History Rehearsing: Dark Ages of Islam

re:#65 by m_souza
In more than subtle ways, Indian culture is finding some acceptance in USA. I watched ``Dilwale Dulhaniyan le jayenge``, a Bollywood movie that has a hero who is muslim in reality and with most conversation in easily understood Urdu. Ismail Merchant (another muslim) was the guest who introduced these movies. The movie easily straddles West and the East. TCM channel is showing Hindi movies as a celebration of Bollywood Classics every Thursday night. And more and more Americans are learning the name of these movies.
What does it all tell you?
In today`s times, when one religion is saying it is O.K to kill others, where exclusivity is the norm, where only certain ideas are right and the rest, wrong, India seems to show a common path. And one can see a glimpse of that in these movies, where the Western and easten values integrate effortlessly. When did you last hear a Shankaracharya saying movies are bad or how we should dress etc? Did you not hear what mullahs are doing in NWFP in Pakistan? Posters of models are being torn down or blackened. Shariat law going to be enforced soon.

Over the centuries, Hindu thought process has assimilated the best. It has also been carrying some bad baggage which it is trying to shed but that is another story. But ``Sanatana Dharma`` has never stood in the way of free thought and material progress. While talking about highest goal of life, it also talks about mundane matters. Of what use is a religion if all it does is to give rise to rabid preachers who spread hatred against other people like the mullahs are doing today. They do it in the name of their religion.
We, as Indians took to secularism, democracy, and more recently free-market, all western concepts and moulded them to our way of life. Our religion did not pose any hinderance to this. Look at the Islamic nations who are struggling with the concept of democracy and how Islam is unable to reconcile to the very idea.
We need to celebrate our religion, which to me is not a religion at all but a Spiritual free market. Religion binds you to certain dogmas. Spirituality is free of all dogmas. When i read some posts from Pakis criticising Hinduism, i only pity them. They need to introspect about themselves. It is they who are under a microscope today.
Those in Chowk who make fun of our Gods do not understand that they are making fun of themselves. They have been left far behind in the race.
Sridhar

re:#64 by Naqshbandi
You get what you give. You give some respect to our feelings, then we will respect your`s. So far i have steadfastly avoided criticising your Prophet or your religion. Such a conviction comes from a deeper understanding of Spirituality and the realisation that religion is just a guide map and there are different paths to the same God. When you guys realise that, perhaps you will also respect my religion. We are not here to prove my religion is better than yours. We are all on the same boat here.
Sridhar

#64 by Naqshbandi on June 15, 2003 4:27pm PT
rsaxena you hindu c**ks**ker--if you ever said that in front of me i would cut out your filthy tongue! How dare you insult our Beloved Prophet sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam.

------

rsaxena...


This chowk..whose title is ``At chowk all are welcome to read write and think``
here I have come across the filthiest things written about Hindus...hindu Gods..hindu women and no one censors them. The chowk staff nevers censors it.

I personally feel Hindus should not interact with Muslims at chowk. This chasm and gap between the minds of the two is too wide to be filled. Should stop visiting chowk.
Anyway, I will.
(now the muslims will write..okok get lost..who wants u to write)

In resp to nadeemkhan:
``Honorable_Syed: It is about time that we stop looking for our fathers in Arabia and Persia. There is a famous saying: ``I am a julaha (weaver) this year, if crops do well I will be Shekh next year, and if the prices are right a Sayyed the year afer``. It is an historical fact, if you want I can send you the references..

Shaik Wali Mohammad may have been from Arabia, but his prodigy was born and bred here in the sub-continent and he ended up in Sub-continent, making him an Indian (not Bharatian) and not an Arab.. ``

Well brother you are the one who went ranting about the ancestory of Tipu Sultan (Foolishingly claiming Tipu sultan is a punjabi), and you were absolutely wrong, to the extent that peple will make fun of you, if you utter this in public. As to your comment of tipu sultan being an indian, again it`s important that we expand it a little more and call Tipu Sultan a Muslim Indian, there is a definite distinction, and the fact that his ancestors were from Makkah, prevents the hindus from bragging about these ``so called conversions`` as well. We as Muslims have to stop discriminating amongst ourselves, because when we Muslims came and conquered ``Hind``, we brought with us the most egalitarian religion that exists, and when many of the hindus, esp the lower castes saw the beauty of our deen, they embraced Islam and continue to do so, because they got all the rights which hinduism prevented them from having. And the rasool e kareem Muhammad saws strictly forbade us from tribalism and racism, as this will take us back to the days of the jahilliyah.

As to your comment of us stopping from looking for our ancesators in arabia, well we as Syeds can`t because of the obligations our deen imposes on us, i.e. no zakaat, etc.. Hence our ancestory is extremely important as it affects the practise of our deen.

naqshabandi

...you little jehadi cockroach, why is it ok for you to write stuff like the post below from nadeemkhan but when someone slaps you back, you want to blow something up?...you should be locked in a box and handed over to rumsfeld and ashcroft...

#50 by nadeemkhan on June 14, 2003 11:46am PT

``No wonder you Hindus, despite of centuries of co-habitation have failed to recognize the strength of Muslims...and it is no wonder that while the rest of the mankind is talking of super computers and space you and you kin still worship the genital of a man that you call a god...no wonder...it is all that vegetables and saphron that you consume that taint your rational thinking...maybe, and just maybe one of these days, when you realize that human body parts are not worthy of worship,``

rsaxena you hindu c**ks**ker--if you ever said that in front of me i would cut out your filthy tongue! How dare you insult our Beloved Prophet sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam.

Gandhi was actually chinese...-:))) Haven`t you people heard of Gan-ji or in Japan Mei-ji rebellions? Dhoti is actually modification of kimono, so is sari whereas shalwar originated when people have to run instead of walking and ride on horses. The pants came out of people who have to run faster, and still running faster....underwears were invented by ??? pretending hiding something they ain`t got...........::))

[It does not matter who Tipu Sultan`s ancestors were but they took pride in calling themselves Afghans and history books also refer to them Afghan rulers of Mysore. Same is true about Siraj ud Daula. Persians usually looked down upon Persian speaking Afghans through long history and both Mir Jafar and Mir Sadiq happened to be of Persian ancestry.]

I think nadeemkhan is confusing bakra with bakri. The bakra in Panjabi songs such as ``putt jattaN de banaunday bakray`` is not the male counterpart of Gandhi`s companion....::))))

Ferzok=F.R.Khan?

Are you trying to secure brownie points for poor rating of you ``original`` article?

Regarding Gandhi ethnicity: Please note the people who displaced the Darvadians, the South Indians that rsaxena so proudly mentions, were Aryans, Jats (the tillers) Gujjars (the graziers), Brahmins and Rajuputs were the offsprings of a structured society that replaced Darvadians in the Indus Valley. (Read unabridged version of Gita). These two tribes moved northwards and eastwards. The Gujjars found in Swat valley as as much Swatis as the next person and the Jats in Gujarat are as much Gujrati as the Patels living there. In the census conducted by British Raj in 1883, and results published by Sir Denzil Ibbeston, K.C.S.I, eleven percent of all Jats living in Punjab( United Punjab that is, with parts of Haryanan, NWFP) declared their sub-caste as Gandhi.

Honorable_Syed: It is about time that we stop looking for our fathers in Arabia and Persia. There is a famous saying: ``I am a julaha (weaver) this year, if crops do well I will be Shekh next year, and if the prices are right a Sayyed the year afer``. It is an historical fact, if you want I can send you the references..

Shaik Wali Mohammad may have been from Arabia, but his prodigy was born and bred here in the sub-continent and he ended up in Sub-continent, making him an Indian (not Bharatian) and not an Arab..

Ferzok: I know what a ghetto is, and I would rather live in a ghetto than a world governed by moderinists who are considered by their respective populace as incorrigibly corrupt and hopelessly incompetent. It is no wonder that the followers of Jinnah, Nehru, Kamal, Suakarno, moderinsts in their own might, gave way to the followers on the horseback, BJP and MMA rose from the ashes of Indira Gandhi, Shastri, and relatively unknown and unaccounted for moderinists in Pakistan. The failure of these leaders to alleviate the one problem haunting the masses of sub-continent-poverty, gave rise to religioius fundamentalism...who offered scapegoats, divine intervention and absolution...the modernists meanwhile brushed these relgious zelaots as being trivial..However, the time was on their side and first the BJP and now MMA have surfaced as a force to reckon with...

#56 nb

The last of our heroes was Ashoka the Great, who was truly the son of soil...the Scythians, the Greeks, the Arabs,the Afghans, the Moguls, and Brits were all conquerers and not one of us. Chandar in Sanskrit and Mahtab in Persian means the same, yet the Muslims would name their children Mahtab, and Hindus Chandar. Neither would dare to cross the ``religous`` line. Persian was as much an Indian language as Sanskrit have been...

Shivaji was not a hero by any means; he introduced a novel way of taxing his subjects that was unheard of before his time...he would abandon his areas and its inhabitants, burn crops and grain depots, and leave the inhabitants starving and helpless to face the wrath of Aurangzeb`s advancing armies...

re: nadeemkhan # 50

Does the word ``ghetto`` mean anything to you?

You are mentally living in one, in case you did not notice it!

Ciao

Yeh sab kya ho raha hai?
On one hand you have nadeemkhan going off about Gandhi being a Punjabi and a Jat.How did an introspective article give rise to posts like this?I would recommend Liberty and Death by Patrick French for you;the first chapter is Two Men From Gujarat-one of whom is a certain former inhabitant of Malabar Hill,related to Nusli Wadia,the second,of course is Gandhi.They spoke to each other in Gujarati....Don`t call him Mahatma if you insist,it`s not like it matters.The poor man got abused from both sides.nehru was a Brahmin but that doesn`t mean you just ignore him.
What has South and the Bengali babus to offer? other than famine, intrigues, conspiracies, and deceits
I get your point.The only worthwhile people on the planet are Pakistani Punjabis and Sindhis.High time the others got the point too.The Bangladeshis got the point and pinged off,I admit with a little help,but once they had seen the light,I doubt anything could have stopped them.They didn`t want to hold Pakistan back from being a world superpower.Very considerate of them too.
Stop attacking Shivaji all the time,he did what he neded to protect his land.Why is guerilla warfare holy when the Taliban uses it against the Russian army yet you call Shivaji a thief for doing the same thing?Shivaji and Rani Lakshmibai are the only Hindu heroes that you know of,that doesn`t mean they are the only ones,period.I refuse to give you a history class-you are not willing to learn anything that contradicts your theories.
How was Rajiv Gandhi`s assassination bravery?that too Hindu bravery?
Pakistanis have this obsession with banias being devious and cunning.Like all good businessmen,including most Punjabis I know,some banias are.One the other hand,some are,shall we say,simple.Your statement is typical of seeing yourself as a victim,being taken advantage of by less principled people,in your case,Hindus.It didn`t happen like that.The British had help from all religions and all parts of society-they colonised minds so well that most of the colonised didn`t realise it was going on.The British did look down on banias but then the British looked down on all natives,with a few exceptions who were considered honorary Englishmen,and even then they were pointed out as examples of how civilising British influence was.Or are we going to hear that your great-grandfather was best friends with the Governor of Punjab 100 years ago and it was a truly equal relationship?I`ve only read extracts from Niall Ferguson`s new book but I think you might find it interesting,once you`ve finished catching up with irrelevant bits of information such as Gandhi`s ethnicity.
Rail on about Sunnis and Shias all you want but try not to make such big mistakes.
The unfortunate author of this article is trying to bring your attention to some problems Islam faces NOW and the parallels it has in history.It`s much easier to go off on a tangent and abuse your neighbour than take a long look at yourself.And don`t say Indians need to do that too.We`re masters of analysing and criticising ourselves to death.
Studebaker/Tipu,what are you so upset about?I can see you feel misunderstood and hurt but please don`t just go off at people.What did all that mean?

what were you smoking when you wrote this?

re: nadeemkhan


{will appreciate the finer things in life like a well done beef steak or a widow opting for a husband and not a pyre... }

...when will you learn to appreciate the beauty of not flying planes into buildings, blowing yourself up, not having honor killings of women, and finding a prophet other than a pedophile who got it on with a 9-year-old?...

re: nadeemkhan

{What has South and the Bengali babus to offer? other than famine, intrigues, conspiracies, and deceits }

...the ``south and bengali babus`` in the past 4 years have won a nobel prize and started indian IT companies whose combined market capitalization is more than that of pakistan`s entire stock market...

...what have you accomplished in that time?...a few suicide bombings, expertise in terrorism, a military coup, implementation of sharia in NWFP, and getting on the FBI`s most watched list...

..congratulations....muahahhhahah

it is humming, not the bird

There is a hum going on in pakistan, one can hear it every where, where pakistanis are. It was heard in NWFP last week when a bus load of police cadits were blown up. It was the last sound heard by the french engineers. Omar sheikh was ferreted out by the pakis after a hijack to put the last hum to the ears of daniel pearl. Kashmiri pundits have escaped from kashmir so that they can sleep easy with out the hum. Yes pakisrtanis are humming, the ones that stream out of the madrassas are humming louder, k..ill...kill...k..i..l..l.

In resp to brother nadeem khan,
Brother, i respectuflly disagree with you, as you have gotten a lot of things mixed up, regarding Muslim history in the subcontinent. Let me first clarify to you as to the acnestory of Tipu Sultan.

SHAIK WALI MUHAMMAD belonged to a respectable family of Mecca. He was well placed in life. But and suddenly things changed. The Shaik`s business failed and he found it hard to keep up position. So he decided to migrate to some other land with his wife and children he came to Baghdad and settled there. Here also he met nothing but disappointment at last he decided to go to India.
A month later the Shaik was in the Punjab. Here he feared better. However the Shaik was not very satisfied and he migrated to Gulbarga.
At Gulbarga the Shaik did very well and he decided to make it his hometown. His grandson Shaik Fateh Muhammad was a promising youth. This young man succeeded in getting a good rank in the army of the Maharaja of Mysore. After the Shaik`s death the family moved into Mysore State.
FATEH MUHAMMAD rose to a high rank and became a well-to-do man. He had a son Haider Ali by name. The boy was only five years of age when Fateh Ali was killed in a battle. The little boy suddenly found himself fatherless. Before long he began to feel the sting of poverty. The comforts of early childhood were gone. He was not even sent to school. In fact he never learnt how to read and write. His mother wanted him to learn a trade. She wanted that he should add a little to the family earnings.
Haider Ali how ever wished to be a soldier. He had a great liking for the profession of his father. When Haider Ali took him to Serangapattam. Here the youth got military training. His rare ability soon attracted notice. Nand Raj, the Brahman Wazir of the Maharaja was much impressed by Haider Ali and gave him a high rank in the army. The wise Wazir was quick to see the unusual military talent of the young man. He wanted to make this talent an asset for his government.
Haider Ali married two wives. In 1753 the second wife bore him a son. The boy was named Fateh Ali Tippu Sultan. Tippan was the name of a well-known Muslim saint of South India. The little boy was named after him.

And brother, Gandhi was a gujurati, and not a punjabi.