Ideas and tips on any subject: Resemblance in Muslim and Hindu practices

Declaration of Faith, Prayer, Charity, Fasting, Pilgrimage

Now the question that began to pester me was, from where these five practices came to Arabs. When we see other contemporary religious practices we do not see that any other earlier religion had such practice. Was it original practice by Arabs? Looking to earlier references I came to know that Arabs had a long time relation with west coast of India. Stretching from Cambay to coast of Malabar passing through the coast of Konkan. Arabs were a maritime people and they traveled across in Arabian sea carrying cargo of sandalwood, spices, medicines, cloth, ivory, medicines and many items of importance from India to Arabia. I could locate many colonies developed by ancient Arabs and also developed by Arabs after Islam. These colonies are found in Tamilnadu also. That means, Arabs were a regular visiting people to India or Hind. Along with trade as it always happens, Arabs copied various religious practices from Hindus. This I can say with surety because the five pillars are very common in the Hindus. They also carried many Goddesses from the west coast of Konkan. Famous Arab deities Mannat, Al-Uzzá, and al-Lāt or al-'Ilāhat were imported from Konkan region and were the principle deities of nomadic Arabs for many centuries. The Black Stone (Hajar Aswad) that Mohammad kissed after performing circumambulation is taken from India as a symbol of All time God; in Hind called Mahadev. The very practice of circumambulation is adopted by Arabs from Hind. In no religion of that middle Asia region has this practice. Worshiping trees, queer shaped natural Stones are all practices Arabs adopted from Hind while they were staying here. Since they did not have any practice of there own it was but natural that they accept practices of other friendly communities. In later period many stories can be narrated by story tellers of Arabia and to accept them against any tangible proof, I think is not proper. If we want to get to the truth irrespective of biases we should go by the circumstantial evidence only. Measure change prophet made is in the first pillar, belief in Allah and only Allah. Prior to that Arabs were polytheists much like Hindus. May be, the types of Gods they worshiped were different.

Hindu religion has prayer practice but with difference that Hindus prayed only twice. Mohammad added additional prayers for his followers because Arabs were not very much engaged during the day. They were spending their time doing practically nothing but grazing their goats. To keep them busy adding prayers was the only solution to avoid them getting into any wrong doings. As we say, "empty mind is a Satan's workshop", and this empty mind was creating many quarrels and ensuing fights among these Arabs. To avoid all that he introduced more prayers. In India we see Brahman community having done the same thing to keep people busy. Third pillar is of charity. Prophet Mohammad did not specify whom to make Charity. However, in Hindus it is specifically given that charity must be made to only deserving person. Charity is not found as an essential duty of a Christian or a Jew. But it is so in Hindus. Fasting is very common in Hindus. Today we see our social leaders sitting to do fast to purify themselves and the society. This is not seen in the other two religions. However, we know Jews accepted this practice afterwards. Hindus have fasting month which comes in around the same time of the year as does Ramdan. The style of fasting is different but such things are always seen happen. Over the period practices keep changing as per the needs of those people. We have to see only the basics. Pilgrimage is the last pillar and that is also found in Hindus. Visiting secret places is an essential practice amongst Hindus. We see the Namaz (Salah) Muslims do to pray, that is copied from the Buddhist practice of praying. Neither Jews nor the Christians do it that way.

This observation shows that measure parts of Islamic practice has been based on the pre-Islamic religion of Arabs and that religion has taken its theme from Hind religions. I also noticed that there is tremendous resemblance in laws given in Manusmruti of Hindus and those in sharia. As for Jihad I see some difference in Hindu concept and Islamic concept. Hindus call Jihad against six internal enemies (known as Shadripus) while Islam calls for Jihad against non believer. Hindus do not consider it necessarily that God has only one name and we see that there are as many names of Gods as we please, that was restricted to only one name by Prophet but prior to him there were many names to gods and Arabs used them to pray.

Even though sacrifice of an animal (Qurbani) is not mentioned as the basic five tenet of Islam it is a very important part in the Islamic practices. Which they have obviously borrowed from pre-Islamic Arab religion. Surprisingly we see that this practice of sacrificing a goat is the most common practice amongst many Hindus. And after the sacrifice its meat is shared by the faithful. This eating the sacrificed animal is not actually allowed in Koran. There we see that Abraham wanted to sacrifice his son but in stead, a goat appears in place of his son. And the goat is killed but that meat is not to be eaten. However, today we see Muslims eat that meat with great fan and fare very much like Hindus; Hindus eat that as an offering (prasad) from their deity. A Muslim eating the meat of sacrificed animal is most against Islamic teachings; but that is happening in all Muslims who claim to be very much Islamic!

One other practices of Arabs that continues in Muslims is about castration. This practice they took from Jews and it is due to a belief amongst Jews that Lilithu a demon would rape a person if he is not castrated during childhood. Even though Koran does not recommend it or even does not have any reference to this Lilithu; belief is that, Mohammad was doing it; may be, due to habitual practice of those Arabs. and so all Muslims practice it. That practice is from Jews and so Hinduism is not concerned. Many African Muslims practice it on women that shows the ignorance of these Muslims. Present Islam is actually a mix of Mohammedan Islam and Pre-Islamic Arab religion.

I think the link between Hinduism and Arab religion if we understand it may help us know better how this religion evolved. And contribution of Hinduism to that is well established. There are many other points to be touched in this regards. However, due to some prestige issues, this link between Hinduism and Islam may not be accepted by some scholars.

Differences in Hinduism and Brahmanism continues in the next post

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