mansoor. These are two small prompts but they may open thousand doors.

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