Hidden Hindus

RE Cheema

You said: ``All this shows that blasphemy law is secular in origin and has no Islamic origin.``

I suppose you mean pagan or pre-islamic as opposed to secular. In a true secular environment, there is no place for blasphemy.

Devkant

I believe I answered your query about why there was a contradiction between the two posts. Please go and read it ... it must be somewhere in the rahil khan article .. in 400s I believe.

You really have no reason to call me a hypocrite. You really dont know me and to make a judgement is well, uncalled for!

Yasser

By ``your kind`` I meant Indians!

Re: ylh

``that a political system truly according to the spirit of Islam would be a secular democratic system....``

Here we go again with the revisionist drivel. If ``Islam were interpreted as such and such and by so and so`` then we wouldn`t have 1,543 Jihads all over the world and the Israelis, Americans, Indians, Russians, and Phillipinos wouldn`t have been victims of Islamic terrorism.

And Louis Farrakhan and the KKK are just misunderstood. If people followed their ``true message`` then we would all see how loving and peaceful those people really are, right???

Giving credit where it is due :

While it does not have directly anything to do with Pakistani minorities, Pakistanis can feel proud that they hosted a million or two Afghan refugees for a decade or more, without any real fuss, or the kind of self-congratulation that Europeans indulge in when they take in a few thousand refugees from some conflict that has its roots in their actions.

-arun gupta

Umairr and Asif ............

.....i will grant you that there are many different translations of 47.4 and other such verses which clearly and categorically lay out the case for taking up arms against the Unbeliever ..... whether it is by ``smiting`` or condemning the poor kafir to hell-fire, the thesis is the same - an unrelenting hostility towards those who do not share the faith ..... I am sure we can come up with half a dozen hadiths and surahs which call for toleration but the overwhelming message cannot be denied ..... all of us are quick to quote `` there is no compulsion in religion``, but suffer from collective amnesia or blatant ignorance when it comes to other heavenly instructions that relegate the kafir to a second class status .........oh yes, the Caholics were worse than us, but they let Martin Luther lead them out of Stygia ........... the problem with us Muslims is that we have yet to find the loophole for Reformation ............ it is tough to do it when we are so eager to protect the Book in its velvet lined box ............. in the meantime scurrlous rascals like me can always blame Dawood for wrongly interpreting God`s word ................

hamidm, Umairr, Asif:

(..and forgive SM, I may be going beyond the issue at hand ....)

For a momemnt, let us come down to earth instead of barricading ourselves behind the Maginot Line of revelations of heavenly and earthly kinds.

If we strive to become `insaan` -- a decent hu(wo)man being first -- all else matters least. An `insaan` respects, defends and protects fellow insaan.

As Mahajirzadeh said somewhere -- pehlay Khuda phir Muhammed: pehlay insaan phir musalmaan.

regards,

temporal

PS: Jumhuriyat: Welcome back. Hope you stay. We need all voices lest the cacophony rules by default.

In response to ylh (Reply # 168)
Dear Yasser:

One should be very careful in his/her rhetoric. If someone writes to me, Bilal you and ``your kind,`` I will surely be offended. So, please take more time and read your replies critically before you (this applies to all of us) submit/send them.

Yasser, I am sure you need to enhance the power of your posts/replies by a few necessary changes in your (this also applies to all of us) style. Good luck, be more effective, and don`t forget to be a little more cordial.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

P.S. Temporal, I agree with your emphasis on insaan. We have so many bases to establish and enhance too many othernesses (which may or may not be real), insaniat is one commonality that always creates a sense of togetherness/solidarity.

RE: MacGupta # 170

Tabeeat theek hay na?

Jumhuriat #165

How about this? I find you most vicious in dividing people up into muslims and hindus. In your black-and-white thinking anyone who criticises muslims are hindus and vice versa.. is that it? You certainly were not missed.

Re: temporal

``...pehlay insaan phir musalmaan.``

Ooohh, now you`re gonna get it. Maulana krashid is preparing your first class ticket to hell as we speak ;)

Umair

There is no concept of ``last day`` in Hinduism. The creation and destruction of universe are believed to be periodic processes. According to one of the Hindu philosophies from Upnishadas, the soul of a person goes to heaven or hell, based on the proportion of good and bad deeds one does in life irrespective of any faith or belief one keeps. Thus an athiest may very well go to heaven if he performs god deeds in his life. Infact I remember a story in which a Brahmin who renounces the world and does ``Tapasya`` to achieve salvation is advised by a heavenly voice to visit a ``vaishya`` who leads his life doing good deeds and to learn from him. Heaven has been variously defined to be either a state of mind, a form of eternal bliss, or some planet.

In a lighter note,I fully agree on the issue of Aishwarya Rai. She has a divine beauty that can mesmerise any earthly human being.(nothing to say of poor souls like me.)

Cheers

hamidm: #171: I agree, to some extent, with what you are saying. However, reformation of religion and/or the Quran, in my opinion, is not the answer. There are as many interpretations of the Quran, already available, as there are people in the universe. It’s just a question of which interpretation one chooses to follow. That is a personal decision based on one`s outlook on life.

Intolerance is not a function of religion. Intolerance is a function of economics, education, and the ideals of the group in power, and one`s upbringing. It is also a function of the circumstances surrounding a society. In some cases, nations remain intolerant even if they are blessed with all the above conditions.

The religious and ethnic tolerance/acceptance apparent in the Christian and Western society is a very very recent phenomenon. I would say, 1970s onwards. It is not because of what Martin Luther did, nor is it because of a reinterpretation of their religion. Historically speaking, Western nations have been the most intolerant countries in the world, despite being the wealthy, educated, and, ``religiously reformed.`` Despite what the Jews currently say about the Muslims, historically it is the Christians who have thoroughly kicked them around. The African, ``Negro`` was a second-class citizen in the USA, till the late 60s. This, in a country, which was the poster child for separation of Church and State. Even now, look at what happened in Bosnia and Kosovo. And of course, close to home, the massive colonization and enslavement carried out by the West, in an effort to, ``civilize`` the black and brown man was done under the flag of secularism and a reformed Church.

The reason the Christian Church had to be reformed, and separated from the State, was due to the massive political power it had acquired. It eventually started running the lives of the average European Christian. If the Church didn`t like someone, it was off to the Inquisition. The Church was not separated from the State, due to any love for the minorities. Most of the events I have described above were carried out after the Church had been reformed. Does the WW II holocaust ring a bell? So religious reformation, perhaps created some tolerance towards the fellow Christian, but it didn`t do much for the non-Christian minorities.

The true wave of tolerance really hit the West when it became clear to the majority, that it made economic sense to allow minorities to exist freely and equally in one society. This was more than three hundred years after the Church had gone through some, ``reformation,`` and around two hundred years after the Church had been separated from the State (in the case of the USA). During these hundreds of years, the West was perhaps as intolerant (in my opinion, more intolerant) as any group of people in the world. Many of the authors of these reformations and separations were themselves slave owners.

Religious and ethnic acceptance will not occur if religion is reformed (in case of Islam, in my opinion, acceptance means following a more inclusive interpretation of the Quran, as opposed to an intolerant one. These inclusive interpretations already exist.). It will also not occur, if all the mullahs are shipped out to sea. First and foremost, it requires a bigger pie for the society. It also requires universal education. It requires a economic system where it becomes economically and socially feasible for the country as a whole, for minorities to succeed. And most importantly, it requires an acceptance of this fact by the majority. If all of the above are present, the religious inclinations of the country will be become immaterial. The USA is far more religiously conservative than Europe, yet the US society is far more tolerant of minorities than the European society.

The largest killings of minorities in the world currently are being carried out in secular countries. Yugoslavia being one example. This is not an attempt to state that secularism is bad (or good). It is just to point out that reformation of religion is not the deciding factor in creating the all-inclusive utopia, everyone is dreaming of. There are many other factors involved. Until those factors are handled, we can reform religion all we want, nothing much will change. 1700-1900 USA and pre-WW II Europe are good examples of why religious reformation, in and off itself, doesn`t do much.

It is the height(perhaps depth) of nonsense to compare the plight of religious minorities in India with that of Pakistan. Occasional Babri masjid and saffron thuggery notwithstanding, Indian Muslims are at least accepted as Indians by the educated society. That`s a far cry from Pakistan where the stigma of a religious minority is etched into passports, national IDs, and almost every government form. Pakistanis will have a lot more standing about criticising India`s treatment of minorities once Islamabad has seen a few non-Muslim presidents, a couple of Hindu Chief Justices, and half a dozen Parsi cricket captains. For starters, Pakistan`s `democracy` may want to shed its South Africa type apartheid by having joint electorates.

With all due respect Yasser, the late Z A Bhutto did NOTHING to ameliorate the problems of minorities. As you point out he was the one who stuck the ``ISLAMIC`` nomenclature on Quaid-e-Azam`s secular dream. Lest you Bhuttoites forget, it was NOT Zia who closed down bars, clubs, racecourses; nor was the Mard-e-Momin responsible for shifting the weekly holiday to the very un-secular Friday. And the apartheid separate electorate system was re-created in the Bhutto Constitution of 1973. The Zia dictatorship simply continued on the path, albeit in much harsher terms, set out by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Bhutto may have been a lot of things but a secular Jinnah junior he was NOT. For all her progressive upbringing, his daughter too didn`t lift a finger to change the Talibanist course set for Pakistan in the early seventies. After three(or was it four?) PPP regimes in Pakistan, the separate elctorates, the Hudood laws, the Qisas/Diyat ordinance, and the rest of the claptrap of a medieval society is firmly in place.

If you guys are looking for an Ataturk, you are not likely to find it either in the military or in the PPP. Maybe someone should place another call to Dr Moin Qureshi.

RE: Post 169

Though I hate to respond to your message, because

your presence at this website nothing but to

propagate your bigotty against Islam. However,

I am writing for other members.

First, I would suggest you keep actions of muslims separate from Islam. Of course Islam teaches freedom and tolerance to minorities. And coming from an Indian hindu, who have been practicing castism and cruel rituals such as satti, it is really a shame. Even today India is ruled by a fanatical party who has history of oppressing minorities. You should open your eyes to killings and brutalities of christans and muslims in India before accusing anyone else. And finally nation of Islam is not Islam and Luis Farrakhan does not represent Islam.

I would say in most cases all around the world, muslims are opressee, whether they are kashmiris of India, palestinians, bosnia/kosovo, or africa. Even in USA and other western countries, they

are persecuted for being muslims in day-to-day life. It is tragic that nations like India and Israel who have no respect for international laws or human rights have so much media influence.

Devkant #159

I am glad that you see the other`s point of view.

Projection is a term in psychiatry. To put simply and give example. If a woman has some thought of adultery, she would start blaming her husband that he is thinking of adultery (Text book example and no offense to woman). Also a person thinks in the frame of reference according to his experience and knowledge.

Labelling is a term, which can also be called McCarthyism. For example, Americans used to blame everyone against the official American thinking as Communists. Many were given sentences. Suppose, we label Fundamentalism and Pakistan as synonymous, then by default every Pakistani is a fundamentalist, whether it is true or not. Same way if we label Indians as dirty (Heeng board), then by default every Indian is dirty. So you can see labelling and projection moves one away from reaching at the correct picture.

Although, you can say that Vajpayee is the best thing which happened to India after partition. I can say that Indian political system has failed to produce any party in current history and Vajpayee is lesser of the evil.

India will have to suffer long because of Hinduvta in future.