From: rkannan@diana.cair.du.edu (Rajgopal Kannan)
Subject: Re: Is Hinduism equal to Intolearnce and Fascism ?
Organization: University of Denver, Denver, Colorado
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 92 19:44:20 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.151941.4198@bernina.ethz.ch> nadeem@igpho (Nadeem Malik) writes:
>
>Manjo bhai seems to be confusing many issues here.
>
>First, whether Saudi Arabia is right or wrong in hanging the Indians
>for their drama has little to do with Islam since the majority of Muslims
>including Muslim scholars do not recognise S.A. as a good example of a 
>Islamic state.

Little to do with Islam ??
	I thought the point being made by the original poster was that the
proposed hanging was founded on the insult to Islam theory.
And besides how else is one supposed to view Islam than by the actions
taken by a self avowed "protector of all that is Islamic etc." govt.

>
>Secondly, what Mr Mughal has said is a single personal opinion and your
>attempt to generalise it to all Muslims in the West is at best naive and
>at worst dishonest and mischivous.
>
 The entire Saudi govt. apparently is comprised of Mr. Mughal think-alikes.
 You, Mr. Nadeem seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

>Thirsdly, Khomeini's order to kill S. Rushdie has been debated only a week
>or two ago on SCP, and I wrote then that he was wrong and that under 
>true Islamic law blasphemy and insulting the Holy Prophet are not criminal
>offences; the most is that it could be deemed as causing serious public 
>unrest and therefore such works could be censored.

Why didnt a single muslim scholar then not come out against the edict
when it was first proclaimed.

>Fourthly, Islam claims to be a religion of tolerance on its own merits. You
>should read the Quran.

When a majority of the muslim populace do not seem to have grasped the
idea of tolerance inspite of reading the Quoran five times a day, how is
a non-moslim supposed to get it?

>
>As far as the original question of this thread of articles is concerned, the
>answer is no, Islam is not a fascist or intollerant religion. It is a religion
>of love, peace and great tollerance.

I hope so. I hope the Saudi govt. is able to prove it.  
Maybe the Saudi govt. is just unislamic :-)

>However, the Hindu originator of this question has perhaps missed one or two
>facts about his own religion. It is common knowledge that Hitler was on very
>good terms with some Hindu priests who advised him on the superiority of the
>Aryan race. This was meat and drink to Hitler and no wonder then that the 

 Not! The swastika is not an exclusive Hindu symbol. Hitler did not lift it
from Hinduism. It existed in Europe independently. Please read the "Rise
and Fall of the Third Reich". And besides I thought that the entire population
of the Indian subcontinent was supposed to be of the Indo-Aryan race ( not
just the Hindus as you make it out to be).

>symbol of fascism is the Swasstiker which is actually a Hindu symbol depicting
>the cycle of 4 eras in the cosmos (I think). Rascism which is the basic 
>ethic of fascism, is enshrined in Hinuism like no other faith; only yesterday
>I was watching a program on t.v. discussing the ritual murder of hundreds of
>Indians by upper cast Hindus for no other reason than that they were 
>Untouchable. Thus as far as fascism is concerned, I think that Hinduism is
>light-years ahead of Islam.
>
 Light-years? Nope. One could start pointing out examples of fratricide
in Pakistan (anti-Ahmadiyas, anti-Shiites etc.) but that would 
merely be rehashing old stuff.

As a mere aside, how would you feel if the BJP were to unilaterally sentence
to death all muslims who want the babri masjid to stand.

>-Nadeem Malik	nadeem@p.igp.ethz.ch

Rajgopal Kannan    rkannan@diana.cair.du.edu

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Tolerance, you want tolerance, dammit.
	How else are you going to be able to drive.
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Xref: sparky soc.culture.pakistan:14269 soc.rights.human:3220