This article was just published in the quint.

ZAKIR NAIK – PREACHER OR PROVOCATEUR?

Murad Ali Baig

It is easy to blame anyone for inspiring terrorism but there is no evidence that Zakir Naik is guilty of doing anything but proclaiming words about Islamic law and traditions. A look at YouTube or other social media will show an ardent speaker in a prayer cap to proclaim his piety and a neat western suit and tie to declare his relevance to modern audiences. He attracts huge audiences not only on his own PeaceTV but at numerous public venues in Dubai, Dacca and in many Indian cities.

Many viewers may be offended by his remarks about women’s rights, Osama Bin Laden, Jews, etc., but it has to be said that Naik does not step outside the limits of Islamic traditions. If his comments are offensive it is because the Quran and many other sources of Islamic law, like all scriptures, were created in mediaeval times when values were very different to those of today. He greatly resembles a passionate criminal lawyer who will argue his brief and shows an impressive knowledge about Judaism, Christianity and even Hinduism.

His brief is however confined to Islamic writings and he does not admit what historians know today that the verses of Quran were only collected 33 years after the death of the prophet by Uthman the third Khalif. He, like most Muslims, also ardently believes that the events in the life of the prophet were well recorded when in fact the first biographer ibn Ishaq was born 72 years after Muhammad’s death. Al Tabari the second biographer was a Persian born another 53 years later. The second most important Islamic scripture is the Hadis (Hadith) that was composed by Al Bukhari and others still later. Islamic traditions can thus be proved to be the work of a number of mortal humans and not the immortal words of God as many want to believe.

Zakir Naik is not universally popular in Muslim circles but this is not surprising as there are approximately 72 Muslim sects and sub sects and his strongly Wahhabi orientation is especially offensive to the many million Shias, Sufi and Ahmediyas. The Wahhabi element is mainly responsible for the hate and violence that it often advocates. Abd Al Wahhab, born about 1703, popularized a very extreme Islamic philosophy that rejected not just idolatry but reverence to any mortal. The Wahhabis disallowed ceremonies for marriage or death, worship of saints, adorning of graves, tombs or other sacred objects, holding religious processions, art, music and dance and demanded the total suppression of women. They did not even spare the tomb of the prophet at Madina and stripped the Kaaba of all the treasures gifted by pilgrims to decorate it. 

Religious teachers including his own father and uncle were horrified at his excesses but he was fortunate to find a patron in Muhammad Al-Saud who used this vitriolic new creed as a powerful weapon to propel his tribe to win his descendents the kingdom of Arabia that they rule to this day. Then the discovery of oil in 1938 gave them the power to finance the spread of their fanatic creed to all Muslim countries. 

Though Naik appears knowledgeable about Judaism he does not explain how the Jewish Torah (Tawraat) became one of the sacred books of Islam roughly three hundred years after the prophet. Most of the horrible sins in the 613 (not 10) Commandments and the ghastly punishments in the book of Leviticus are not found in the Quran but are widely used by many Muslim clerics to make Islam so unpalatable in modern times.

If Islam was the religion of Muhammad how was it hijacked by revisionists?

As in all religions the traditions of Islam were changed frequently over the centuries by a number of passionate clerics who moved the Islamic Sharia from the mostly peaceable words of Muhammad to the angry rhetoric of the Taliban and IS. This continuous shift is clear from main milestones of the religion:

570 AD. Birth of the prophet Muhammad.

610. Muhammad receives the divine revelation from the angel Gabriel.

622. The Hijra. Muhammad migrates from Mecca to Medina to mark the beginning of the Muslim calendar.

632. Death of Muhammad.

661. Assassination of Ali that marks the beginning of Shia faction.

665. The third Khalif Uthman announces the definitive version of the Quran probably written by Zaid Ibn Thabit 33 years after Muhammad’s death.

704. Birth of Ibn Ishaq the first biographer about the life of Muhammad. There is no record of the prophet’s life till 82 years after the hijra. 142 years later Al Tabari elaborated on it.

Two hundred years after the death of Muhammad the second most sacred Islamic book, the Hadis (or Hadith) was compiled by a few pious scholars to guide Muslims to not only follow the words of the Prophet in the Quran but also examples from his life. Scholars like Al Bukhari tried to trace the descendents of the prophet’s family and reconstruct the stories of his life. Bukhari however rejected 99% of the stories that were offered to him. Restrictions on women like the veil only now become a requirement. The Prophet’s smallest actions become acts of piety for many Muslims. 

750 – 1258. Abbasid Caliphate. The Islamic empire containing many diverse races became a complex imperial society that needed new legal authorities like the Qazi (magistrate) concerned with legal matters, functions of the police, taxes and the status of non-Muslim subjects. Islamic law now split into six schools.

In the tenth century the Jewish Torah (Tawraat) was adopted and the Jewish sins of blasphemy, heresy, witchcraft, etc., became Islamic sins. Muslim clerics only now began prescribing the Jewish death sentences by burning, stoning, beheading and strangulation even though the Quran had never prescribed such punishments.

Four categories of punishment in Islamic law were devised much after the Quran. These were Qisas - (retaliation as `an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth’ following the Jewish Torah); Diyya -compensation paid to the heirs of a victim in blood money or ransom; Hadud – harsh punishments for severe crimes like murder, adultery, blasphemy, intoxication, idolatry or apostasy and Tazir – punishments given at the discretion of a Qazi.

1256. After the bloody sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols, Ahmad ibn Tamiyya, a Muslim scholar, was driven out of Iraq and declared a new policy to divide the Islamic world. `Dar ul Islam’ (abode of Islam) and `Dar ul Harb’ (abode of disbelievers). He also redefined the word Jihad to mean a Holy War.

1683. The defeat of the Turkish armies outside Vienna marked the end of Islamic expansion and the beginning of European power that was to soon dominate the world and push Muslim countries into increasingly narrow minded orthodoxy.

In the nineteenth century Islam was hijacked by Mohammad Abd Al Wahhab who started the Sunni Wahhabiya movement. It accepted the Quran and Hadis but opposed all innovations, superstitions and deviances with a very narrow interpretation in a puritanical and legalistic form. They considered the veneration of pirs, the intercession of Imams, religious holidays, and other devotional acts as heresies and even desecrated the tomb of Muhammad. With the support of the ibn Saud family they promoted an extreme form of Islam that led to the Taliban, Al Qaida and IS.

1922. The Balfour declaration at the end of the First World War Britain callously divided the former Turkish territories. Israel became an independent country in 1948 and began a series of bitter wars with Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria leading to an unending cycle of conflict ever since.

1991 and 2003. The American `War on Terror’ against Iraq and Afghanistan (2001) outraged many Muslims who considered them morally unjustified. The American CIA support for Saudi Arabia made them virtual allies in the creation of the radical Taliban. Later the Sunni ISIS attacked the Shia majorities in Syria and Iraq who were supported by a Shia Iran backed by Russia.

Like all religions Islam changed frequently over time. As many of the frequently irrational or violent laws of Judaism became sanctified in Islam Muslim clerics found them convenient to regiment their followers with increasingly onerous regulations enforced by draconian punishments.

People forget that the Quran explicitly says that killing in the name of Islam is the opposite of Jihad and had expressly forbidden an attack on anyone who had offered no offence and that it is forbidden to harm or to kill women and children. Many do not know that it is also forbidden to take hostages or to torture or kill prisoners. Even suicide is forbidden. The Prophet had said that anyone who sets another on fire, even an ant, commits the greatest sin and is destined to the fires of hell.

Times of India carried this article on the edit page on May 28.

Not Plassey 1757 but Samugarh 1658: Fateful tipping point

that fixed the subcontinent’s future course

Murad Ali Baig

On May 29 1658 India’s history changed forever. Aurangzeb’s victory over his brother Dara Shikoh marked the beginning of Islamic bigotry in India that not only alienated Hindus but the much more moderate Sufis and Shias as well. His narrow Sunni beliefs were to make India the hotbed of Muslim fundamentalists long before the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia sponsored the fanatics of the Taliban and ISIL.

Samugarh marked the beginning of Islamic bigotry that led over the centuries to the partition of India, the creation of Pakistan and backlash of radical Hinduism.

Two great Mughal armies led by Shah Jahan’s eldest son Dara Shikoh and his third son Aurangzeb clashed on a dusty plain about twenty kilometers south east of Agra. It was not only a battle for the Mughal throne but a battle for the very soul of India pitting Dara, an eclectic scholar who respected all religions, against Aurangzeb who was an orthodox Sunni Muslim. Dara had first translated of the Bhagavat Gita and the Upanishads from Sanskrit into Persian to make them known to the public for the first time. The fact that he had been a Sanskrit scholar shows that there had been considerable Hindu – Muslim amity in the time of Shahjahan. But Dara had been a pampered prince who faced a smaller battle hardened army that Aurangzeb had marched up from the Deccan after defeating an Imperial army at Dharmat near Indore.

Blocked at the Chambal River Aurangzeb quietly slipped behind Dara’s lines to reach a secret ford across the Chambal by nonstop double marches over two days. Dara now realized that Aurangzeb’s armies had outflanked his army and come very close to Agra so he had to rush east without most of his cannons. The two armies met on a flat dusty plain east of a village called Samugarh on an unbelievably hot day with the sun was like a furnace in a cloudless sky. There was not enough water so many soldiers and horses collapsed of heat and sun stroke. The battle was more than just a contest between Dara and his rebel brothers but was beginning to become a religious war with the Hindus supporting Dara and many Muslim nobles supporting Aurangzeb.

Dara was on the brink of victory when he was betrayed. One of his commanders, Khalilullah Khan rushed up and insisted that he must dismount and finish the battle on a horse. He is reported to have cried out… ”Praise be to Allah this victory is your own! But my God! Why you are still mounted on a lofty elephant? Have you not been sufficiently exposed to danger? If one of the numberless musket balls or arrows touch your royal person who can imagine the terrible situation to which we will all be reduced? In God’s name descend quickly, mount this horse and pursue the miserable fugitives with all vigour.” But as soon as Dara descended, a huge shout was sent up by Khalilullah Khan’s squadron that Dara Shikoh had been killed. When the bewildered soldiers saw through the swirling clouds of dust and smoke that the howdah of Dara’s elephant was empty they feared the worst and fled towards Agra.

The noise of battle quite quickly subsided and the dust and smoke began to slowly clear to reveal some fifteen thousand corpses lying on the dusty battlefield in hundreds of piles coated in vivid crimson blood. The Rajput corpses in their yellow jamas looked like untidy fields of saffron but all the fallen bodies were quickly shrouded by a huge cloak of choking yellow dust. Dara rode back to his mansion from where left for Delhi. He then retreated to Lahore and then down the Indus and a year later was able to muster a big army to fight a fierce three day battle against Aurangzeb at Deorai south of Ajmer. He then fled towards Kandahar to be betrayed once again and brought to Delhi where the imperial Qazis sentenced him to death for the crime of heresy. He had written a book called the `Mingling of the Oceans’ showing the many similarities between the Quran and the Brahma Shastras of the Hindus. 

At the trial the first Qazi asked Dara to hand him the jade thumb ring that was still on his left hand. He is reported to have turned it over and asked why the green stone was inscribed with the words ‘Allah’ on one side and ‘Prabhu’ on the other. Dara evidently replied that the creator was known by many name and called God, Allah, Prabhu, Jehova, Ahura Mazda and many more names by devout people in many different lands. He added that it is written in the Quran that Allah had sent down one hundred and twenty four thousand messengers to show all the people of the world the way of righteousness and he believed that these messengers had been sent not only to Muslims but to all the people of the world in every age. He said that this belief had inspired him to write the `Mingling of the Oceans’ showing the similarities between the Quran and the Hindu Brahma Shastras. Aurangzeb casually signed the order of execution after the Qazis found him guilty of heresy.

Aurangzeb’s greatest weakness was his inflexible religious bigotry that made him lose the support his influential Shia subjects as well as his many Hindu and Rajputs followers. His intolerance became more acute after twenty years of rule as he became frustrated by endless rebellions. By persecuting his own Rajput followers he cut off his own arms and weakened his military power. The Maratha leader Shivaji initially had no anti Muslim sentiment and had been quite willing to become a Mughal Amir. Aurangzeb’s obstinate pride however alienated him and gave him a weapon to turn a purely political war against the Mughals into a religious war.

If Dara had won at Samugarh his rule might have promoted harmony between India’s turbulent peoples and a united Mughal empire may have prevented India becoming so easily colonized by European powers. Samugarh marked the beginning of Islamic bigotry that led over the centuries to the partition of India, the creation of Pakistan and the backlash of radical Hinduism. Samugarh was a tipping point in India’s history.

PSYCHOLOGY OF REVENGE IN ISLAM

My mistake. This was the first article in Outlook Online.

 It is claimed that the horrific recent bombings in Paris had been in revenge for the role of France in bombing ISIS fighters in Syria. The cycle of revenge goes on and on but few people know the significance of revenge to Islamic fanatics. Few know that revenge is an old Arab custom that has unfortunately become a part of the Muslim tradition worldwide. It had been a necessary survival custom in the precarious times when small tribes of Arab Bedouins had to protect themselves from bigger or more powerful tribes who, without the fear of revenge, could loot or molest them. Life in the desert was always very tenuous and there was fierce competition over the scarce sources of food or water. Individuals could not survive except with the protection of the bonds of blood within their tribes. This was expressed in the Arab ideology of Muruwah that not only meant manliness, pride and courage but endurance in suffering, avenging each and every injustice  and unflinchingly defying stronger enemies regardless of the consequences. This philosophy also glorified the most generous hospitality to friends and equally intense hatred to enemies.

Oppressors had to therefore be very careful for this well established tribal code made it certain that any injustice would be avenged at some future date. Regardless of power and position no one could ever be absolutely safe from attack and had to tolerate lesser tribes and be very careful not to incite serious animosity. The American cowboy glorification of revenge also arose out of similar compulsions among numerous isolated ranchers who, far from legal remedies, had to protect themselves from their bigger oppressors. This revenge philosophy has plagued Islam from its earliest days. The early Khalifs Umar and Uthman as well as the prophet’s own son in law Ali were all assassinated by vengeful factions. The predominantly Bedouin Kharajite faction, who were unhappy that Ali had not avenged the assassination of Uthman, mainly caused the split into Sunni and Shia sects that was to cause so much bloodshed over the centuries. These Kharajites, or Salafis, had a very narrow and extremist view of the words of the prophet. Their successors especially the Wahhabis after the late 18^th century were to gain great importance when the Al Saud family captured Medina and Mecca in 1924 and then gained the huge power of oil riches in 1938 to export their extreme brand of Islam that was later an intrinsic part of Taliban thinking.

Actually, many Wahhabi ideas were a heresy to the words and actions of the prophet. Few know that his conquest of Mecca had been achieved without shedding a drop of blood through a year long, almost Gandhian, campaign of patience and moral principles. Muhammad preached peace, except in times of actual combat. The word Jihad is rarely found in the Quran but is referred to 199 times in the Hadith that was written two centuries after the death of The Prophet. The Wahhabis interpreted Jihad to mean a holy war even though there were two Jihads according to Muhammad. The greater Jihad meant a struggle against one’s own weakness while a lesser Jihad was to fight against injustice. Both enjoined adherents to struggle on regardless of the odds with the certain faith that Allah would come to the aid of the sincere devotee. But there were strict rules and Jihad could not be declared by anybody but only by an authority of widely accepted repute.

The Quran very clearly says that killing in the name of Islam was the opposite of Jihad and had expressly forbidden harm or the killing of women and children. It was also forbidden to take hostages or to torture or kill prisoners. Even suicide was forbidden. Muhammad had also said that anyone who sets another… even an ant… on fire commits the greatest sin and is destined to the fires of hell.

There was no need for such a philosophy of revenge in more affluent pastoral or urban communities and was thus unknown in the philosophies of China, India, Europe or in many other societies. In fact mature cultures understood that accommodation was much preferable to violence. This was so well enunciated by Buddha who had preached that hatred can never be appeased by hatred but only by love and that the only lasting victories were the conquest of the heart because victories in the battlefield only caused the defeated to lie down in sorrow and wait for revenge making future peace impossible.   

The seemingly endless cycle of violence will only end when people learn that violence is the childish recourse of the weak and immature and that lasting peace can only be achieved by finding `win-win’ solutions where the fears and concerns of all the opposing factions can be accommodated. Muslim clerics should understand that the philosophy of revenge has made Muslim communities viewed with great suspicion worldwide. They should lead their followers to go back to the words of their prophet instead of following the words of the many revisionists who have hijacked the faith.

Bedouins and cowboys had little claim to wisdom and their philosophy of revenge is unsuited to mature societies. The Muruwah spirit will ensure that Islamic terrorism will not surrender to brute military force. But it can be eroded when the terrorists believe that, far from serving their religion, they a disobeying the sacred words of their prophet and will go to hell instead of the promised paradise. Evil things are never committed with such enthusiasm, pride and joy as when they are done out of revenge and especially if they are done in the name of religion.

HOW ISLAM BECAME HIJACKED BY REVISIONISTS

This article was published in the e-edition of Outlook magazine

The brutal killing of over 130 innocent people in Paris is another example of the mindlessness of Islamic terrorism. Few people however realize that terrorism had never been endorsed by the prophet Muhammad nor sanctioned in the Quran. Like all religions the traditions of Islam were however frequently changed over time and many passionate clerics moved Islamic Sharia from the mostly gentle words of Muhammad to the angry rhetoric of the Taliban or ISIS. The Quran clearly says that killing in the name of Islam is the opposite of Jihad and expressly forbids an attack on anyone who had offered no offence. It is forbidden to harm or to kill women and children, take hostages or to torture or kill prisoners and commit suicide. 

Two hundred years after the death of the prophet several pious Muslim scholars put together another sacred book called the Hadis (or Hadith) that told Muslims that they should not only follow the words of the prophet but also examples from his life. Several scholars like al Bukhari tried to reconstruct the stories of his life from the testimonies of people who claimed to be descendants of the prophet or his companions. After eight or ten generations such testimonies were very dubious. Restrictions on women like the veil only now become an Islamic requirement. Many Muslims now began to copy the prophet’s behavior as acts of piety. Even acts like putting on the left slipper first or entering a room with the right foot and every detail including his clothes, habits or behavior became acts of piety. 

The next major change came with the Abbasid Caliphate (750 – 1258). The huge Islamic empire with many diverse races needed new legal authorities like the Qazi (magistrate) to manage complex legal matters, police, taxes and the status of non-Muslim subjects. So Islamic law underwent many changes but adopted many Jewish and Persian laws and split into six schools of law. The Jewish Torah (Toraat) introducing the Jewish sins including blasphemy and heresy that now became Islamic sins. Clerics began prescribing draconian death sentences by burning, stoning, beheading and strangulation as prescribed in the Torah even though the Quran had never demanded such punishments.

Four categories of punishment in Islamic law seem to have been devised much after the Quran. These were Qisas, (retaliation) as `an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth’ that is prescribed in the Jewish Torah; Diyya, or compensation paid to the heirs of a victim in blood money or ransom; Hadud or harsh pre determined punishments for severe crimes like murder, adultery, blasphemy, intoxication, idolatry or apostasy and Tazir that were punishments given at the discretion of a Qazi. The Quran is silent about alcohol and quite mild about intoxication that became a sin according to the authors of the Hadis.

In 1256, after the bloody sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols, Ahmad ibn Tamiyya, a Muslim scholar, was driven out of Iraq and he defined a new policy to divide the Islamic world into two. `Dar ul Islam’ (abode of Islam) and `Dar ul Harb’ (abode of disbelievers). He also redefined the word Jihad to mean a `Holy War’ In 1683 the defeat of the Turkish armies outside Vienna marked the end of Islamic expansion and the rise of European powers that were to soon dominate the world and make Muslim nations react with increasingly narrow orthodoxy. The rise of Europe resulted in the impoverishment of many great Muslim empires and Muslim cultures sank from liberal scholarship to narrow minded illiteracy allowing clerics to exploit the frustration.  

Then, in the eighteenth century, Islam was completely hijacked by Mohammad Abd Al Wahhab (1703 – 1792) who started the Sunni Wahhabiya movement that accepted the authority of the Quran and Hadis but opposed all innovations, superstitions and deviances from their narrow interpretation of these in a very puritanical and legalistic manner. They considered the veneration of pirs, the intercession of Imams, religious holidays, and other devotional acts as heresies and even they desecrated the tomb of Muhammad. With the support of the ibn Saud family of Arabia they promoted an extreme form of Islam that led to formation of the Taliban and Al Qaida.

After the Balfour declaration of 1922 at the end of the First World War, Britain casually divided up the former Turkish territories they had occupied and Israel became an independent country in 1948. This immediately triggered a bitter war between Israel and its Muslim neighbors of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria leading to an unending cycle of conflict ever since.

Then American support to Pakistan for the creation of the Taliban in their covert war to oust USSR from Afghanistan was to make the Taliban a potent force. Radical Muslim clerics would target impoverished young boys who were taught the Quran in Arabic that they could not understand and fool them to believe false translations or interpretations to make them into fanatical terrorists. The American `War on Terror’ against Iraq (1991 and 2003) and Afghanistan (2001) then made most Muslims infuriated by these morally unjustified invasions.

Muslim clerics continued to give the greatest reverence to the Quran and the Hadis as their most sacred books but most of their religious pronouncements were actually dictated by the words of numerous passionate revisionists who preached long after the time of the Prophet. The Quran, for example, was unprecedented in its time for its support of women and their rights but because all the subsequent clerics were men the gentle words of the prophet were steadily eroded to make Islam the most restrictive religion concerning women. Most Muslims accept the sanctity of the words of the prophet but they need to ask themselves whether they should believe there is any sanctity in the words of all the many revisionists. They need to also ask themselves why they should be fooled to go bloody deaths by listening to the words of bigoted Mullahs and other clerics.

Islamic terrorism will not easily succumb to military action but the terrorists might submit to social pressure if the large moderate Muslim majority convinces them that their actions are absolutely against the injunctions of their prophet and will get them to the eternal fire instead of the paradise they fervently hope for.   

ANCIENT PEOPLE COULD NOT CALCULATE TIME

UPDATE

The dates of ancient events and legendary personages like Buddha, Jesus, Muhanmmad, Ram, or Krishna greatly agitate people concerned with religion and history. All such dates are however very dubious because till fairly recently people had no way to accurately measure the passage of the years. Thus the dates of the Mahabharat, Ramayana, Iliad, yugas or kalpas were impossible to calculate.

Calculating the passage of time had always been very difficult as one orbit of the earth around the sun takes precisely 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds while one orbit of the moon needs exactly 27 days, 7 hours, 17 minutes and 28 seconds. 

People in every land had been very conscious of the moon and had marked their changing seasons according to moon cycles. They had roughly noted the orbit of the sun to make a year but found it absolutely impossible to divide this by the lunar months because they had no means to divide or multiply until the discovery of the `Zero’, a concept that is attributed to an Indian mathematician named Aryabhatta dated to about 500 AD. In 628 AD another Indian mathematician named Brahmagupta is believed to have developed the symbol for Zero that had been first recorded as a dot under other numbers. This concept of Zero only reached Europe in the 11^th century through the Muslim scholar Ibn Sina, known in Europe as Avisenna. He is reported to have learned his mathematics from an Indian grocer in Baghdad.

Till the Zero people could only count with the fingers of their hands and all ancient cultures like those of Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Rome as well as ancient India had therefore been unable to of conceive of time beyond ten thousand years. There was also a slow shifting of the historic dates with leap years or extra months every four years in many ancient cultures. The methods of measuring time kept changing over the ages.

The seven day week was probably first defined in the old Babylonian calendar where the roughly 28 day lunar month was divided into four. It later became part of the Jewish, Julian, Gregorian and Islamic calendars but had been completely alien to ancient India. 

With the advent of the Zero, Indian legends suddenly become astonishingly old as more and more zeros were added during each retelling of legendary stories. The dates of the Yugas, Mahabharata, Ramayana and other legends therefore have very little historic basis. Even the religious sanctity attached to the days of the seven day week is alien to ancient Indian texts. If there were no week days there could not have been any auspicious or inauspicious week days in ancient times. Thus the sacredness of fasting on Tuesdays or of not buying metals on a Saturday cannot have any scriptural sanctity.

The old Babylonian calendar used to also have a 60 hour day because the number 60 had been considered to be a sacred number that could be divided by 2, 3 and 5 (the largest number of prime numbers). Ancient Sanskrit texts in India used to also follow this system and measure the day in 60 ghatas (hours) of 24 minutes each. These used to be measured by water clocks where a small earthen pot (ghara) with a small hole that was designed to take exactly 24 minutes to fill up and sink after which a bell (ghanti) would then be struck to announce the `ghanta’ or hour. The apparatus was called a `ghari’. Today, except for Indian astrologers, nobody remembers this old Indian system but it was very precisely detailed in the Persian traveler al - Baruni’s chronicle that is dated to 1020 AD at about the time when Mahmud Ghazni was looting Indian temples.

Indian astrology however went beyond the 12 planets of the zodiac and measured the year with 27 (sometimes 28) Nakshatras of 13.5 days each. They were linked not only to constellations but to many other stars that each had beneficial of malefic influences. This astrological system is not mentioned in the Rig-Veda or early Vedas but only in the Artha-veda that seems to have included a large number of pre Vedic traditions. All these created a very complicated system of astrology. Though this system has mesmerized the gullible in India over the years it is clear that none of it had any intrinsic scriptural sanctity. All people are entitled to their beliefs but they should know that many popular beliefs cannot stand the scrutiny of empirical science or unbiased historical research

Jug Suraiyas review in Times of India today

DARA'S RELIGIOUS EXPLORATION

Book extract

Dara’s religious exploration

from the novel `Ocean of Cobras’

I clearly recall the excitement on every occasion when some of the long buried treasures of Hindu philosophy or literature were discovered and presented to Dara’s scholars. Many great Hindu texts like the Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita and even the Mahabharata had long been buried in the secret troves of Brahmin priests scattered all over the country. These and many other works like Patanjali's Yoga Sutras were not known even to the most educated Hindus. Dara's scholars and scribes not only translated them into the court language of Persian but also edited, copied and printed them so that these fountains of ancient Hindu wisdom and knowledge would become known to all.

Pandit Kavindracharya took Dara to Benares to help explain the basic message of the Upanishads. He said… “The Upanishads tells us that the mind is divine but unfortunately the mind that we use is the physical mind, which cannot help us in our journey because it has unconsciously accepted three non divine companions... fear, doubt and jealousy that confuse it. These three sentiments attack the mind and make it helpless. When the mind is weakened by these, ego enters the mind and destroys spirituality. The seeking mind believes in philosophy. The fearful heart needs religious rituals The human mind is like a monkey swinging from fear to fear.”

He went on… ”There are two approaches. One is through the mind, the other is through the heart. The approach through the mind is not secure because fear, doubt and jealousy distort our thinking. But the approach through the heart is sure. There are also powerful barriers like kama (lust), krodha (anger), lobha (greed), moha (attachment). When people are free from them they are able to enter the state of Moksha.”

A few weeks later Pandit Kavindracharya brought to Dara another long lost document called the Bhagavat Gita that had been lying among the scrolls of some Brahmins of the Brighu order. He said that it had originally been part of a discourse by a legendary hero called Krishna in the great Hindu legend of the Mahabharata. The text was now translated into Persian for the first time and contained some very profound thoughts.

He read out a few pages from it… “Desire and attachment is the basis of all sorrow so the sincere performing of one’s karma makes one detached and free. God resides in every heart but because many of us think we are no more than our bodies we become trapped by desires and attachments. The Gita says that God is the source of all energy and that mortal humans were mere lamps burning with a spark of that divine energy.”

Dara turned to one of the Sunni scholars and asked... ”Do you find anything in this philosophy that conflicts with what has been taught by our holy prophet? It clearly speaks of the need for absolute surrender to God with the same passion as we Muslims seek absolute surrender to Allah.” Dara asked… “But please tell me how can Hindus with such elevating philosophies continue the base practice of worshipping stone idols?”

Kavindracharya paused before replying... “Shazadeh hazoor most Hindus believe that their deities are different manifestations of Prabhu, the great cosmic spirit. The gods like of Vishnu, Shiva, Ram or Krishna and their consorts Lakshmi, Parvati, Radha, Sita and others have been endowed with many benign human attributes that make them satisfying to poor worshippers. These and many lesser deities, that they can see and touch, are much easier to worship with flowers and offerings. Most of our Hindu worshippers are poor people who know very little about their ancient philosophies. Like poor people everywhere they live precarious lives with hunger, sickness and other fears constantly tormenting them so they try to seek god’s protection with prayers, penances, pilgrimages and other acts of piety that they hope will please their gods.”

“Shahzedeh Hazoor all Hindus have to be grateful to you making our own great treasures of philosophy known to the world. The fabulous wealth of India was hidden from the western world until Alexander showed them the door through which so many conquerors were to follow in the centuries that followed. You have now opened a door to reveal to us the wonders of our own nearly forgotten past.”

Dara, in his quest to seek a unifying philosophy underlying all religions, now demonstrated the originality of his own intellect by personally writing a remarkable book that he called Majma-ul-Bahrain meaning `the mingling of the oceans' in which he attempted to seek the common links between the philosophies of the holy Quran and the Brahma Shastras.

He first compared the five elements listed in Islam and Hinduism. Like the Islamic Arsh-i-Azan, (great throne) of wind, fire, water and dust, Hindu texts speak of `Panch Bhut’ of sky, wind, brilliance, water and earth. He went on to add that Jibrail (Gabriel), the presiding angel of Islamic creation is similar to the Hindu Brahma (creator) while Mikhail, the angel of existence, is similar to the Hindu Vishnu (preserver) and Israfil (angel of destruction) was like Shiva (destroyer). Later he pointed out that water was the element of both Jibrail and Brahma, Fire was the element associated with Mikhail and Vishnu while air was the sacred element of both Israfil and Shiva.

I, however, thought that his greatest work was the Sirr-i-Akbar or `the great secret' where he showed the similarity between the monotheistic core of the Upanishads that underlay the religions of the Hindus with the unqualified monotheism of Islam. He wanted Muslims to understand that Hindus and Hindu religions actually had many common links with the spiritual core of Islam.

Word about Dara's great work began to spread and many Hindus were first curious and later deeply grateful to learn about the many nearly forgotten treasures of their own ancient culture. I was however troubled that these reports seemed to disturb some of the orthodox Muslims who held Hindus in contempt and firmly believed in the superiority of their own culture and religion.

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The narrator Mubarak Ali’s anxiety was well merited. Many years later Dara’s broad minded religious beliefs were to divide the Mughal Empire with an increasing polarization of the Rajput and other hindu soldiers supporting Dara while the Muslim nobles either supported the rebel prince Aurangzeb or were half hearted in their support of Dara.

The battle of Samugarh in 1658 was therefore not just a battle for the Mughal throne but a battle for the very soul of India. Aurangzeb’s victory from the brink of defeat through a betrayal not only created a Muslim - Hindu divide but a divide between Sunni and Shia Muslims that was to affect many future generations.  

Did you see the review of Ocean of Cobras in the Sunday Business Standard?

BEYOND BUSINESS » PEOPLE » PEOPLE

The Mughal fusion of Hindu-Muslim culture is a tradition to be cherished: Murad Ali Baig

Interview with author
Uttaran Das Gupta August 8, 2015 Last Updated at 21:31 IST

The majestic tomb of the second Mughal emperor, Humayun, in New Delhi hides another grave - of Dara Shikoh, scholar, philosopher and the man who would have ascended the Peacock Throne if history had not intervened. Murad Ali Baig's novel, Ocean of Cobras, which will be launched on Monday, fictionalises the Mughal War of Succession (1657-1661) that sealed Dara's fate.Uttaran Das Gupta talks to the author about his upcoming book

From writing on cars to a historical novel - how did this happen?

I have written on cars, travel, environment, rural India as well as history, mythology and religion. My last book, 80 Questions to Understand India, sold about 30,000 copies. I follow my passions: a man can love his wife and also his dog.

Hillary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, said writing historical novels was a second choice when she realised she would not be a historian. You were already well-reputed as a journalist and a non-fiction writer. Why the move to fiction?

I am a historian with an MA in history. So access to records was not too difficult. Textbooks unfortunately mention Dara only as a footnote to the history of Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb and others.

My experience in marketing tractors and motorcycles took me to every part of India, and I visited many of the sites where battles took place, and other places mentioned in the book.

It was not easy learning to write fiction after straight narratives on many different subjects. Ocean of Cobras is authentic history as told by a fictitious narrator - a eunuch in the Mughal court, who is a witness to everything, from the intrigues of the harem to the battlefields.

Can you tell us something about the title of the book?

The Mughals took omens very seriously. Strange events like millions of snakes suddenly appearing in Bengal or the predictions of a wandering fakir prejudiced Shah Jahan against Aurangzeb, which in turn made the prince bitter and determined.

Dara has gained a sort of mythical reputation as a poet and secular-minded leader. Do you think he would have made an able administrator of the Mughal empire?

Dara, Shah Jahan's favourite son, was a great scholar but also an able military commander, who continued the armed struggle against his brother Aurangzeb for more than a year. The Persian scribes of the Mughal court wrote off Dara after the Battle of Samugarh. European writers depended mainly on street gossip.

Dara had deep respect for Hindu and Sufi philosophy, and his ascent to the throne might have led to a continuation of religious harmony for keeping the Mughal empire together. This was shattered by Aurangzeb's bigoted interpretation of Islam. But my novel does question if Dara was strong enough to hold such a turbulent empire together.

On the contrary, don't you think Aurangzeb earned a reputation of a ruthless bigot and religious fundamentalist?

Aurangzeb really became bitter and bigoted in the last 30 years of his life. (He lived to be nearly 90.) He usually tried to be just to all his subjects.

There has been some speculation of how different Indian history would have been if Dara had ascended the throne.

Indian history would have been different. Many would be surprised to learn that Dara had translated 59 Upanishads, and the Bhagwad Gita from Sanskrit to Persian so that the Hindu religious texts would gain wider circulation in the empire. Others would find it surprising the Dara considered Allah to be god to everyone and not just Muslims, like Aurangzeb did.

Mughal history has served as inspiration for fictional work in India for centuries. Do you think your novel has contemporary relevance?

I think my novel is very relevant: many Mughal customs of governance and taxation survive to this day.

The fusion of Hindu and Muslim culture during Mughal times is a tradition all Indians could cherish.

HOW AN ANCIENT JEWISH LAW CORRUPTED ISLAM

On October 9, 2012 2012 Malala Yusufzai, a 14 year old school girl was shot by the Pakistan Taliban for promoting education for girls. On September 16 six persons were killed and a police station at Masuri near Ghaziabad torched because some pages of the Quran were allegedly desecrated. On September 9, The US ambassador to Libya was incinerated in a rocket attack by Muslim extremists enraged by reports about an amateur film allegedly insulting The Prophet produced by a Coptic Christian of Israeli nationality.

Few people know that such terrible crimes against humanity are not allowed in the Quran or Hadis (that was composed some two hundred years later). These, the most sacred sources of Islamic law, say very little about blasphemy, heresy or sacrilege that seems to so easily inflame Muslim anger today. Few therefore dare to question the scriptural authority that the Muslim clerics must have to so readily pronounce their death sentences. Surprisingly such actions are completely against the words of The Prophet who had very clearly said… “anyone who sets another… even an ant… on fire commits the greatest sin and is destined to the fires of Hell”. The Quran also expressly forbids an attack on anyone who has offered no offence… to kill women and children… to torture or take hostages and to commit suicide.

The Quran did not actually contain any comprehensive legal code and most of the legal injunctions were basically to regularize pre-Islamic tribal customs. The early sharia (Islamic law) was customary (urf) and only about 80 Quranic verses have any legal content concerning customary rules, crimes, polygamy, divorce and rights of inheritance, giving women a formal legal status, etc. After the death of Muhammad in 632 CE, Islamic polity changed fundamentally. The civil and religious order expanded beyond the borders of the Arabia to create a huge Arab-Islamic imperial caliphate. A highly complex, imperial Muslim society developed that was an amalgam of many cultures and customs, with new legal authorities like the qazi or judge who was a representative of a local governor. They soon became involved with complex legal matters and to even oversee the functions of the police, taxes and the status of non-Muslim subjects.

As Islam became an urban movement it became difficult for the caliphs to administer their complex, multi-cultural realms without mosques, centers of learning,  bureaucracies and other institutions essential for the governance of the empire. Islamic law had to evolve continuously with the changing social and economic pressures during the period of the Ummayids, Abbasids, the Caliphs of Cordoba, the Seljuks, Turks and finally during the years of decline after the rise of European nations.

The main source of Islamic authority was clearly the Quran and Hadis but it seems clear that many new laws were derived from the Jewish Torah (Tawraat) that was later included into the 104 holy books of Islam. One of its five books is the book of Leviticus that covers Jewish law. This book, belonging to a very ancient era when the small bands of Jews were severely oppressed lists all `The Lord’s’ laws with very harsh rules and prohibitions concerning circumcision, food, suppression of women and lists draconian punishments with death by stoning, burning, strangulation and beheading for a long list of offences including adultery, worshiping other gods, blasphemy, witchcraft, homosexuality, bestiality, etc. Death even for breaking the Sabbath, prophesying falsely, having a stubborn or rebellious son, and many other sins. By contrast to Yahweh, the angry god of the Jews, the Allah of Muhammad was a merciful god and Muhammad usually advocated atonement for sins. Some scholars believe that many Jews who had converted to the triumphant Islam and were probably responsible for fusing Jewish laws into the evolving Islamic tradition after the 10^th century.

This may explain why the laws of The Prophet and the laws of the later Islamic clerics are so very different. Muhammad had, for instance, prescribed one hundred lashes for a woman who committed adultery which was much milder than stoning her to death as was the later practice. Similarly the Jewish laws regarding blasphemy, heresy and apostasy, not found in the Quran, are now readily pronounced even by small town clerics. These bigoted mullas do not also seem to understand that these ancient Jewish laws can so easily be used by the enemies of Islam to cause death and disturbance among Muslims with just a few deliberate cartoons, clumsy videos or by mocking some holy text. Paradoxically, Abd Al Wahhab, the founder of the ultra orthodox Wahhabia movement, had personally led the desecration of The Prophet’s tomb in Madina as they did not believe in reverence for tombs.

No religion should ever be insulted but to moderate the impact of extremists and the injustices that misguided Muslims can inflict on innocent bystanders it is now necessary to educate the Muslim masses, who are taught to memorize the Quran in Arabic, a language they do not understand, making them vulnerable to bigots who give their own distorted interpretations. For the peace of the world every nation with a Muslim population should get their leading Islamic scholars to use the huge power of TV and other modern media to tell them to listen to the words of their holy prophet and not to the draconian injunctions of a very repressive Jewish law.