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The Islamic Culture
by Anwar Shaikh
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Judging by the Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist and
Christian ways of life, India may be said to have one culture, which is
essentially Vedic, because all these people believe that India is their
Motherland, and therefore, despite their political and social squabbles, they
can agree when the honor of their Motherland is at stake. Difference of opinion,
in a democratic society is not a source of blight but beneficence. In fact, it
is a process of purification, leading to friendship, fraternity and fruition. It
is for this reason that these cultures, despite having differences, revolve
round the same axis of patriotism, but this is not the case with Islam, which
preaches loyalty to Mecca and treason to a believer's own Motherland if he
happens to be a non- Arab i.e. an Indian. Keshav Sharma has shrewdly picked up
this point, and the book i.e. "The
Question of Culture," which is actually a collection of his essays,
seeks to solve the problem in India.
To Keshav Sharma, "Culture is a set of methods of
solving problems, based on the definition of reality as evolved and enunciated
by intellectual leaders of a society."
Possibly, the most noteworthy point he makes is the
assertion that culture is naturally dynamic and admits no pessimism; tomorrow
ought to be better than yesterday, and it is no good pretending that we live in
the Kali Yuga, the dark age, where nothing bright, blissful and benevolent can
take place.
Stating solution to the Islamic and other problems of
India, he adds: "India's natural law-based on classical Vedic civilization
of the yesteryears sets the finest example in managing both the private and
public realms without destroying either."
Keshav is a patriot who feels the pain and pleasure of
his motherland. He is conscientious of preserving the integrity of what is left
of India i.e. Bharat. He holds Islam as the poison for his country and the Vedic
doctrine as the panacea for its revival.
It is difficult for any patriot to differ with his
conclusion. Therefore, for my part, I give him credit for his intentions and
wish him luck in the Presidential elections.
Having said that, I may add that Sharmaji has not
provided a comparative study of the Islamic and Vedic cultures to show why the
former is injurious to India, and why the latter, despite being infinitely
superior to the former, has failed to solve the Indian problems. I am sure that
he knows it all, but being a politician, he is aware of the fact that politics
is the art of treading carefully. Since I am not a politician, the scope for
stating the truth happens to be much wider for me.
In fact, I am grateful to Sharmaji for giving me a
chance to express thoughts on my favorite subject. I wrote a book: "Culture
The Destiny" but published only one part of it under the title:
"Islam, The Arab National Movement" which caught public attention on a
fairly large scale. In "Culture, he Destiny," I divided culture into
three categories:
1. The libertarian Culture,
2. The Aggressive Culture, and
3. The Passive Culture.
"Islam, The Arab
National Movement" is an example of the Aggressive Culture: Islam is an
aggressive culture because it is the ambassador of the Arabian way of life and
seeks to impose Arab imperialism on the non-Arab Muslims in the guise of
religion.
On the contrary, the Vedic culture, being a natural way
of life, is superior to the Islamic culture and thus must rank as an example of
the Libertarian Culture for its beneficial effect on mankind. As long as people
of India practiced it, they possessed a scholarly mind and a heroic conduct,
which made them torch-bearers of the world civilization, but as it has suffered
a lot of corruption at the hands of its own followers, it cannot be cited as
Libertarian. Now, it has become the Hindu or Passive culture, which has lost its
luster, loftiness, and loyalty to the Vedas.
Keshav has correctly diagnosed that nature of the
Indian trouble is cultural, but he has put the entire blame on the Islamic
culture and has not commented on the present state of the Hindu culture, which
is very nearly an antithesis of the Vedic doctrine. Since remedial action cannot
be based on a biased analysis, I am obliged to present a comparative study of
the Islamic and Hindu cultures to show where things have gone wrong for Mother
India. Therefore, I may divide the ensuing discussion into two parts, namely,
Islamic Culture and Hindu Culture:
Like the cosmic structure, man's societal make-up is
also hierarchical: it is well represented by a pyramid, which is broadest at the
base and narrowest at the top. Take a democratic government, for instance: at
the bottom stand millions of voters, but as the political Organization rises
higher, on the top is found a small cabinet headed by one person known as the
President or Prime Minister.
There may be countless individuals in political
parties, competing for power. This results from man's Dominance-Urge, which
makes a person power-hungry and he wants to command others by gaining ascendancy
over them. History is the manifestation of this urge (drive): without it, there
will be no Alexanders, Ganghis Khans or Napoleons. These remarks equally apply
to the administrative, judicial and social hierarchies.
However, intensity of the Dominance-Urge varies in
different people. Its highest expression is not to be found amongst conquerors
and rulers but the category of men, who distinguish themselves as Prophets. The
reason is that when a ruler dies, with him perishes his Dominance-Urge because
he cannot tell people what to do and what not to do, but this fact is reversed
in the case of a Prophet, who commands his people from beyond the grave through
the Law, which he leaves behind as the Divine Guidance or Word of God: the Koran
is one such code of law, which its followers believe, shall last forever
irrespective of its relevance to the changed times.
The Prophet Muhammad, who presented the Koran to
mankind was a wise man, and possessed an unusually acute Urge of Dominance. He
aspired to be acknowledged, not as God, but God's Superior, and he wanted to
deify himself through national dignity. In simple language, it means that he
wanted to weld his fellow Arabs into a strong fighting force, which should rule
the world but in his name so that he could act as the head of the Arab
Imperialism. This type of scheme could not have been imagined by the Indian
leaders such as Gandhi, who sought Godhead through the degradation of his people
by addicting them to the opium of Ahimsa.
Muhammad's wisdom lay in realizing the value of
culture: he seems to have known that man is basically endowed with a potential
of development, and he becomes according to how he cultivates his potential; if
he is trained to be brave and fearless, he becomes a warrior, a conqueror and
honorable, but if he is taught cowardice in the guise of non-violence, he grows
up as a mouse, which knows nothing about self-respect, honor and high morality.
Thus, culture represents the refinement which results from the cultivation of
one's potential. Therefore, culture is the ambassador of man's destiny. Whether
he becomes a saint or Satan, depends upon the magnitude of his cultural
achievement.
Culture is not just an individual concept, it equally
applies to a nation. The Arabs of that time were an inferior race for practicing
principles and traditions, which led to social discord and national degradation.
The only way Prophet Muhammad could raise their stature was, by accustoming them
to superior cultural values, having the power to unite them into a proud nation.
Since the Arab psyche had been adversely affected by the Jewish claims of racial
superiority and mundane prosperity, he asserted:
"Of the two tribes that God chose as the best were
the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac. God preferred the children of Ishmael (the
Arabs) to the children of Isaac (the Jews). Then God created Muhammad in the
chosen tribe of Quresh (the descendants of Ishmael ) and then He chose Muhammad
as the best of ad men." (Jame Tirmze, Vol: 2)
One can clearly see here the following facts:
These two points indicate their mutual relationship, that
is, superiority of the Arabs as a race and that of Muhammad are co- dependent.
This proves my view that Muhammad wanted to deify himself through Arab
Imperialism i e. by raising a great Arab nation capable of spreading his
reverence through sustained ascendancy. Muhammad's sagacity is vouched for by
the fact that he did not rely just on the force of national arms but turned the
Arab culture itself into the dominant culture, which once established, should be
self-perpetuating without any external aid. India provides evincing evidence to
this fact: Muhammad Bin Qasim and his likes used torture, tyranny and torment to
introduce Islam to the Land of the Vedas but long after the demise of the Muslim
rule, the Islamic culture was able to achieve what the ferocity of the combined
Muslim reign of centuries had failed to accomplish. In 1947, the Muslims
declared that their Islamic culture did not permit them to live with the Kafirs
(the Hindus), and thus they were able to make a successful demand to partition
India. It was the greatest tragedy that could have befallen any country but such
a grievous loss can be felt by the patriots only, and not by the practitioners
of Ahimsa, who will suffer any indignity to breathe a little longer.
What are the fundamentals of the Islamic culture and
how does it work? Here is a brief sketch of Muhammad's plan:
1. Muhammad, had idolatrous parentage. Prior to
declaring Islam, he was known to have been a regular visitor to the Kaaba, the
chief Arab temple, organized on the Vedic principle of Triad. The history also
testifies to the fact that he was confirmed in his ancestral faith in the Kaaba
by his grandfather Abdul Muttalib according to the pagan rites of the time. He
must have practiced his ancestral religion until he was forty years old when
Gabriel brought him a written message from Allah and commanded him to read it.
At that time, Muhammad was meditating in a cave called "Hira." When he
expressed his inability to read Allah's message, Gabriel became aggressive and
tried to strangle him three times, that is, each time Muhammad expressed his
inability to read.
This episode clearly expresses Allah's desperation for
finding a Prophet and Muhammad's reluctance to act as one. In fact, this is the
starting point for exhibiting his superiority over Allah, who is determined to
persuade him through all means, including violence.
What is a prophet? In the Semitic culture, a Prophet is
God's appointee through whom He reveals Himself. It is because God wants to
guide mankind to save them from hell-fire, and thus needs a Prophet (also known
as Messenger), who can give people His message.
This makes Prophet hood a very subtle device to make
God as an incompetent Creator because He relies on a man (Prophet) for the
conveyance of His message. If God is really Absolute, Omniscient and the most
competent Creator, as Islam repeatedly declares, He could have created a
self-guided man to avoid embarrassment of depending on a Prophet to do His work.
This is what makes Prophet hood a supplement to God, reducing His Divine
splendor, solemnity and supremacy. What makes things even more derogatory to God
is the fact that the Prophet is just a human: he is born in the normal process,
eats, drinks, walks, talks, eats, etc., and eventually dies.
These remarks, which apply to a Prophet physically,
equally hold good morally, too, though the Muslims believe that a Prophet is
innocent and cannot commit a sin. This is a mistaken belief and collides with
the Koran:
" God may forgive thee (Muhammad) thy former and
thy latter sins, and complete His blessings upon thee, and guide thee on a
straight path" ( XLV lil - Victory: 1)
It means that a Prophet commits sin like ordinary people
and requires constant guidance from Allah to walk on the straight path. In other
words, a Prophet is fallible. The God who relies on such a person so completely
and needs him so desperately that Gabriel uses violence to enroll him as a
Prophet, is Himself fallible, to say the least. Such a God cannot be the true
God.
Again, I may also make it clear that Muhammad was not
born guided because firstly, he did not declare his Prophet hood until he was
forty years old; secondly, his wife Khadija converted to Islam when he broke the
news to her about what had happened in the cave. one must remember that they had
been married long before this event, and Islam does not allow a Muslim man to
marry a non- Muslim woman. Evidently, Muhammad himself was not a Muslim prior to
this episode, and practiced his ancestral faith.
Since this is a very important issue, it cannot be left
to interpretation. In fact, this is not necessary because the Koran itself
confirms this truth:
"And thus have we (Allah) inspired in thee
(Muhammad) a spirit of Our command. Thou knewest not what the Scripture (Divine
guidance) was, nor what the Faith (Islam)." (XLIII - Ornaments of Gold: 52)
It shows that Prophet hood being a highly defective
device, cannot represent the dignity of God. In fact, it is a gross insult to
God and serves as the medium for man to present himself as God's superior. It is
the most powerful and compulsive form of dominance. Urge that makes man feel
greater than God and he acts accordingly to prepare religious system to
brainwash people..
The central point of Prophet hood is that the Prophet
declares himself to be a man who has been chosen by God to disseminate His
message. Thus, the Prophet is God's agent, but this agency is absolutely
exclusive to him: God speaks only through him and cannot be approached without
him. Thus, whatever he says becomes the Word of God. This is a very sharp and
subtle form of idolatry because as God cannot be seen or contacted, the Prophet
begins to rank as the Symbol of God exactly the same way as an ordinary statue
is regarded the token of a deity.
To my mind, Muhammad is the most prominent figure in
the world of Prophet hood. Moses, certainly, raised the Jewish nation on the
same principle but his people though materially well off, have been the target
of world's slight, subjugation and slaughter but Muhammad prepared such a
culture based on the doctrine of Prophet hood that the Arabs now, despite being
a backward nation, as well as the source of regression for all the Muslim world,
hold a position of respect, repute and resplendence. This is the true miracle of
Muhammad, and it is unique. Why? Men of other races have claimed to be gods but
it remained an individual affair and they were, chiefly, worshipped by their own
nations only; names of the Egyptian Pharaohs and Roman Emperors are some of the
examples. But Muhammad proclaimed his Godhead through the glory of his nation.
This is the cornerstone of the Arab culture; he prepared a strong and unified
nation inspired by the ideal of self- significance and imperial dreams, but
dedicated to projecting' Muhammad as the "Best of Mankind" and God's
Superior. Thus Muhammad made the success of his own nation as the mark of his
victory. How did he do it?
He declared: "There is no God but Allah, and
Muhammad is His Rasool (Messenger i .e. Prophet).
Though the Koran repeatedly says that mentioning
someone else's name with the name of Allah is the only unpardonable sin, we can
see that Muhammad has his name incorporated with the name of Allah. The purpose
of this device is to indicate the parity of Muhammad with that of Allah. This is
called Shahada i.e. the basic confession, which makes a person Muslim. Just
belief in Allah does not render a person Muslim. Obviously, Allah is nothing on
His own though He may claim to be the Creator, all-powerful, Omniscient, and so
on.
When Muhammad was politically weak, he emphasized his
humility as a human and glorified Allah but when he became powerful, he reversed
the relationship between him and Allah because he himself became the object of
worship by Allah:
"Lo! Allah and His angels pray peace to the Prophet
( Muhammad ) O ye who also pray peace to him and salute him with a worthy
salutation." (XXX - The Clans: 56)
Simply stated, this verse means that Allah and His angels
worship Muhammad because when the Muslims (apparently) worship God, they
actually pray peace to Him. Is it not strange that in every religion, it is man
who worships God but in Islam, it is God, who along with his angels, worships
Muhammad? This is an extreme case of Dominance-Urge, which incites man to be
even God's Superior, and it is the device of Prophet hood that enables him to
achieve this goal.
Now, one can see that in fact, Muhammad is Allah, who
tolerates no peer, and declares that there is no God but He. This necessitates
the elimination of all other Gods. To achieve this end, he laid down the
cardinal rule, Which has become a fountain of Islamic culture.
"It is He (Allah) who has sent His Messenger with
the guidance and the religion of truth (Islam), that He may make it dominant
over every religion.
Muhammad is the Messenger of God, and those who are with
him are hard against the unbelievers, merciful to one another." ( XLVIII
Victory: 25 )
Thus the Cardinal rule of the Islamic Culture is:
1. All Gods are false except Allah (who prays peace to
Muhammad along with His angels).
2. Islam is the only true religion and it is the duty
of all Muslims to make it dominate over all other faiths.
3. The method of making it dominant over other faith is
that the Muslims must be kind to one another but harsh to the unbelievers.
The last i.e. no. 3 serves as the Divine wrath on
mankind and therefore deserves further explanation:
Islam, in fact, is a perpetual declaration of war
against all those, who do not believe in Muhammad. This war is not confined to
words but it is really brutish, barbaric and bewildering. It makes society a hot
bed of mutual hatred based on discrimination of Momin (Muslim) and Kafir
(non-Muslim). Thus, it ignites the flame of eternal conflict far more dangerous,
debilitating and devastating than Karl-Marx could ever visualize: "They
(unbelievers) are Satan's party they are the losers.... Those (the Muslims) are
God's party....they are the prosperers." (LVIII The Disputer: 20)
The Muslims are commanded to wage an everlasting war
against the unbelievers and are assured victory in the struggle.Surely, the
Marxist social philosophy is an extension of the Koranic doctrine. To realize
the significance of this statement, one ought to read the following:
1. On unbelievers is the curse of Allah. (The Cow: 161 )
2. Allah is an enemy to unbelievers. ( The Cow: 15 )
3. The worst of beasts in Allah's sight are the
ungrateful, who will not believe. (Spoils of War: 55)
4. Oh ye who believe! the non-Muslims are unclean.
(Repentance:17)
5. Oh ye who believe! Murder those of the
disbelievers and let them find harshness in you. (Repentance: 123)
6. Oh believers, do not treat your fathers and
mothers as your friends, if they prefer unbelief to belief, whosoever of you
takes them for friends, they are evil-doers. (Repentance: 20)
7. Humiliate the non-Muslims to such an extent that
they surrender and pay tribute. ( Repentance: 29 )
Through the doctrine of hatred, Islam incites Muslims
against non-Muslims and proposes Jehad as the solution to make Islam the
dominant faith. What is Jehad? It is the battle against unbelievers such as the
Hindus, the Christians, the Jews, the atheists - in fact, unbelievers of all
sorts.
Since humans do not like harming innocent people, Jehad
is nothing but an inducement to murder and plunder non-Muslims for the sheer
crime of not believing in Muhammad. It is called a "holy war." Those
who return home victoriously, come laden with booty, which includes wealth and
non-Muslim women for concubinage and free seduction but those
"crusaders" who are killed "in the way of Allah" go straight
to paradise where ever-young virgins of exquisite beauty and pretty boys
anxiously wait to serve them! Even more stunning is the fact that while every
code of moral conduct treats murder, rape, plunder, lechery as sins, Islam
counts them as acts of piety. The Jehad, which is an integral part of the
Islamic culture, explains its moral values.
With a view to making sure that Muslims follow the
Prophet blindly, he claimed that he had Intercessory Powers, which will enable
him to decide on the Day of Judgment as who will go to paradise. It is only his
followers who will qualify for this treat, and it matters not if they were
murderers, thieves, rapists, liars. or traitors. Look at the following:
"...truly this is the word of a noble Messenger
having power, with the Lord of the Throne secure, obeyed, moreover
trusty." (LXXXI: The Darkening: 20)
This is interpreted by the Muslims to mean that on the Day
of Judgment, the Prophet Muhammad will share the Throne of Justice with Allah,
and will sit on His right hand side; it is he who will make recommendations as
who should enter paradise, and his recommendations are binding on Allah!
Who will be recommended by the Prophet Muhammad? The
answer to this question constitutes what may be termed as the Master stroke of
Muhammad, binding on all non-Arab Muslims, no matter where they are. The Koran
says: "You (The Muslims) have had a good example in God's Messenger for
whosoever hopes for God and the Last Day, and remembers God oft." (XXXIII -
The Confederates: 20)
In plain English, it means that Prophet Muhammad is the
Model of Behavior for all those who believe in him. If they "hope for God
and the Last Day," they must follow in his footprints. The more closely
they do so, the better their chances of getting recommended by the Prophet!
Thus, it has become an integral part of the Islamic faith that to be a Muslim
one must walk, talk, eat, drink, look, think, and act like the Prophet. This
being man- worship, is the worst form of idolatry, but this is not the subject
under deliberation. What I am discussing is the Master Cultural Stroke of the
Prophet. Though it has destroyed the dignity of the non-Arab Muslim nations and
has become the main cause of their regression, I applaud the Prophet's ingenuity
and his concern for permanently raising the imperial status of his own people
i.e. the Arabs, by making the Arab Culture as the Divine Culture. Since Culture
means the way of life, all non-Arab Muslims qualify as the Arabian slaves for
imitating the Arab culture without any external coercion.
The central point of this argument is that a Muslim
must think and act like the Prophet; as the Prophet loved Arabia, its
institutions and Practiced its culture, so must do his followers as a matter of
faith, which is far more powerful than reason for being blind, boisterous and
barbaric.
How did the Prophet perform this miracle? Here is a
tiny sketch of this scheme, which speaks for itself:
1. First, he created the fundamental distinction
between Muslims and non-Muslims and prescribed a society in which the Muslims
are permanently at war with the non-Muslims.
2. With a view to making his own country i.e. Arabia
the beneficiary of this Momin-Kafir struggle, he made reverence of the Arab
institutions and customs as an integral part of the Islamic faith.
For example, he declared Kaaba, the central Arab
shrine, as the House of Allah, and asserted that Allah Himself had ordered Adam,
the progenitor of mankind, to build this house for Him.
(The faithful do not realize that if Allah is dependent
on Adam for housing Him, how can He be the Creator of the universe? But in
faith, reasoning has no place; the darker it is, the greater protection it
provides against the harshness of real life.)
3. Kaaba is also the Kibla i.e. the direction of
worship. This has created slavish mentality among the non-Arab Muslims in
relation to Arabia because they have to bow, bend and beseech Allah, who lives
there, at least five times a day. This is, in fact, a daily salutation to the
Arabian soil!
4. A Muslim's grave must be dug in a way that his body
when buried, faces Kaaba (Mecca).
Looking towards Arabia even after one's death shows
one's total subordination to Arabia and betrays one's sense of self- humiliation
to Mecca, the birth place of Muhammad .
5. So sacred is Mecca that nobody must defecate himself
facing this city. He who does so, is a Kafir ( faithless ) .
6. Every Muslim, no matter where he lives, must come to
Mecca for pilgrimage, provided he has the means to do so.
This is a pre-Islamic custom of Arabia, which the
Prophet Muhammad incorporated in Islam for its economic benefits to his country.
7. Allah speaks Arabic, and the Koran is also in
Arabic, which is a difficult language to learn. All Muslims must speak Arabic to
earn Allah's blessing. See, how Allah favors Arabia! In fact, this is the most
effective device to impose Arabian culture on non-Arab Muslims as the Divine
behest.
8. Kaaba is the center of God's blessings because it is
here that one-hundred-and-twenty Divine Benedictions descend every day, and are
therefrom distributed to the rest of the world.
9. Even the Arabian graveyards known as "Jannat-ul-Mualla"
and "Janmnat-ul-Baqee," are the most sacred. According to a hadith,
they look shining to the dwellers of the skies the same way as sun and moon
appear to the people of the earth. Those who are buried there, shall enter
paradise without any accountability, and each of them shall be privileged to
intercede for seventy thousand people! What a glory of the Arabian soil and even
the ordinary dead Arabs, who are buried there!
No wonder that the Muslim pilgrims want to die and be
buried there. For this reason, they sell their houses, land and cattle to raise
money for the holy journey, which is beneficial to Arabia but detrimental to
their own families.
10. Ibne Majah reports in Hadith no. 1463, page 404,
that a Namaz i.e., prayer in the Mosque-in-Medina brings 100 times more
blessings than a similar prayer in other mosques; and a prayer in the Kaaba
invokes 100,000 benedictions compared to a similar worship in other mosques.
Here one can see the preference that the Prophet
Muhammad has bestowed on the Arabian soil in relation to the national homelands
of the non-Arab Muslims. This is how he brainwashed them with the sanctity,
superiority and supremacy of the Arab culture. He achieved this goal by
projecting himself as the Divine model of behavior: as he loved Arabia, all
non-Arab Muslims must love Arabia and be indifferent to their own homelands to
the tune of treason. This is exactly what happened in India during 1947. The
Muslims divided their own country by pretending to be not Indians but a Muslim
nation. They are still holding the same position by opposing introduction of
unified civil code which is extremely harmful to the Indian unity but beneficial
to Arabian culture.
Keshav Dev Sharma is fully aware of this fact in his
book: "The Question of Culture" and is therefore not willing to
compromise with the Muslim Culture in his homeland. Seeking elimination of the
Islamic Culture may be a beautiful dream, but it is not a possibility because
the Hindus neither possess a practicable system of Dharma nor they have the
courage to challenge the Muslims for a duel. This requires discussion about the
Hindu Culture. What is the Hindu culture?
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