TELEGRAPH THIS ABOVE ALL Saturday , February 16 , 2008 A Messiah for our time Khushwant Singh Prejudice is like poison. Unless purged out of one's mind in early stages, it can spread like cancer and make one incapable of differentiating between right and wrong. Of the many kinds of prejudice, the worst is to believe that one's own religion is superior to all others, which may be tolerated but never taken seriously or accepted as equally valid as one's own. The most misunderstood of the major religions today is Islam, which, after Christianity, is the second most widely practised religion in the world. It also gains more converts than any of the other religions. Prejudice against Islam was spread in Christendom from the time Muslims gained dominance in the Middle East, North Africa and Muslims are extremely sensitive to criticism of their Prophet. A popular adage in Persian is: ba khuda diwaana basho, ba Mohammed hoshiar! — "say what you like about God, but beware of what you say about Mohammed." They regard him as the most perfect man who ever trod upon the earth, a successor of Adam, Moses, Noah, Abraham and Christ. He was the last of the prophets. If you honestly want to know how Muslims see him, you ought to take a good look at his life and teachings, which he claimed had been revealed to him by God. It would be as wrong to judge him by the doings of al-Qaida and taliban or by the fatwas periodically pronounced by Ayatollahs and half-baked mullahs. You do not judge Hinduism of the Vedas and Upanishads by the doings of Hindus who, in the name of Hindutva, destroy mosques, murder missionaries and nuns, vandalize libraries and works of art. You do not judge the teachings of the Sikh gurus by the utterances of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and by the murder of innocents by his hooligans. Likewise, judge Mohammed by what he taught and stood for and not by what his so-called followers do in his name. Mohammed was born in As might have been expected, Mohammed's mission roused fierce hostility. Many attempts were made to assassinate him but he had miraculously escaped. Ultimately, in 622 AD he was advised to flee from Most of the ill-founded criticism against Mohammed is directed towards the number of women he married after the death of his first wife, Khadijah. This has to be seen in the perspective of Arabian society of the time. Tribes lived by warring against each other and looting caravans. There were heavy casualties of men, creating serious gender imbalance. Widows and orphans of men killed had to be provided with homes and sustenance. Otherwise they took to prostitution or begging. So they were given protection by being taken in marriages. Also, matrimonial alliances were a good way of creating bonds between different tribes. Mohammed did nothing not acceptable to his people. He went further: he was the first teacher to proclaim that the best union was a monogamous marriage and fixed the maximum limit to four, provided a man could keep all of his wives equally happy — which was most unlikely. The pertinent verse in the Quran reads: "And if you have reason to fear you might not act equitably towards orphans, then marry from among other women who are lawful to you, even two or three or four; but if you have reason to fear you might not be able to treat them with equal fairness, then only one." Bear in mind that at that time polygamy was the norm in patriarchal societies all over the world. To make a beginning in clearing your mind of anti-Muslim prejudices, I suggest you read Karen Armstrong's Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time. Armstrong is the leading writer on comparative religions today. She is not Muslim.
Subject: Fw: [CharminarConnection] Read what Khushwant Singh writes. Date: 3/26/2008 11:10:44 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time From: stsintl@roadrunner.com
Thursday, March 27, 2008
[mukto-mona] Read what Khushwant Singh writes.
" Of the many kinds of prejudice, the worst is to believe that one's own religion is superior to all others, which may be tolerated but never taken seriously or accepted as equally valid as one's own".
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