Couldn't sleep the whole night. Went to YouTube and finally found something to interest me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3jRPDb2LXQ&feature=related
and many others ...
Of the various interpretations by Dr. Zakir Naik (Islamic preacher whose videos are spread over YouTube), I agree with many and disagree as well.
What I like is that he tries to be reasonable and provide logic.
I believe faith and logic have their own place but qualifying the religious thoughts or theories with correct logic makes it easier for a materially context-ed society like us to understand them better. Some might be surprised that I learned how to perceive this world, from the movie series of Matrix.
Moving forward, for three of his quotes I have reservations:
A: He says that Quran had prior knowledge of the big bang explosion.
Firstly, no one knows what exactly the original holy texts looked like and what they taught. In the subsequent centuries there has been a lot of twisting, manipulation and misinterpretation of religious texts in almost all religions including Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. This is a core scientific matter. I'm having hard time believing this. I even don't second the similar claim in Hinduism about having already discovered many great theories of today thousands of years back. The preachers today however do not hesitate to infuse these to maintain morale/pride of followers in the respective religions.
Secondly, these aren't the fundamentals so I would say that it is up to the individual to decide what to take and what not in these gray areas.
B: Someone hurled at him that Islam is dividing people into Momins and Kafirs. Thus creating hatred.
Most understand it as Muslims and non-Muslims. However it means one who believes in God and one who does not believe. I don't know what is taught by the prominent Islamic preachers on this one.
While I expected a resolving reply on that question he just counter argued by stating even Hinduism has divided people in four castes. Explaining castes he further adds that shudras are down ridden caste according to Hinduism.
An explanation -
When Hinduism talks about castes, the idea is not to divide people but rather to organize the society into four sections only and only on the basis of the four different types of duties they would perform with natural skill.
How these four groups accomplish this? Creation of every caste was based on a specific gene pool which enables the creature to have paramount expertise and natural ease at certain specific tasks.
A brahmin is so because he/she is better at learning and teaching. He is good at digesting information, converging it to knowledge and advicing on basis of it. Affinity is to the mind.
A kshatriya is so because he/she is a good warrior and has generous concern towards protection of his people. Its their duty to fight for the god to prevail and defend the society/state. Just like the courage comes from the heart.
A vaishya is defined by the trade and commerce they perofrm to keep afloat the economy. Affinity is to the Abdomen and thighs.
A shudra is the one who will render his/her services at routine jobs. Relate it to our feet which do the routine job of walking and taking us from one place to the other.
So this is what all of us are genetically structured to do. This is what we're supposed to do.
Truth is that there is no more dignity or shame associated with any of these jobs. They imply no high or low status. Whoever suggests such status segregation is ill informed.
All of us who're lavishly tagged as engineers today are actually doing routine jobs, providing services to our clients. So going by his notion, many of my friends even in IT would be mad at him :D.
Orientation of this theory is not towards the status of a human but towards the nature of the karma that he/she does.
Just because biologically feet are lower than chest or thighs, if one deduces shudra jobs are downtrodden, there is no bigger disaster of understanding.
That way we should be hating our feet and we shouldn't be touching feet of elders. Even touching feet has a scientific reasoning. You establish a one way connection with the positive vibrations/energies of a person by touching their feet (thumb specially). In layman terms we call it 'taking a blessing'.
That is not the only case. His interpretations of Hinduism have been challenged many times. Hindu ancient text are very encrypted and it takes a lot more time to understand them properly, decades of study in fact.
Anyways, conclusively I can suggest that we should be even more cautious while talking about other religions because a small misinterpretation or comment with surficial knowledge could make others see red.
C: He beautifully explained in proper context the difference between arguments of protesting animal slaughter and feeding on cattle. At the question of cows he did not explain why Muslims kill and eat cows but again refuted with a counter blame that more than Muslims, there are Hindus in the cow slaughter business (for profit).
The question is still unanswered. Reason ?
What I've learned this far is that co-existence, tolerance, compassion and respect for others are the common and best teachings of any religion including Islam. This means that we would not do things which will surely hurt the religious sentiments of other. It is not new to anyone how much of holy importance and dignity cow has in Hindus.
Question arises, are cows the only cattle available for Muslims to feed in the name of high protein and availability? Though even it being true wouldn't suffice for what is happening but lets us say that it is not true and lot of other options are there (which in fact is the case).
Now, why can't our Muslim brothers have even this much of good gesture to spare cows when Hindus equate cow to the place of mother. Even on practical terms, what you gain on keeping a cow is much more than killing her for meat protein.
This is one of the places where it pinches. But it doesn't have to end here. The point takes us to acknowledging that if there's any such ignorance from Hindus towards Islamic beliefs we should pull back from the line we've crossed.
This bit of compromise from both sides will be a great gesture and gel us together like never before.
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I like what u said and m tryng to find answers fm Quran verses to all 3 reservation u had coz Zakir naik or any1 who preaches Quran or any other preacher in any religion merely give explanations on wat they undrstand rather than wat is given or explained in Holy text so watever reviews given by him could hav sm logic n supported by reasons yet not whole to rely on 4 dat one must hav read the Holy text not the translations which can b manipulated .
ReplyDeleteI will start with C : animal slaughter - (Surah Al-Maida in Quran) Laws are given for food habit which can & cannot b eaten & proper methods of slaughtering of animals which is proved least painful for animals in research. The question is y Muslims eat Cows reasons for this
ReplyDelete1) It is Halal i.e permissible
2) It is larger in number alone in India its million in number
3) Beef taste good :)
4) Beef is the principal meat used in cuisines in countries like America,Europe,Australia, India,therefore its in demand
5) Business profits
and finally Its cheaper than mutton.
One more thing to add here is dat if no. of cows increase for instance if no cows meet consumed than dis will increase cow cattle and demand of grains to feed them which results in imbalance in eco - system.
ReplyDeleteIslam is a religion of humanity... firstly in any verses of Quran the word kafir not used to divide people or person but to term those who dnt believe or who pretend they believe as Munafiq. its a noun used for non believers dats all....Mr.naik states abt th caste /varna system which actually divided the society in terms of work duties but lately used as a cruel weapon to oppersd people specially the shudras, many social reformers fight against it but still in sm part of the country it is practice even 2day!and in a country where a cow is looked as mother many women r burnt alive for Sati sytem, dowry, and even female infanticide..
ReplyDeleteThe holy text gives answers to all most all questions which are investigated today n many researches r gng on abt our existence, in Quran its given in many verses(1400 yrs ago) abt it with the explanation of hw the world is form which resembles n match wid wat scientist found today!
ReplyDeleteAt the time the holy text(Quran) was revealed to human, their knwldg abt cosmos was obscure n primitive at present which is far better n adavnced.in 1920 Edwin hubble made first discovery abt it yet sm 13 centuries ago its clearly mention in Quran which means "The heaven we built by our own powers & indeed we go on expanding it" in other verses it is explained as "Do not the unbelievers see that the heaven & the earth were a closed-up mass (ratqan in arabic)n we clove them asunder(fataqna in arabic)and we made fm water every living thing will not they then believe?"
Therefore If one read the holy text carefully he/she would b able to understand abt it.....:)