Re: [nukkad] The veil

["Dr.M.C. Gupta" <>]

[This message contained attachments that have been removed.]


Ref:

. Even I feel that Islam needs to modernise, magar
kya karein? How to ditch a book that is purportedly directly received
from the Almighty? Do you ever see Muslims giving up that basic tenet
of their religion? Would you, as a Jain, renounce Mahavir? Would a
Hindu ever agree to remove Ganesh or Shiva from the pantheon of
Devtaas?

****

Dr. Taher,

I am surprised that you, too are comparing the incomparables! Once that
route is taken, only an abyss of confusion is the likely result of any
discussion.

What is the similarity between Quran, on the one hand, and Mahavir Jain,
Ganesh and Shiva, on the other? The former is a book. The latter are
personalities, human or divine. Nobody is asking Muslims to denounce or
renounce Mohammad or Allah. No one is asking them to remove him from the
pantheon of prophets, of which there are reportedly 1,40,000. In fact,
nobody is asking them anything, except that while they follow their
religion, they do not create mayhem [felling buildings and planes full of
people; detonating bombs in markets and worship places; jihad / human bombs;
decapitation of prisoners etc ] and abide by the laws of the country in
which they live. Is that too much to ask or expect?

Whether they modernise their religion or not is their problem. Nobody is
asking them for that. However, everyone is suggesting that, as a gesture of
help. Christianity has modernised itself. It also has a last prophet. It
does not treat his word as sacrosanct. The ten commandments are broken day
in and day out. Christ's cartoons and lewd stories about him are published.
Movies are made to show that he was married and Mary was no virgin. But,
Christians do not declare a war on others for doing so. There are better and
more important and urgent things in the world to do.

Look at it this way. Should muslims be so touchy about preserving and
defending the name and honour of of Allah and Prophet Mohammed? A god who
cannot defend himself and preserve his honour is not really a god with godly
qualities.

About Mahavir Jain, I can safely say many Jains won't mind at all if
somebody criticises certain sayings of the Mahavir. As regards Hindus, I
couldn't care less if Ganesh and Shiva are removed from a temple. [That is,
removed by the owner or priest of the temple, not by a horde of muslims
chanting Allah-o-Akbar]. I have already written here so many times that
while a Muslim or Christian can't be atheist, there is no such bar in
Hinduism.

Hope now it is clear why I said you are on the wrong foot. Hindus DO NOT
have any one book  which they hold so sacrosanct that it must be followed
and worshipped and never criticised. They do have a set of 4 books, the
Vedas, which are essential to Hinduism, but no one quotes them in usual
talks or sermons. They are there to shape Hindu thought, and it has been
shaped, because of the force of thought itself, not because of any force or
compulsion. And, nobody minds criticism of the Vedas. Tomes have been
written against their teachings. For many years, the highly popular Hindi
magazine Sarita published a column--Vedon me kyaa likhaa hai. It was plain
lampooning of the scriptures, quoting out of context and distorting the
intent. But, no one revolted or burnt Saita offices. And, those columns
petered out, like the whine of a street dog, without making a dent upon the
number of followers of Hinduism. They  avidly read those columns, and many
did share the criticism. No heads lolled, no decapitations took place. That
is Hinduism, complete tolerance and freedom.

Of course, some one might squeak from a distance: What freedom? What
tolerance? MF Hussain has to live in Dubai because people deny him the
freedom of expression just because he is a muslim. A few more voices may
squeak, or shout, about many more such incidents of intolerance. Let all
those voices come out. They will all be heard. Nobody will pass fatwas
against them. THAT is Hinduism.

And, that is neither legalese, nor verse. That is plain truth, visible to
all like sun who want to see; the ranting of a berserk to those who want
their own views echoed by others. Even they are welcome, because THAT is the
essence of Hinduism, as well as Nukkad.

M C Gupta
23 March 2008.






 are not able to


On 3/23/08, Dr Taher (डा॰ ताहेर कागलवाला) 
wrote:
>
> Thank you all for the comments, none of which were unexpected, by the
> way. I am no great shakes when it comes to practising Islam. As a
> Bohra, I am a more liberal version of the average Sunni Muslim, who is
> the target of most of the barbs of our Nukkad friends here. In
> response to what Maloy said about using Arabic, why, what is wrong in
> having a religion-wide lingua franca? It makes things so much more
> easy to understand, discuss and follow. In fact, often, the finer
> nuances of a word's meaning are lost in translation, as our friend T.
> Vasudevan's son wrote in his veda mail.
>
> As to Guptaji's response, what else could be expected of our
> one-of-the-two resident poets but a poem! LOLZ. Sir responds either
> with a poem or with legalese ... so much so that I have become a
> master at figuring out whose mail it is if it is couched in legalese
> or contains something with meter and verse!! (Easy to delete without
> clicking on details when I am not in a mood to read his verse, :-))
>
> Rohit, you are right. Even I feel that Islam needs to modernise, magar
> kya karein? How to ditch a book that is purportedly directly received
> from the Almighty? Do you ever see Muslims giving up that basic tenet
> of their religion? Would you, as a Jain, renounce Mahavir? Would a
> Hindu ever agree to remove Ganesh or Shiva from the pantheon of
> Devtaas? It is that bad, and therein lies the irony of Islam and its
> lack of progress.
>
> I posted that article just to show you what a deep kind of thinking
> goes into the generation of a particular idea or tenet of a religion.
> I was astonished to see so many ways of looking at the subject of
> Hijaab.
>
> --
> With best wishes,
>
> -Dr. Taher Kagalwala
>
> My other homes:
>
> http://drtaherforkids.com
> http://www.writing.com/authors/drtaher
> http://www.allexperts.com/expert.cgi?m=1&catID=1429&expID=47632
> http://drtahersworld.blogspot.com
>
> Click here to join an earning site: http://www.agloco.com/r/BBDD8855
>
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>
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-- 
Prof. M C Gupta
MD (Medicine), MPH,  LL.M.,

Advocate & Health and Medico-legal Consultant

mcgupta44@gmail.com
www.writing.com/authors/mcgupta44
http://mcgupta44.blogspot.com/

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You couldn't galvanize the general public in <your favourite contry>
if you immersed them in a bath of molten zinc!
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