Pagan Arab practice of burying children - Reply to Nuray

Submitted by Uday Thipsay (Germany), Nov 8, 2005 at 05:56

Hi Nuray,

In some of your last posts you have mentioned the custom of burying alive female infants in the pagan Arabs. You have used this as a pretext to condemn Idol Worshipping. I have repeatedly told you, any bad custom in a religion is not indicative of that religion itself being bad. Such customs are to be done away with and not the religion itself. In Hinduism, we had the custom of "SATI" in some parts of India, where wives of the dead king would burn themselves alive on the king's funeral pyre. We Hindus abolished this practice long time back. Christianity too, had inquisition practiced across the globe, a few centuries ago. Goa, one of the states in India bore the brunt of this evil practice and countless Hindus were brutally tortured and murdered. Eventually this pogrom was abandoned. We still await the Vatican to apologize for inquisition in India, but that's a different story.

Just as custom of SATI does not mean Hinduism is bad or past inquisition do not mean Christianity is bad, similarly, past evil customs of Arab Pagans do not mean their religion was bad. Mohammed should have educated them and united them rather, he denounced the practice of Idol Worshipping and created a creed of people who have killed many more times the children that the Arab Pagans buried alive before Islam.

You only find burying alive of children as nefarious – what about beheading of humble nonbelievers? What about dishonorable treatment of women and slavery of children? Don't you find this equally diabolical? I definitely do.

The point I want to make here is that all other religions have continuously improved.
They have abolished evil practices and have taken measures to educate their followers, EXCEPT Islam. Why on earth there has been no Muslim till date who would say – "I know there are violent Suras and Ayats in Koran and we should delete these from the book". The Muslims choose to ignore these violent directives in their day-to-day lives. If they believe that these directives came from Allah, they should follow it in verbatim. Why not? Violence cannot be justified in ANY WAY. So the Muslims should either renounce the violent messages in Koran or follow these messages religiously. There is no middle way.

Also, in one of your mails you have stated that all religions believe in heaven and hell and the day of reckoning. Please read my last mails once again. Hinduism does not believe in these concepts. The heaven and hell, if you want to call it, is right here on earth. You reap the rewards of your past Karma right here. How can you imagine God, who has created this universe with billions of galaxies and trillions of stars, interested in manipulating after lives of humans so negligent and insignificant?

Once again, Nuray, open your eyes to these concepts. I am not asking you to embrace Hinduism. I am asking you to appreciate that there are other weighty concepts beyond the circle of Koran's reach.

Regards,
Uday

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