Myth of Composite Culture and Equality of Religions by Harsh Narain is an essential conceptual ride that should be endorsed by those who want to understand the theological world. While riding, one must be careful about illusion in the form of stone to prevent any intellectual accident. Well, certain stones have been discussed in the previous part along with enjoying the conceptual ride. Let us continue this intellectual ride.
INDIA: DAR AL-HARB OR DAR AL-ISLĀM?
The author begins the second chapter named INDIA: DAR AL-HARB OR DAR AL-ISLĀM? by explaining the fundamental theological humiliative bifurcation; says – “The Qur’an bifurcates humanity into the Faithful/Mu’mins/Muslims and the Unfaithful/Infidels/Kāfirs, and the latter into Scripturaries and Polytheists/Idolaters/Mushriks. It rules out lasting cooperative, friendly, or even peaceful co-existence of the Muslims with the Käfirs, all contemporary apologetic and rationalization to the contrary notwithstanding. The quintessence of its commands to the Muslims vis-a-vis the Kāfirs (in a Dar al-Harb) as perceived, preached and practised by the Prophet, his Companions and Followers, and later Crescentaders and theologians/jurists, can be put as under:
- Try to convert the Kāfirs to Islam.
- If any of them resist,
(1) try to consign them to the grave before Allah consigns them to the hell-fire, plunder and loot their property (al-anfal/al-ghanā’im) movable and immovable (al-amwal wa’l-amlāk), enslave them, menfolk (usrā’) and womenfolk and children (sabāyā) alike;
(2) or, where imposition of Jizyah is permissible, let the Kāfirs escape death and compound their offence of Kufr (infidelity) by disgracefully paying Jizyah, abjectly surrendering to the brute force of the Muslims, and suffering all sorts of indignities as Dhimmi-s (protected ones);
(3) or, again, if you find yourselves too weak to deal with the Käfirs the way outlined above, take recourse to hejira (hijrah) and bide your time.
The author throws light on the religio –geographical dividation in Islamic theology, he expounds how in the Qur’anic provisions, the Faithful were led to bifurcate the world into two opposite domains: Dar al-Islam (the domain of Islam) or, and Dar al-Harb (the domain of war). Sometimes, a third domain is also proposed, particularly by Imam Shafi’î and Imām Muhammad bin al-Hasan, conceptually midway between the two and designated alternatively as Dār al-‘Ahd, Dar-as Şulh, Dar al-Amn, Dar al-Amãn, and Där as-Salm.
Narain puts Dar al-Islām is held to be of three kinds, in his own words :
- Haram/Haramayn Sharīfayn (Mecca and Medinah), which only the Muslims are permitted to visit and inhabit and which the Kafirs cannot even pass through. However, Imām Abū Hanifah permits the Scripturaries to pass through it.
- Hijāz, the heartland of Arabia, including the Haramayn Sharīfayn (Mecca and Medinah), which barring the Haramayn Sharīfayn, of course, the Käfirs may only pass through but where they are not permitted to bury or cremate their dead. The Prophet is traditioned to have willed that no Käfir should be permitted to reside there.
- The rest of the territories of the world.
Further, the author told about kinds of Dar al-Harb, it is of two kinds:
- A territory that has never been a Dar al-Islām.
- A territory that is no longer a Där al-Islām
Narain’s academic brilliance can be observed by the mention of primary sources while describing the theological concepts of Islam. The author gives reference of Imam Muhammad’s al-Mabsür, in the continuation of the above topic, that, ‘When a Country of Islam falls into the hands of the Infidels, it remains a Country of Islam if the Infidels retain Muhammadan Governors and Muhammadan Judges and do not introduce their own Regulations.”
Bowing head before the rulers of Almighty to maintain DAR AL-ISLĀM
Neither the Marathas nor the Britishers, as per the author, interfered or disturbed the administration of Subedārs and Qādīs. The East India Company left the Muslim administration of the provinces intact, retained the Shari’ah as the law of the land.
Further, the author gives another definition of the religio – geographical dividation in Islam, according to Sayyid Muhammad Miyān of Jam’iyyat al-‘Ulama’i Hind, Dar al-Islām means a Muslim state, whereas Där al-Harb means a non-Muslim state even though there be no war between the Muslims and the non-Muslims and the latter enjoy the fruits of equality before law. According to Shah ‘Abd al-‘Azīz (1746-1824), a territory remains a Dār al-Islām as long as the war between the Muslims and Käfirs continues and the territory ceases to be a Dar al-Islam and changes into a Dar al-Harb even when the Muslims are unable to fight and yet live in peace, retain their possessions, and have full religious freedom, thanks to the tolerant temper and benignity of the Kafirs rather than to the prowess and dominance of the Muslims.
The essential Duty of Faithfuls
While delineating the incident of British forces entering Delhi in 1803 and there was no hope left of saving the Mughal throne,in detail, how Shah ‘Abd al – ‘Aziz issues the famous fatwa (decree) that India had turned into a Dar al – Harb, the author additionally explained that according to the Shari’ah, ‘If infidels press hard or occupy a town in a Country of Islam (Bilad-ul-Islām), it is absolutely incumbent (Farz-‘ain) on every Muhammadan man, woman, and child to hurt and drive away the Infidel Ruler.’
As indicated earlier, the author further explains, the Muslims in a Dar al Harb have only two alternatives:
- To embark upon Jihad with a view to converting the Dar al-Harb into a Dar al-Islām.
- Failing which, to migrate to a safer territory. If, therefore, India is a Dār al-Harb, the danger of an outbreak of Jihad is anybody’s guess. And, if it is a Dār al-Islām, the requirements of the Shari’ah will not be me. converted to a Dar al-Islām de facto. It is, indeed, up to the Muslim community in India to decide if it will maintain the distinction of Dar al-Islām and Dar-al-Harb and hold fast to all that it implies or bid good-bye to this part of the Shari’ah. Needless to say that the implications of their decision will be far-reaching. Akbarābādī’s thesis does appear to tamper with the Shari’ah but would feel powerless before the might of the doctrine of Jihad, as summed up at the very outset.
Moving on to the third chapter, the author clarified the motive behind this chapter, he clearly describes, to whom this book will address. The author describes that there are some to whom their religion is true and some others to whom all religions are false or foolish. These people are not the target audience, as per the author, but those who advocate the idea of comparatively new fangled notion that all religions are one, equal or equality valid.
The author clarifies the disposition of Semitic Religions, while saying that, “the tone and temper of the three Semitic religions, viz. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is exclusivistic.” “Each of them asserts, author adds, that only that is true and that all other religions, not excluding the remaining Semitic religions, are either false from the first or are perverted versions of the only true religion ‘outgrowths of error, sin, and malice’, as Arnold Toynbee would have it. That is why Christianity and Islam are proselytizing religion”
In this chapter, the author points out that how the modern tendency of regarding all religions as the same begins from Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Paramhansa declared that all religions pursuing different ways will finally reach the same God. The Author further gives a detailed description of Paramhansa Islamic Sadhana. After the description of his sadhana, the author again points out the question of all religions being equal and same…?? Because as per the words of Ramakrishna he experienced and vision of all three gods while practicing Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. The question above raised by Narain seems valid here and something we all should ponder upon. The author also encompassed the views of Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave on this issue of equality of religions along with logic and arrived at the conclusion that their notion is fundamentally flawed.
Narain very sharply encompasses the thoughts and standpoints of Rumi, Mahabharat and Brhattika on the concept of equality of religions. Let us go through each ;
- Rumi’s take on this
An ki goyad jumlah haqq ast ahmaqi ‘st
W’ ān ki goyad jumlah bațil ān shaqi ‘st
(Whoever says all (religions) are true is an idiot, and whoever says all are false is a rogue).
- Jayanta Bhatta’s take on this
Jayanta Bhatta remarks that, if it be contended that all religions are valid, true, then, if I, too, found a religion today, it, too, would become valid, true, passage of time:
Sarvāgama-pramaņātve nanvevam upapādite
Aham apyadya yam kañcid āgamam racayāmi cet,
Tasyāpi hi pramāņatvam dinaiḥ katipayair bhavet.
- The Mahābhārata contains a remarkable couplet in this connexion, that the fundamental moral principles in general may be shared by all religions in common and even equal but their philosophical positions are often different:
Tulyam śaucam tapoyuktam, dayā bhūteșu cānagha!
Vratānām dhāraņam tulyam, darśanam na samam tayoh.
- In his Brhattīkā, Kumārila invites our attention to the innate differences amongst the different religious traditions and argues against the idea of their equal validity:
Tīrthakṛt-samayānām ca paraspara-virodhatah
Sarveṣām āptatā nāsti, kaścid eva bhaved guruh.
The author explicitly mentions how the Quran proclaims that religion is only one, which was revealed by God to man through different prophets and in different forms to different peoples in different times and climes. God has sent his prophets to every nation and every age to proclaim the one religion. Elaborating the ‘coexistential’ disposition of Islam, Narain quotes, a great classical commentator in Arabic, Qādī Abū Bakr Ibn al- ‘Arabi (b. 1076 A.D.) : ‘Wherever in the Qur’an there are directions to forget, forbear, forgive, and avoid the Käfirs, all such directions stand abrogated by the verse of the sword (ayat as-sayf), which is, “Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters whenever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But, if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is forgiving, merciful. “30 This verse has served to abrogate one hundred twenty-four verses.” Same is the case with another verse: ‘… Wouldst thou (O Muhammad!) compel men until they become believers?
Narain delves deep into the question of what does this unity and equality of all religions actually mean? The following alternatives are suggested by the author :
- Uniformity, formal identity
- Commonness of core
- Essential unity, commonness of essence
- Cognation/cognateness, or common origin
- Organismic unity
- Unity of objects of worship/devotion
- Unity of spirit and of purpose
- Unity of means, of approach
By explaining each alternative (some in detail, few in short), the author concluded, it is evident that unity, equality, or equal validity of all religions is nothing better than a myth.
While explaining the third one, the author grabs the attention of readers to the most fundamental distinction between Islam and Hinduism. He delineates “As regards the third alternative, what is to be understood by essence? As we have seen, the gulf dividing Hinduism and Islam is too yawning to be bridgeable. The centre of gravity of Hinduism is, on one hand, the realizable or in the ultimate analysis rather eternally self-realized Atman, the Self, as against a wholly other, rather whimsical, jealous, extracosmic personal God of Islam; on another, self-realization, self-enlightenment, as against correct belief and unquestioning obedience to the letter of the law in Islam; on a third, due regard for varying levels of spiritual competence (adhikāra-bheda) as against anti-polytheistic, iconoclastic monotheism of Islam,……… and, on a fourth, Dharma – the variously manifesting individual, social, as well as cosmic Norm-, historical instantiations of which are subject to change with the changing time-place-circumstance (deśa-kāla-nimitta), as against Din, as in Islam, fixed for all time to come.”
Through rigorous comparative analysis and reading of the long history of religions of the world, Narain, arrived at the conclusion that indeed, Hinduism is an open religion, an evolutionary religion, a pluralistic religion, an alternationistic religion, and what-not. Above all, it is discreditable as a dialectical religion in both the fundamental senses of the term ‘dialectical”:
- It is a process.
- Its growth often takes place through conflict and contradiction in the realm of ideas and approaches.
This book is a conceptual document, a mental cleansing formula encompassing primary references of Sufis, Islam and Sanatan sanskriti’s granths. Expounding over each concept pertaining to this sensitive topic and then encompassing every nuanced aspect is an academic brilliance done by the author. Moreover, this book is not just an everyday comparison of Hinduism and Islam, it encompasses the other religions like Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, Buddhism and every sect under large Hindu culture like Sramana culture, Lingaytas and Shaivites.
But as certain celebrities have this notion of India becoming more polarised now – a – days, they should definitely read this book in order to know who are the real polarising forces? As the author puts : “Indeed, every religion has its personality, which serves to distinguish and differentiate it from other religions and thereby to give it its own identity. That has to be identified.”
