The Gentle Power of the Sufi Tradition

The remark about South India below was meant to emphasize that South India was not peripheral to Hinduism. Of course Adi Shankara and Ramanaju who made modern Hinduism what it is were from the South.

dost_mittar
Binding progeny for all generations to come -
Is there a law in India against Muslims reverting back? Not that I am aware of.

dost_mittar
Yours probably is a commonly-held view among most Hindus regarding the benignness of the conversion process.

Here's something interesting that throws light on the coversion process (in one geographic location during a certain period but bear in mind that South India was the repository of Hinduism after Muslim onslaught in North India:)

"With the Hindu Renaissance, Jainism in South India went into retreat. There may have been a terrible persecution of Jains in the eighth century. Hindu temples in Tamil Nadu show the impaling of eight thousand Jains at Madurai. In Karnataka Jains were slaughtered by the Virashaiva movement which started in the twelfth century, but Jains had important positions in the Vijayanagar empire founded in 1336. Nevertheless, Jainism continued to decline with many Jains converting to Hinduism. Significant numbers only remained in south west India. Jainism hung on tenaciously, exemplified by the erection of great images of Bahubali at Karkala in 1432 and at Venur in 1604."

from http://www.digambarjainonline.com/dharma/djsect.htm

om_prakash:

I am not a scholar of this period, so what I say is tentative. You can certainly define "evangelist" in a certain way that includes Adi Shankara. But whatever little I have read tells me that Shankara was not the first one to practice that technique; apparently, Buddha, Mahavira, Charvac all used the same technique; i.e. entered into a debate (shastrartha) and whoever was defeated became the disciple of the winner, alongwith his disciples. You can call it conversion, if you will, but the conversion was more like someone changing from Republican to Democrat and not necessarily a lifelong "conversion". I believe this is still the case among Hindus today; they may follow Sai Baba today and Anandpur wale tomorrow; this is not comparable to conversion which involves not only oneself for life but also binds one's progeny for all times to come.

Conversion as we understand it today not only involves accepting someone as a guru but also means renouncing one's previous faith. In that sense, even Buddha did not convert anyone because, as far as I know, he never renounced the religion (even the word religion does not have an equivalent in Indic languages) of his birth.

Publius
I said per my definition Muhammad was not an evangelist. Any way that's just semantics.
Within 'Hinduism' itself, there have been sectarian conflicts, some times violent, between saivites and vaishnavites over which god is superior.

If all you are saying is that Muhammad was spreading his view of god and Shankara his and to that extent they are both "evangelical", without considering their particular views of god well then murad has failed even in that regard, since he doesn't equate the two but puts Muhammad over Shankara.

But in fact the particular view of God preached by either does matter. It is no accident that Muhammad unleashed an imperialist religion trying to spread itself everywhere in the world and Shankara didn't.

The energy for evangelism is directly proportional to the exclusivist view of God. The more exclusivist it is , the more energetic that religion will be in trying to spread itself. And so on the evangelism question there are clear cut differences between Muhammad and his message and Shankara and his message.

Anyway , last post for now.

#331 Saima shah, there is no such thing as a Quran in persian, there is one Arabic Quran period. You make unsubstantiated claims like the BS that Hinduism and Islam are the same, they are not their social situatedness is not the same nor is their essence. Some similarities do not translate into, they are the same. They are not.

Have a nice day and don't arrogantly ban me for disagreeing with your "intellectual" nonsense. You are as shallow in your analysis as the mainstream liberals whose work is spewed just to give the impression that the system is open to dissent. They don't have a clue neither do you- how about that as poetry?

TNITC masadi

Saima Shah, can I ask why you have been censoring all of my articles as editor in chief of Chowk and promoting yourself and others that write on irrelevant topics, given the current socio-political situation around the country and the world. You should be ashamed of yourself for doing so.

Have a nice day and don't arrogantly ban me for making this post.

TNITC masadi

Publius
Are you aware that there were bloody confrontations and efforts at conversion between Hindus and Jains?

Sorry I meant A = C or B = D.

Publius
Saying that A relates to B similar to how C relates to D, does not at all mean A=B or C=D.

"Hindu notion of the importance of god"

That notion is not exclusivist , om. Sure they would accept that there was a 'Brahman' and there was a 'self' and that enlightenment comes with realizing that identity through voluntary discovery.( which was Shankara's view)

But that notion of God and Quranic notion of God are utterly different.(Of a God that has sent his message for all times, exclusively through his messenger,which men must obey and follow).

"From what I understand, had Shankara lost any of his debates, he would have had to give up Hinduism also."

Unbelievable. Incredible. For a 'Hindu' to make that statement!

That just knocks my socks off. But I have to leave right now, and will be back later in the evening to learn more about Shankaracharya from Om bhai and Murad baig.

Publius
There were theological differences in addition to philosophical one.
You have to remember that Buddhists were agnostic about god whereas Shankara believed in all sorts of deities. Acceptance of Hinduism would have meant accepting Hindu notion of the importance of god.

Re: # 13

I feel a little sad but also excited to read your comment. Rumi's work is considered to be the Quran in persian--so certainly Rumi wasn't a plagiarist and if he was then he was a plagiarist of both Quran and Hindu ideas... The facts are that the essence of all religions is the same. Hinduism and Islam are aspects of the same truth. I mean they are the same. It may upset your concept of your identity that has been brainwashed since childhood Hinduism has nothing to do with Islam me hindu therefore not muslim, but sadly that is political glastnost, not the truth.

Yeah but what was the content of Adi Shankara's view ?

Did he claim that he had the final true message from God which other must adhere to ? or did he try and defeat his opponents in rational debate( which he excelled in) ?

The central content, the substance of his views, was entirely absent of the notion of bringing people to the message of the one true god.( His view was humans achieve enlightenment by realizing the identity between themselves and Brahman)