Reading Archive

When The Professors was first published in February 2006, it was greeted by cries of outrage from the academic Left. The author was denounced as a reincarnation of Joseph McCarthy and his book as a “blacklist,” although no evidence existed to support either claim and both were the opposite of the truth.

The next book is the Book of Purification. It deals with such matters as ablution, defecation, and abstersion.

The Hindu and Buddhist Gods and Goddesses in India, Nepal, Bali, Burma, Japan, Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and elsewhere are only local expressions of universal spirituality. In this respect, spirituality is akin to science.

Let us now consider the next guideline from the NCERT, namely, that 'characterisation of the medieval period as a time of conflict between Hindus and Muslims is forbidden'.

Sri Ramakrishna was one day taunted by a sceptic that the Kali he worshipped at Dakshineshwar was only a slab of black stone carved into a bizarre female figure and decked with glittering trinkets. The saint was taken aback. So far, he had not cared to see the sacred icon in its supreme spiritual splendour. He had been content to witness the Divine Mother in all Her majesty in the cave of his heart whenever he was in a state of samãdhi. Now he had been challenged to find out if what he worshipped was a figment of his fevered imagination.

It is an intuition ingrained in the Hindu psyche to inhabit our entire environment - celestial, physical, vegetable, animal, and human - with innumerable Gods and Goddesses. Some of these divinities are installed in temples as icons and worshipped with well-defined rituals. Some others are worshipped as and where they are invoked. Hindu shastras, saints, and sages have paid homage to many Gods and Goddesses in many sublime hymns.

Someone comes to Muhammad from a great distance, yet without any sign of fatigue, and says: Muhammad, inform me about al-Islam. The Messenger of Allah replies: Al-Islam implies that you testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and you establish prayer, pay zakat, observe the fast of Ramzan [Ramadan] and perform the pilgrimage. Later on, when the inquirer is gone, Muhammad tells Umar: He was Gabriel.  He came to you to instruct you in matters of religion. This is the very first hadis narrated by Umar, the future KhalIfa, through several chains of narrators.

Hindu society has had to go on the defensive against monotheistic creeds masquerading as religion mainly because it has lost consciousness of the spiritual center around which its religious, cultural, and social life has revolved, and which has sustained it through the ages.

Islam is not merely a theology or a statement about Allah and his relationship with His creatures. Besides containing doctrinal and creedal material, it deals with social, penal, commercial, ritualistic, and ceremonial matters. It enters into everything, even into such private areas as one's dress, marrying, and mating. In the language of the Muslim theologians, Islam is a complete and completed religion.