Replies to Juzair

Sept 29

Dear Juzair, You say Allah created us from a drop. What did he create to create that drop? If we regress, we would come to a point when He did not need anything to create that basic thing because that basic thing was Himself. This means 'creation' is nothing other than He, the formless, Himself taking on various forms. Therefore there has never been a creation. That is, Allah is not the creator. Allah exists and Allah is existence. The idea that Allah is the creator is an error of Islam.

Sept 21

Dear Juzair, Actually I have no need to join issue with anything that is taught in the Quran because they can all be understood to be true from different perspectives. What I find amazing is that Muslims consider only the Quran to be true and all other scriptures as worthless. What is called for is broad-mindedness - beneficial both at the individual level as well as the social level.

Sept 14
Dear Juzair, You are condemning idol worship without realizing that if idols are things, words are also considered things and since Allah is a word, it also can be considered an idol. Only in silence is idol worship totally obliterated.

Sep 9

Dear Juzair, Who is this "you" that Allah addresses when He says He has perfected "your" religion for you? It is obvious that He means believers. I am not a believer. Which is "this day"? Does it mean that Allah was not able to perfect something till that day? While I would not say that Islam is wrong, I would also say that it is not absolutely right or even right in a higher sense. As a matter of fact, Islam stuns its believer’s growth to higher levels of understanding. Which is why all Muslims maintain that Islam is the only truth!

Sep 7
Dear Juzair, I am very touched by your sincerity and love for your religion. But I have no fear of Allah. He knows I have my own religion and, as He said elsewhere in the Quran, if He wanted it, he could have made everyone a Muslim. That He has allowed many religions and stated "Onto you your religion and onto me my religion" proves that I am on the right track in following my religion. So please do not be worried about my fate and I do not think Allah wants you too either.

Where does it say in the Quran that Islam is the only true religion?

Sep 2
Dear Juzair, I understand what you are saying. As a Hindu, I don't see any reason why anyone should say that Islam and its teachings are wrong. But I do not agree that Islam is the only religion. You may say that Allah prefers worship in a certain way. This is the concept of Allah as propounded in the Quran. The concept of Allah (or God) as propounded in the Gita is that God can be worshipped in any way. So you have your belief and I have my belief. As a Muslim you believe that only what is said in the Quran is right. As a Hindu, I believe that what is said in the Gita is right and also what is said in the Quran - each from its own view point.

"For something to be right something wrong must first exist." This is an interesting proposition by you and I shall discuss it at length later.

Aug 20
You say Allah is the property of all and not just Muslims. This implies that Allah can be worshipped not just as prescribed in Islam, but also, say, as prescribed in Hinduism. Do you agree?

Aug 19
Dear Juzair, What you state makes sense. But what I was wondering was whether God is responsible for man's suffering or is man suffering because of his own mistakes? If man can cause himself suffering, can he not also cause himself happiness? Then where is the need for a God?

Aug 18
Dear Juzair, It is good that you have imaan (faith) and don't ask questions about God and religion beyond a point. But those who are not blessed with that faith or who do not have faith in a particular religion would certainly ask questions that would seem unwarranted to others and often they seem to get satisfactory answers too.

According to me Islam does not give a satisfactory answer as to why there is suffering in the world except to say that it is the will of God - which compromises the impartiality of God because not everyone suffers. Hinduism, with its theory of Karma, makes man responsible for his happiness or suffering and eventually goes on to say that the very cause of existence is existence itself and not an external agency called God.

Aug 11
Why should we quarrel amongst ourselves? We should each of us strive to go on in the path chosen by ourselves, often meeting in friendliness exchanging notes along the way. To try to prove that one religion alone is true is a wrong approach.

Dear Juzair, All religions have praised God in their own way and have understood God to be supreme. The issue is not the greatness of God, but the suffering of man. How can man end his suffering? This is the question. If becoming a loyal slave of Allah is the answer, than that path should be pursued, as Muslims do. Others believe that discovering our true nature is the answer. Some believe that money is the answer. Sometimes it might be a case of someone being satisfied with a certain answer though it might not be the ultimate answer. Let all answers be available for man and let him make his choice. According to Islam if the wrong answer is chosen, man will suffer for eternity in hell. According to Hinduism man will be born again and again till he gets the correct answer. What is the truth? Who knows - people believe in this or that. So essentially, we are believers. Why should we quarrel amongst ourselves? We should each of us strive to go on in the path chosen by ourselves, often meeting in friendliness exc

Aug 10
Dear Juzair, I do not think any non-Muslim disputes that Allah has got not just some virtues but all the virtues and some more. Because non-Muslims also believe in Allah, though they many use another name. The question is, what is man's potential? Are we slaves of Allah or are we part and parcel of the divinity that Allah is? Islam teaches only upto the point of our being slaves of Allah. This is not the ultimate teaching. Hinduism teaches that we are divine. This is the basic difference between Islam and Hinduism.

Aug 10
Dear Mr. Juzair, Thanks for writing to me directly. First of all let me tell you that I am not arguing or questioning what Allah is. I definitely accept He could be beyond any of our conception. But what about man? He has his limits and he necessarily has to bring the ultimate to his level of understanding. He has to restrict himself in the realm of sound and words. The masters say that the realm of silence is the highest but only few can reach that level in any generation. Therefore if we say that Allah is outside us, he remains an object to our subject. Worship of an object, whatever the nature of the object, is idol worship. When worship ends and the worshipper recognizes himself as the worshiped, the object of worship no longer exists and only the subject exists, thus ending idol worship or any worship. This freedom from worship is conceived of only in the vision of Advaita or non-duality.
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Venu:
You may form your own opinion and call me a hate monger. That is your freedom. But do not imply that RSS has anything to do with hate mongering. It is a nationalistic organisation.
Sep 14
juzair...:
salam dear thanks fr the advise i m oblidged...lets say a kashmiri muslim lik me has seen a whole buncha lot like venu...cant say much...ne ways ALLAH has revealed to us the surah bakarah sum mum buk mun umyun fahum la yargion...see his sijeen is being written...inshslah our iliyoun is being written...wats ur real name.....well here is my email id juzair_sheikh@yahoo.co.in..keep in touch.