What is Hinduism?

Here is a section by section rebuttal to this article about Hinduism.

The author right away starts with a decptive game. It does not matter which school of philosophy a Hindu belongs to, he will certainly assert the supremacy of Vedas, above all other Vedic scriptures. The author is stating something that is completely contrary to the fact. The deception starts here.

Nature Worship:

Well one needs to exit West Asian conditioning to understand the way Vedas approach God. Just because the OT or the Quran start in a specific way, why is the author expecting that any religious scripture should ape the same. If anything, the author is boxing himself into a mindset with how a religious scripture ought to start. And there is every reason why Agni is called out in the first hymn of the Rig veda. Perhaps, the author has not understand the drift of the Rig veda enough to discern it,as, the Rig Vedic hymns are cyclic in nature and they have meanings to be deciphered across hymns. And the Vedas do not put up a named God upfront and build fables around that God. The Vedas unveil the Supreme ONE in an intriguing manner.
Rig Veda1/1/1: I Laud Agni, the chosen Priest, God, minister of sacrifice,
The hotar, lavishest of wealth.

If this verse has to be understood the right way, Agni, in the Vedas needs to be understood clearly. And even before that I'd like to know from the author of this post, if he has read all the 10 Mandalas of Rig Veda in their entirety. Whichever Manadala we may choose in the Rig Veda, the ideas, the thoughts and images are consistent with what is being conveyed and the ideas are repeated.

Having said that let me revert to the author's quote on Agni. Agni, in the Vedas personifes TRUTH (Satya), the Hotr, the priest that presides over the sacrifices & the guardian of the eternal law.

The first set of verses of Rig Veda 1/1 gives the first indications of Agni as truth conciousness of the divinity, the divine forces being invoked as powers of truth, the dispeller of darkness (both in the symbolic and literal sense), the eternal law that Agni upholds & the bringer of auspicious tidings (bhadra verse 6). And Agni is consistently associated with the attributes of Satya, Rta and Bruhat (Truth, Order / Eternal Law and Vast). The more and more one reads the verses on Agni, it becomes amply clear that Agni is Truth - the truth of BEING, the truth of the eternal law and the truth that vastly expands towards the infinite. And verse 8 of Rig Veda 1/1 describes Agni to increase in his own abode or home. This abode is not some fire room. But the elicitation of this verse can be seen in the 5th verse of the 75th hymn of the same Manadala - yaja no mitravaruna, yaja devan rtam brhat, agne yaksi svam damam. This means Sacrifice for us to Mitra/Varuna, sacrifice to the TRUTH, the VAST.Agni sacrifice to thy home. Again this home and the abode in 1/1 point to the vast one dwelling in TRUTH. Infact, in many verses in the Rig Veda Agni and other forces like Indra, Varuna, Soma etc are described to have been born from TRUTH. This TRUTH which is VAST is the Supreme ONE. And Agni,as we saw above, is the priest that presides over the sacrifices meant for this Supreme TRUTH. Agni is the divinity among mortals & Agni is the one that is immortal amongst the mortals. The author seems to know Rig Veda enough to understand this simple fact.

I have only opened the hood of how Agni is personified in the Vedas. The author of this post has smartly picked up one of the earthly elements and made it look as if Vedas talk about worshipping nature. No other element is described in the Vedas, in the same exalted way, Agni is described. The earth or water are not described as hotr / priest or are called for the sacrifices, the way Agni or are likened to deities, the way Agni is. So the author of this post is wrong about nature worship.
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Polytheism: I can easily knock off this premise,as, Gods in English are used for lack of a better word. BUT that will not suffice. We will see why theisms do not matter to the Vedas. It only matter to those with a West Asian mentality.

Theism is a concept that is draped in West Asian ethos based on the compulsions of those times when Christianity and Islam came into being. Theism is a concept that is alien to this land. The Vedas talk about the union of many forces into ONE and the ONE that manifests by many forces. It is a bi-directional premise,which, most outsiders (based on their conditioning) could never understand. It is an individual’s preroagative to worship (for example) the sustaining aspect of the Supreme One or the ONE Supreme Being that integrates the triad of creation,dissolution and sustenance.

The author of the post has listed down how Agni (Rig Veda 1/1) and other Gods are interwined in the verses to show polytheism in the Vedas. While Vedas do not care about theisms, the author's take is wrong.Given the author of the post has no clue about the conception of Agni in the Vedas, he fails to recognize that Agni is the divinity among mortals & Agni is the one that is immortal amongst the mortals. Ofcourse the West Asian mindset cannot see beyond the fire that is seen burning. That is the external symbol of Agni & the Vedas use this external symbol of Agni to detail out the traits of Agni from the standpoint of traversing to the Almighty. Agni is Devo Devebhir - divine with divine powers. This is why using Griffith's translations are useless. Now when one looks at say Rig Veda 1/1/5, it becomes more intelligble.

The author himself answers the polytheism in Vedas, a few lines below by bringing up the concept of 33 forces. But what the author does not own up is that these 33 represent 33 TYPES of forces (the Vedic Sanskrit word Koti means TYPE and not Million). These are 8 Vasus, 11 Rudras, 12 Adityas, 1 Indra and 1 Yajna.

And the author of the post shoots himself in the foot with Rig Veda 1:34:11 and Rig Veda 8:30:2. In the former thrice-eleven devo is 33 (please count eleven thrice 11 11 11) in the latter 3 and 30 forces end up as 33 too. And there is a reason why the former verse splits 33 in a different way and the later verse splits 33 in a differnt way. I'd like to know from the author of the post as to who is Nastyas and who is Asvin? So atleast from a count standpoint the two verses point to the same 33 forces.

And now to Rig Veda 10:52:6. This verse and also the idea of whether Vedas is mono / polytheistic (in the West Asian sense), can be understood based on Chapter 3 of Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. The author of this post may refuse to exit the vedas and claim that if Upanishads need to be referred, what is the use of Vedas (his favorite line). But don't you guys refer to tafsirs for clarifications? It is something similar. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad narrows down from 3000 forces and dissolves them into ONE Brahman, the Vedic Lord.

Pantheism: The author of the post uses outright deception to arrive at pantheism. He does not talk about the first verses which goes - A thousand-headed is the Man With a thousand eyes, a thousand feet, Encompassing the Earth all sides, He exceeded it by ten fingers’ breadth (Rig Veda 10/90/1). And then comes the second verse that uses the idea of verse 1 (in terms of the size of this Purusha and his LARGE physical attributes). The second verse goes like this The Man, indeed, is this All,What has been and what is to be The Lord of the immortal spheres. Well to the West Asian eyes, this verse will look like pantheism but the truth is that this verse describes the all encompassing, all pervading nature of the personal (1/4 th) aspect of the Brahman. Users of this site can read my write up on Purusha Sukta in one of the posts that talk about creation in Hinduism using Purusha Sukta.

So the author's myopic nature and his misunderstanding of what the verses say leads him to conclude that the Purusha Sukta refers to Pantheism. Now, there are verses in the Quran that talk about flogging those with lowly character. This is recited in mosques too. Can a half baked idiot say that the Quran teaches how to flog a person with dubious character? It is so wrong. But the author of this post has used this faulty logic to understand Purusha Sukta.

Upanishads: I'd like to know of the author has formally read all the 10 premier Upanishads. Had he read them properly, he can easily answer this question of mine. Why is Atman tied to Brahman but Brahman is NOT Atman?

Approcahing salvation by karma (duty) and approaching salvation by jnana (knowledge). When the author of the post is unable to discern meanings of verses in the Vedas, we cannot expect him to understand the storyboarded exigesis in Upanishads. The author is lying about Upanishads telling that rituals mentioned in the Vedas take one to salvation. The author and I have had discussions where the Upanishads (and the Bhagavad Gita) URGE people to move beyond the symbolisms of rituals and understand the true motivation behind the Vedic idea of approaching salvation. The author, due to his shallow knowledge, is mixing both the Advaita and Dvaita philiosophies into a mingled paragraph.

Tvam Asi: This is kind of the climax of the Upanishads. It takes a complete immersion into the following thought. I do not blame the author for misunderstanding this completely,based on his conditioning and West Asian moorings. When there is no "thou" around, the "I" becomes unmanifest. The Supreme Brahman is the "I" and the individual souls are the Brahman's "Thou." At the same time every individual person is also "One without a second." I can have a twin but the twin is not me,as I am unique and so is my twin. Tat Tvam Asi integrates the polarity within the Oneness of the Advaita philosophy. So, essentially, the author's understanding of Tat Tvam Asi is wrong. Had the author cared to read amd immerse himself into the episode involving the way Shvetaketu questions the basis of Tat Tvam Asi in 9 different ways to secure a response, the author would not have written this post. I bet that the author knows which Upanishad I am referring to.

Maya: Supreme Brahman is the TRUTH and is IMMUTABLE. Compared to the Supreme TRUTH, everything else is UNTRUE or dynamic. This is the basis of the maya philosophy. This is not about this world and the car you are driving or the computer you are using, being untrue. It will be way too much to expect the author to immerse himself into the commentaries of Adi Shankaracharya to understand this.

The Bhagavad Gita: Perhaps the West Asian mindset of the author is unable to understand the Bhagavad Gita. It is the author's problem. If one even skims through the Bhagavad Gita once, it is easy to understand the need to do one's duty, look at happiness and sorrow as one and become transacedental to these attributes, moved beyond the three modes of material nature like ignorance, passion and goodness, non-violence, look at all beings as equal etc etc. I can go on and on.

Bhagavad Gita 9:25: As always, the author did not post the whole verse. The whole verse goes like this - Worshipper of demigods go to the demigods, worshippers of ancestors go to pitroloka (world of ancestors), worshippers of ghosts and spirits go to ghosts and spirits and MY worshippers, certainly come to ME!

So, is Lord Krishna is actually encouraging people to come to him, the Supreme Brahman, as opposed to what the author is trying to paint.

Bhagavad Gita 3:3: This verse is NOT about polytheism, as the author has said BUT about the existence of two ways of attaining salvation. So, the authir is unable to even understand the basics of 4 lines of a verse in Bhagavad Gita. The verse goes like this - Lord Krishna says, O sinless one, in this world, two kinds of faiths (now the author of this post,based on West Asian conditioning thinks the word faith means something like Islam or Christianity) were just declared by Me;the science of individual conciousness attaining communion with the Ultimate Conciousness by the path of knowledge and the science of individual conciousness attaining communion with the Ultimate Conciousness by the path of action.

Bhagavad Gita 13:20: I certainly do not expect the author of this post to understand thie verse. Transmigration in this verse could be author's personal opinion but this verse is part of an ongoing dialogue and the author obviously has not read the questions Arjuna raised many verses ago about prakriti and kshetra (field of activity) and the three modes of material nature & Krishna's ongoing responses. The author jumped right into the middle of the flow and has picked up a verse.

The verse means that the material energy (prakriti) and individual conciousness are beginingless but the transformations happen based on how a person acts based on the three modes of material nature. Please refer to further verses on how this material energy is responsible for cause and effect.

Bhagavad Gita 11:15: This verse pertains to Krishna showing Arjuna the true form of the Brhaman and the point raised on who is superior and who is inferior (by the author of this post), is addressed in detail in all these verse, already....
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Bhagavad Gita 10/21: Of the 12 Adityas, I am Vishnu.Of all luminaries, I am the radiant Sun. Of the 7 Maruts, I am Marici & of the constellations, I am the Moon.
Bhagavad Gita 10/22: Of the Vedas,I am Sama, of the demigods, I am Indra, of the senses, I am Mind, of the living entities, I am Conciousness.
Bhagavad Gita 10/23: Of the 11 Rudras, I am Shiva, Of the Yakshas, I am Kubera, of the 8 Vasus, I am Agni, of the mountains, I am Meru.
Bhagavad Gita 10/24: Of the priests, I am the chief priest Brihaspati, of the commanders, I am Karthikeya & of the reservoirs, I am the ocean.
Bhagavad Gita 10/25: Of the great sages, I am Bhrigu,of speech, I am the eternal syllable OM & of the immovable, I am the Himalayas.
Bhagavad Gita 10/26: Of the trees, I am the Banyan tree & of perfected beings, I am Kapila.
Bhagavad Gita 10/27: Of horses,I am Ucchisrava,of elephants, I am Airavata.
Bhagavad Gita 10/28:Of weapons, I am thunderbolt,of cows, I am surabhi and of motivations for creating progeny, I am Cupid
Bhagavad Gita 10/29: Of enforcers of justice, I am Yama.
Bhagavad Gita 10/30:Of measurements, I am time.
Bhagavad Gita 10/31: Of the swift moving, I am the Wind,of weilders of weapons, I am Rama, of rivers, I am the Ganges.

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Bhagavad Gita 5:15 the verse goes like this – The omnipresent Ultimate Conciousness never accepts the sins nor either the virtues of anyone;actual knowledge is enveloped by ignorance and because of that living entities are deluded.

The verse means that the TRANSCEDENTAL / IMPERSONAL Lord does not partake in the activities of humnas and the corresponding results. That is why HE is TRANSCEDENTAL.

In BG 5:29 the verse goes like this – Thus knowing ME as the worshippable beneficiary of offering sacrifices and austerities; the Ultimate Controller of all planes of exitence, achieves peace.

And HIM being the beneficiary is about someone KNOWING HIM or understanding HIM to be so and this is no way negates the Lord’s transcendental nature, as the author of the post wishes to believe. And across the chapters 13/14/15/16 of the BG, the idea of the Supreme Lord being transcedental is repeated over and over again. Neither the PERSONAL form of Krishna nor the IMPERSONAL, FORMLESS Brahman run the daily operations of the humans.

And I also saw that the author touch upon the unborn nature of Brahman, the personal aspect of Krishna and one being superior and inferior. Well, let me settle it once and for all.

Bhagavad Gita 9:11: FOOLS DERIDE ME IN MY HUMAN FORM, UNABLE TO COMPREHEND MY SUPREME NATURE AS THE ULTIMATE CONTROLLER OF ALL ENTITIES.

Further, the author of the post is trying to divide and manufacture a schism between Brahman (impersonal / formless) and Krishna (personal form). Arjuna himself asked this question and here was the response from the Lord…

Chatper 12/ verses 1 thru 5 explain both the impersonal Brahman and personal Krishna aspects and treat them at par.

Now, across all my posts it is so obvious that the author has an extremely shallow understanding of Vedic scriptures. How much ever the author tries to trash the Vedas, it is only the author's abysmal understanding of Vedic scriptures that emerge.

May truth prevail....

In the above posts I was refuting the various sections of the article written by the author. In this post I am undoing the grand attempt by the author to make it look as if the dharma of the Bhagavad Gita, the dharma of the Upanishads and the dharma of the Vedas are 3 differnt entities. I am now gonna integrate the 3 by picking up one verse from the BHagavad Gita, tie it to the Upanishad and then tie it to the Rig Veda, to reiterate the traceability that exists across all the three.

Bhagavad Gita 10:25: Of the great sages, I am Bhrigu,of speech, I am the eternal syllable OM & of the immovable, I am the Himalayas.

Let us focus on the syllable OM for this post.

The OM of Bhagavad Gita can be traced to many Upanishads. I am using Chandogya Upanishad for our discussion.

CU 1:1:1 - Worship OM, the eternal syllable, the chant of Sama Veda, with OM begins the chant of Sama Veda.

Now let us move to the Rig Veda.

Rig Veda 1:164:45 - The eternal syllable is measured in 4 quarters. Three quarters are concealed and cause no movement but fourth is THAT.

These 4 quarters are not about an NBA game but they ties us to the Purusha Sukta of the Rig Veda. The above verse from the Rig Veda ties Brahman and OM together.Purusha Sukta describes the act of Supreme Consciousness where, the Supreme one, called the Purusha here, sacrifices 1/4th of Self and the remaining 3/4th of the ONE, oversee and perform the sacrifice. There is a kind of a triple principle at play here.The ONE is object of sacrifice, the sacrifice itself and one that is executing the sacrifice.It is from this Purusha that all animate and inanimate things are born. This Purusha is the divine emanation.

The quarters seen in Rig Veda 1:164:45 tie us to Purusha Sukta, Rig Veda /10/90,specifically to verse 4.

So there we go. We started with Bhagavad Gita 10:25 moved to Chandogya Upanishad 1:1:1 and then moved to Rig Veda 1:164:45 and Rig Veda 10:90.

Given this fidelity between the 3 the author's argument that each one of these scriptures point to a seperate religion falls flat. I rest my case.

@ Mushafiq: I picked up OM by design to show the oneness of the BG,CU and RV. I could have done it in atleats 5 different ways. I know that you have been claiming that locating OM in the Vedas is a futile effort and that you are ready with a blog in this regard. I look forward to that blog of yours.

अरे बंधु में तो आपको दूसरी साइट पर ढूँढ रहा था लेकिन आप तो यहा विधयमान है ....और ये क्या आप ने तो यहा भी वही सब कॉपी पेस्ट कर दिया चलिए कोई नही आप से यही वार्तालत कर लेते है
१आपका पहला दावा“”"”It does not matter which school of philosophy a Hindu belongs to, he will certainly assert the supremacy of Vedas, above all other Vedic scriptures”"”"”" और की लेखक ने लेख की शुरआत ही झूठ से की है मैने दूसरी साइट पर ही रध कर दिया था आपके अनुसर हर कोई सिर्फ़ वेदो को सबसे उपर रखता है अपितु ये वस्टिविक्ता नही है डॉक्टर राधा कृष्णन ,स्वामी विवेकानंद ,राजा राम मोहन रॉय कुछ नाम है जो आपके दावे को रध करते

और प्रमाण भी देखिए
http://gosai.com/writings/the-supremacy-of-srimad-bhagavatam-over-the-vedas

इस लेख का निष्कर्ष ये दिया गया है

CONCLUSION: In this way we have shown through the pramana of the srutis, smrtis, Itihasas and Puranas that the Mahabharata and the Puranas are indeed considered to be the fifth Veda, and that they are of higher importance and significance in the age of Kali than the four Vedas. Of them, the highest is the the Bhagavata, the crest-jewel of all the Vedic literatures.

आप ये लेख भी देख सकते है
http://www.hinduwebsite.com/hinduintrod3.asp#A

इस तथ्य और ग्रहण करने क लिए आप गूगल कीजिये आपको इस सम्बंधित कई हिन्दू आचार्य,स्वामी मिल जायेंगे जिनके लिए प्रमाणित पुस्तक अलग अलग है

तो झूठे आप है लेखक नही और हान दूसरी साइट पर आपने ये कहा था

****It does not matter what my habit is or what the so called philosophers say, I stand by my response. I know the Vedas decently*****
बंधु तत्ये तो यही है ना की अलग अलग वयक्तियो की अलग अलग प्रमाणित पुस्तक जो की लेखक ने कहा जैसे की आप वेदो को मान रहे परंतु उपर दिए गया उधारण के अनुसर नही

तो आपका पहला दावा रध अगर आपको इस पर और प्रकाश डालना है तो में तब तक रुकता हू उसके बाद आगे बढ़ते है

धन्यवाद

@ Islamic Defender: So, you have quoted this undated article by Swami Giri to push back my standpoint and defend the standpoint of Mushafiq that the SUPREMACY of Vedas is questionable. No problem Sir. I am using the very same article to establish the SUPREMACY of Vedas and also I am gonna play your game with the supremacy of Quran.

If you are using the conclusion of that article (which you have quoted verbatim) as finality, then you are obviously accepting the entire set of building blocks being used by Swami Giri to arrive at that conclusion. Some of the salient building blocks are -

1) That the Vedas are eternal and apauruseya is a fact that all sampradayas, including the school of Sankara, unanimously agree with. They constitute the means of receiving knowledge about the Absolute Truth.

The above point negates Mushafiq's standpoint that Vedas are not eternal.

2) Generally it is correct to state that the sruti is primary and the smrti secondary in that it (sruti) seeks to elaborate on the meaning of the smrti.

Again Swami Giri himself is accepting the primacy of Sruti canon (the combo of Vedas,Brahmanas, Aryanakas et al), as opposed to the Smriti canon containing the Puranas including Srimad Bhagavatam.

3)As a corollary, you Sir (Islamic Defender) are also accepting that Purnanas are the 5th Veda. I did not say so but this article establishes it. So now you are also gonna have to accept that given Puranas are the 5th Veda, they are eternal too. Again, I did not claim so.

4) And the conclusion of the article does not compromise the SUPREMACY of Vedas but adds a QUALIFIER to state that SMD is of HIGHER IMPORTANCE. What is the qualifier? The qualifier is that Swami Giri uses the age of KALI as a reason for this. And what are his reasons for using this qialifier? If you scroll up that article you will see the follwoing reasons -

a) People being born in the age of Kali having poor faculties, where their memory functions are concerned.
b) Swami Giri talks about his view that it is difficult for people born in the Kali age to understand classical Vedic Sanskrit.
c) Swami Giri,again using Kali age states that the Puranas are NON-ETERNAL but their meanings will tow the revealed scriptures. This point contradicts his own statement that the Puranas are the 5th Veda.

So, essentially,Islamic Defender, no where does the article call into question the SUPREMACY of the Vedas but Swami Giri is using multiple reasons,one contradicting another, to try to claim that in the age of Kali,to understand the meanings of Vedas and the Absolute Truth, the Puranas and specifically Srimad BHagavatam is of higher importance.

Islamic Defeder,please understand that SMD being of "higher importance" than Vedas, based on restrictive constraints of a specific time period (as claimed by Swami Giri) does not mean that SMD is "supreme" to Vedas.

Supremacy is quite different from something being of higher importance. Supremacy has authority embedded inside it. The US President is "Supreme," where the executive powers are concerned. But in a specific theater of war operation, let us say the Helmund province in Afghanistan, General David Petreaus is of "higher importance" in THAT context, in THAT mission, in THAT strategic operation. And where does Davi Petreaus draw his limited authority from? He draws his authority from the US President's signature and this US President is the Supreme Authority. Supremacy prevails across the board, whereas, the higher importance of an entity (based on your quote of Swami Giri's article) is limited to a specific context in a given time period. Again this is based on the article you referred.

So,again, the Supremacy of Vedas prevails. And Islamic Defender, all I can say is that inorder to support Mushafiq's erroneous post, you are wilfully loosing the forest for a few trees. I rest my case.

@ Islamic Defender and Mushafiq:

Now let me play your game but I am using the Quran. It is widely believed that the Quran is supreme amongst the Islamic scriptures. But curiously, when it comes to fiqh, specifically to the area of apostasy, no two Islamic scholars are unanimous in accepting the supremacy of Quran on capital punishment for public apostasy (based on Quran).

There are those scholars that use Quran as the final authority and say that as per Quran, there is no death penalty for apostates. But there are those scholars that neagate the authority of Quran and use Sahih al-Bukhari, 9:83:17 to establish a viewpoint that blood of an ex-Muslim can be shed. Here is the verse:

Narrated 'Abdullah: Allah's Apostle said, "The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims."

The same scholars also use Sahih al-Bukhari, 9:84:58 to reiterate that an apostate ought to be killed.

Narrated Abu Burda:

Abu Musa said, "I came to the Prophet along with two men (from the tribe) of Ash'ariyin, one on my right and the other on my left, while Allah's Apostle was brushing his teeth (with a Siwak), and both men asked him for some employment. The Prophet said, 'O Abu Musa (O 'Abdullah bin Qais!).' I said, 'By Him Who sent you with the Truth, these two men did not tell me what was in their hearts and I did not feel (realize) that they were seeking employment.' As if I were looking now at his Siwak being drawn to a corner under his lips, and he said, 'We never (or, we do not) appoint for our affairs anyone who seeks to be employed. But O Abu Musa! (or 'Abdullah bin Qais!) Go to Yemen.'" The Prophet then sent Mu'adh bin Jabal after him and when Mu'adh reached him, he spread out a cushion for him and requested him to get down (and sit on the cushion). Behold: There was a fettered man beside Abu Muisa. Mu'adh asked, "Who is this (man)?" Abu Muisa said, "He was a Jew and became a Muslim and then reverted back to Judaism." Then Abu Muisa requested Mu'adh to sit down but Mu'adh said, "I will not sit down till he has been killed. This is the judgment of Allah and His Apostle (for such cases) and repeated it thrice. Then Abu Musa ordered that the man be killed, and he was killed. Abu Musa added, "Then we discussed the night prayers and one of us said, 'I pray and sleep, and I hope that Allah will reward me for my sleep as well as for my prayers.'"

If Quran is supreme,as accepted widely and if it states that "to you your religion and to me mine" is it not an act of negatig the supremacy of Quran to use Hadiths to execute apostates?? So what authority does Quran have amongst Muslims?? Famous personalities like Gamal Al-Banna and Taha Jabir Alalwani oppose death to public apostates and they use Quran as the supreme authority. Then we have a few famous scholars that espouse death penalty for public apostates like Zakir Naik and Bilal Philips. These people seem to be negating the supremacy of Quran.

Again to my question, what supremacy or authority does Quran enjoy amongst Muslims, when the question of life and death of an individual, rests on whether a Govt authority in an Islamic country follows the Quranic path or the Hadith path in dealing with apostasy??? Is the Quran really supreme??

*****If you are using the conclusion of that article (which you have quoted verbatim) as finality, then you are obviously accepting the entire set of building blocks being used by Swami Giri to arrive at that conclusion****


बंधु मैने ये कब कह दिया की स्वामी गिरी का हर वाक्य मेरे लिए प्रमाणित है यहा वार्तालाप का वास्तु ये है की हिंदू धरम में हर एक के लिए प्रमाणित पुस्तक अलग है जिसको दिए गये उधारण प्रमाणित करते है तो आपको इन सब चीज़ो को लाना समय की बर्बादी है और कुछ नही आपने दिए गये पाँच उधारण में से एक पर आपने आपना स्पास्टीकरण दिया है

बंधु शायद आपको यह नही दिखा की कथित लेखक ने ये भी लिखा है
Each division has 4 minor divisions, namely the Samhitas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanisads. Thus altogether the 4 Vedas contain 1,130 Samhitas, 1,130 Brahmanas, 1,130 Aranyakas, and 1,130 Upanisads. This makes a total of 4,520 divisions.

At present, most of these texts have disappeared due to the influence of time. We can only find 11 Samhitas, 18 Brahmanas, 7 Aranyakas and 220 Upanisads which constitutes a mere 6% of the entire Vedic canon!

अगर में इसको ले लू तो आप अपने पर पर खुद ही पथर मार रहे है

तो बंधु व्यर्थ के वार्तालाप में नही पढ़े तो बहतर है आप दो अलग चीज़ो को एक साथ मिला रहे है

और हान अंत में आप जो क़ुरान से संबंधित कॉमेंट लाए है इसके लिए मुझे ये कहना है की सब्दो से मत खेलिए दिखाये की मुस्लिम में प्रमाणित पुस्तक क़ुरान नही है

@ Mushafiq: Given you are waxing eloquence about Agni's attributes, it beats me as to why/how you are asking me to show you where is Agni personified as TRUTH, in Vedas? If I show you with the Khanda/Hymn/Verse number(s), will you be honest enough to admit that you were wrong about Agni? The very question of yours to me establishes,beyond reasonable doubt, your lack of understanding of Agni in Vedas.

And your other statement that never is any Supreme ONE seen in the Vedas is another factual error. That is a reflection of a) Your conditioning based on West Asian ethos b)Your abysmal understanding of Vedas. Again there is a point in the Vedas,where, this gets clearly established.I will await your response on Agni,first

About your statement on the mazdan faith, I have established with evidences and timelines that the Mazdan faith trails the Vedic faith by aeons in the relevant post of yours. So you are free to repeat the factual error.

@ Islamic Defender: Using the article you quoted, I have clearly established that the supremacy of Vedas prevails. If anything, the burden of proof to make that article look good, falls on you. And did you read all the posts of that author on the website?? He makes a 180 degree turn in another post where Vedas and SMB is concerned and ascertains that the supremacy of Vedas cannot be questioned. You are free to look it up. Discussions of Vedic supremacy based on that article by the author is useless.

And you are entitled to your opinions about me playing with words. For lack of any other argument you are using me playing with words as a punchline. It does not wash.

And anyway, I saw how tactfully you and Mushafiq avoided my questions on the lack of authority of Quran on a critical life and death subject. No surprises there...

हाँ बंधु आपने सुपरेमसी तो ज़रूर दिखा दी होगी लेकिन स्वपन में सिर्फ़ ....लेखक ने यहा कहा की धार्मिक पुस्तक एक नही है तो यह चीज़ मुझे सीध करनी थी जो मैने कर दी और अगर में उस लेख की बात भी कर लू तो 96 प्रतिसथ तो गुम चुका है नॅस्ट हो चुका है तो सुपरेमसी की बात ही कहा से आती है और आप की क़ुरान से संबंधित बात को हम जवाब ज़रूर देंगे लेकिन पहले यहा की विषय वस्तु से ना हटा जाए इसलिए अभी उसें छोड़ दिया

@ Islamic Defender: Now you are making a strategic shift. You started with quoting a reference to make it look like Vedas do not reign supreme among the Dharmic scriptures. Given you could not make much headway, you are now scrapping a portion of that article you referred to claim that portions of Vedas are lost.

I have written enough on this very site about lost shakas, the significance of samhitas when compared with Aranyakas and Brahmanas and how the Vedic core is intact. Vedas are never meant to be written down. For example when Rig Vedic verses are recited and you to try to follow the recitals with a piece of paper in your hand that has transliteration of the same hymns being recited, the punctuations, the way words are split are joined will be different from the written down versions. That is why there is a difference in count of mantras of say the Rig Veda.

Rig Veda has a total of 10,552 mantras. When recited as a whole body, across the shakas, this is the count of mantras. This count is that of the samhita section alone. When a specific shaka is recited, based on the relevant Aranyakas and Brahamanas, the count can vary. That is why we ought to focus on the Samhitas to secure the count of mantras and not the flavors of shakas. Here is the mandala wise, sukta wise break up of mantras of the Rig Veda. When reciting, this is the exact count of mantras (based on Samhitas), across Shakas. You are free to check this with any Sanskrit scholar or any Sanskrit College across India.

Mandala Sukta Count of Mantras
1 191 2006
2 043 0429
3 062 0617
4 058 0589
5 087 0727
6 075 0765
7 104 0841
8 103 1716
9 114 1108
10 191 1754
-----------------------
10 1028 10,552
-----------------------

So,no Samhitas have ever been lost. This is now another nail in the coffin of your attempt to deride the authenticity of Vedas. What is your next trick?

Apolloreach,

Let me clarify your misunderstanding of the supremacy of the Quran with respect to apostasy. Why look for scholars opinion when you have brain and knowledge to do research on this well know issue

You youself dont believe in you vedic scholars so its irony on your part to showcase your ignorance on Quran by referring islamic scholars.

This one statement will nullify your grand claim. Quran talks about the apostates several times and not a single command exists in the Noble Quran that orders the killing of any of them.

I give you the following details with help from other source. Hope you dont mind it as long as its truthful and logical.

Apostates: Should they be killed or saved?
1- Who are the Apostates in Islam?
2- The absolute freedom of religion in Islam.
3- So how come Muslim Fundamentalists execute those who desert Islam then?
4- Rebuttal about the historical Muslims' battles with the Apostates.
5- Renowned Muslim scholars agreeing with not all apostates to be killed.
6- Conclusion.

Note: Some of the notes in this article were taken from the commentary of the Noble Quran translation of Abdullah Yusuf Ali; may Allah Almighty rest his soul. Ameen.

1- Who are the Apostates in Islam?
Apostates or Renegades are those who decide to leave the religion of Islam. There is a widely prevailing misconception about this issue. It is generally thought that the Holy Quran (The Muslims Holy Scripture) provides the death sentence for those who desert the religion of Islam. There is not the least ground for such a supposition. The Holy Quran speaks repeatedly of people going back to unbelief after believing, but never once does it say that they should be killed or punished. Although the Holy Quran does provide the death sentence for some situations such as putting a murderer to death, but it never provided death sentence or ordered the death of those who leave Islam.


Let us look at Noble Verse 2:217 "They ask thee (Mohammed) Concerning fighting In the Prohibited Month. Say: Fighting therein Is a grave (offence); but graver is it In the sight of Allah to prevent access to the path of Allah, to deny Him, to prevent access to the sacred Mosque, and drive out its members. Tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter. Nor will they cease fighting you until they turn you back from your faith if they can. And if any of you turn back from their faith (Islam) and die in unbelief, their works will bear no fruit in this life and in the hereafter; they will be companions of the fire and will abide therein." Here in this Holy Verse we see that Allah Almighty talks about those who leave Islam, and promises them punishment in the day of judgment. Allah Almighty doesn't order the death of those people.

Let also look at Noble Verse 5:54 "O ye who believe! If any from among you turn back from his faith, soon will Allah produce a people whom He (Allah) will love as they will love Him lowly with the believers, Mighty against the rejecters, fighting in the way of Allah, and never afraid of the reproachers of such as find fault. That is the Grace of Allah which He will bestow on whom He (Allah) pleaseth. And Allah encompasseth all, and He knoweth all things." Here in this Holy Verse we see again Allah Almighty strengthening the faith of the Muslims in Islam by assuring them that whenever they see Muslims leaving Islam they will also see those who join Islam with strong faith and love to Allah Almighty.
"As most men are rebellious." (5:49), it is inevitable that there should be apostates even from such a religion of reason and common-sense as Islam. In Verse 5:54 above there is a warning to the Muslims that they should not repeat the history of the Jews, and become so self-satisfied or arrogant as to depart from the spirit of Allah's teaching. If they do, the loss will be their own. Allah's bounty is not confined to one group or section of humanity. He can always raise up people who will follow the true spirit of Islam. That spirit is defined in two ways:

1- They will love Allah Almighty and Allah Almighty will love them.
2- Amongst the Brethren, their attitude will be that of humility, but to wrongdoers they will offer no compromises, and they will always strive and fight for the truth and right. They will know no fear, either physical, or that more insidious form. They are too great in mind to be haunted by any such thought.
Let us look at Noble Verse 5:55 "(O Muslims) Your (real) friends are (No less than) Allah, His Messenger, and the (Fellowship Of) Believers, those who establish regular prayers and regular charity, and they bow down humbly (in worship)." Here we see Allah Almighty telling Muslims after he warned them from apostates in (5:54) that their real friends are: Allah Almighty, Prophet Mohammed peace be upon him, and the good Muslims who keep up with their prayers and charity, and who humbly worship their God.

Lets us look at Noble Verse 3:90 "But those who reject faith after they accepted it, and then go on adding to their defiance of faith never will their repentance be accepted; for they are those who have (of set purpose) gone astray." Here in this holy verse we see Allah Almighty rejecting the faith of those who keep coming back and forth to Islam. In order for a human being to accept Islam as his religion, he must be certain about it first. Allah Almighty's path is wide open, and his mercy is greater than this universe. This Holy Verse also does not order the death of those who leave Islam.

The path to Allah Almighty is always open and Allah Almighty will be your friend as in verse (5:55) above, and he will forgive your sins for you once you repent as in the following verse: "Except for those that repent (Even) after that, And make amends; for Allah is Oft-Forgiving Most Merciful." (3:89).

2- The absolute freedom of religion in Islam:
Some group of Muslims believe in killing apostates because they follow a Hadith (Saying) from Prophet Mohammed peace be upon him regarding the apostates. While Islam was weak and still growing among Jews, Christians and Pagans, Muslims did not have the full and complete religion that they needed. Some Jews and Christians wanted to take advantage of such situation to destroy Islam. They had a plan to adopt Islam first and then desert it, thus creating the impression that Islam was not a religion worth adopting.

Let us look at Noble Verse 3:72 "A section of the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) say: Believe in the morning what is revealed to the believers (Muslims), but reject it at the end of the day; perchance they may (themselves) turn back (from Islam)." To protect Islam from such Satanic attempts done by a group of the people of the book (Jews and Christians), Prophet Mohammed peace be upon him ordered the death of those who enter Islam and leave it. This temporary law that was put by our Prophet had stopped the hypocrites from the People of the Book who carried so much hatred toward Islam to enter Islam and desert it afterwards.

Allah Almighty ordered the Muslims to kill the pagans who fought against the
Muslims. The following Noble Verse talks about all of the enemies who fought the Muslims long and bloody battles:

Let us look at Noble Verse 2:191 "And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have Turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith." The killing of the pagans who fought the Muslims during the time when Islam was not yet complete was essential.
Important Note: Noble Verse 2:191 above is not dedicated to the apostates as some Muslims use it to prove that the Noble Quran orders the killing of apostates. In fact, it doesn't even mention the apostates. It talks in general about slaying the pagans who declare wars on the Muslims. The pagans would obviously include the apostates who deserted Islam, but the Noble Verse certainly doesn't DIRECTLY order the killing of anyone who deserts Islam.

Allah Almighty promised that He will protect the Noble Quran from any corruption:
"We have, without doubt, sent down the Message; and We will assuredly Guard it (from corruption). (The Noble Quran, 15:9)"
"Nay, this is a Glorious Quran, (inscribed) in a Tablet Preserved! (The Noble Quran, 85:21-22)"

Let us look at Noble Verse 5:3 ".....This day those who reject faith given up all hope of your religion: Yet fear them not But fear Me (Allah). This day have I (Allah) perfected your religion for you, completed my favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your (complete) religion....". So long as Islam was not organized, with its own community and its own laws, the unbelievers and the Hypocrites from the People of the Book and the Pagan Arabs had hoped to wean the believers from the new teaching. Now that hope is gone forever with the complete organization of Islam.

Let us look at Noble Verses 15:2-3 "Again and again will those who disbelieve, wish that they had bowed (to God's will) in Islam. Leave them alone, to enjoy (the good things of this life) and to please themselves: let (false) hope amuse them: soon will knowledge (undeceive them)."
Let us look at Noble Verses 10:99-100 "If it had been thy Lord's will, they would all have believed, all who are on earth! wilt thou then compel mankind, against their will, to believe! No soul can believe, except by the will of God, and He will place doubt (or obscurity) on those who will not understand."
Let us look at Noble Verse 18:29 "Say, 'The truth is from your Lord': Let him who will believe, and let him who will, reject (it): for the wrong doers We have prepared a Fire whose (smoke and flames), like the walls and roof of a tent, will hem them in: if they implore relief they will be granted water like melted brass, that will scald their faces, how dreadful the drink! How uncomfortable a couch to recline on!"

Let us look at Noble Verse 27:92 "And to rehearse the Qur'an: and if any accept guidance, they do it for the good of their own souls, and if any stray, say: 'I am only a Warner.'"
Let us look at Noble Verse 10:99 "If it had been thy Lord's will, they would all have believed,- all who are on earth! wilt thou then compel mankind, against their will, to believe!" Allah Almighty doesn't like us to compel people into belief.
"No soul can believe, except by the will of God, and He will place doubt (or obscurity) on those who will not understand. (The Noble Quran, 10:100)" Allah Almighty helps those whom He likes to be guided to His Straight Path. If anyone doesn't believe, or reverts back from Islam, it is then his loss and it is the Will of Allah Almighty.
"Say: 'Behold all that is in the heavens and on earth'; but neither Signs nor Warners profit those who believe not. Do they then expect (any thing) but (what happened in) the days of the men who passed away before them? Say: 'Wait ye then: for I, too, will wait with you.' (The Noble Quran, 10:101-102)" Notice how Allah Almighty orders us to say "Wait" to those who reject Islam. This clearly says that we can't force anyone into Islam, or punish anyone for leaving Islam.

Let us look at Noble Verse 10:108 "Say: 'O ye men! Now Truth hath reached you from your Lord! those who receive guidance, do so for the good of their own souls; those who stray, do so to their own loss: and I am not (set) over you to arrange your affairs.'" Whoever believes benefits his soul and whoever doesn't, harms it, and Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him is not in charge of people to arrange their affairs. Only Allah Almighty is.
"Say: 'Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger: but if ye turn away, he is only responsible for the duty placed on him and ye for that placed on you. If ye obey him, ye shall be on right guidance. The Messenger's duty is only to preach the clear (Message). (The Noble Quran, 24:54)" Prophet Muhammad's duty was only to preach.

"Those who pervert the Truth in Our Signs are not hidden from Us. Which is better? he that is cast into the Fire, or he that comes safe through, on the Day of Judgement? Do what ye will: Verily He seeth (clearly) all that ye do. (The Noble Quran, 41:40)" Here we clearly see Allah Almighty giving a freedom of choice for people to choose or refuse Islam.
"And those who take as protectors others besides Him - Allah doth watch over them; and thou art not the disposer of their affairs. (The Noble Quran, 42:6)" Again, Allah Almighty here told Prophet Muhammad that he has no authority over those who reject Islam.

"It is true thou wilt not be able to guide every one whom thou lovest; but Allah Guides those whom He will and He Knows those who receive guidance. (The Noble Quran, 28:56)" Again, no authority to Prophet Muhammad over those who accept or reject Islam.
Let us look at Noble Verse 2:256 "Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy handhold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things." The Holy Quran prohibits Muslims to force any person into Islam. Muslims must not let people resent Islam and Muslims. They must leave people decide for themselves because the "Truth stands out clear from error" (2:256).

Compulsion is incompatible with religion: Because (1) religion depends upon faith and will, and these would be meaningless by force; (2) Truth and Error have been so clearly shown up by the mercy of Allah Almighty that there should be no doubt in the minds of any persons of good will as to the fundamentals of faith; (3) Allah Almighty's protection is continuous, and His Plan is always to lead us from the depths of darkness into the clearest light.

Another Claim:
"I found another verse in the Quran that dealt with apostates. Noble Verse 4:137 "Those who believe, then reject faith, then believe (again) and (again) reject faith, and go on increasing in unbelief,- Allah will not forgive them nor guide them nor guide them on the way."
Notice that the Quran says those who reject faith and then BELIEVE and again DISBELIEVE. if a Muslim rejects faith and is then killed for doing so how will he live to again BELIEVE and then DISBELIEVE. The atmosphere of this verse is that of free will and freedom of choice to everyone. If Allah wanted he would have said something about the punishment, if there was any, of those who reject Islam after accepting it. but Allah takes this to be clearly a private matter between them and Allah.

I found many verses in the Quran that teach us NO PUNISHMENT for an apostate BUT I found no verse that says the contrary.
Here is another verse about the freedom of expression in the Quran. Many translators translate this wrongly and kill the meaning of the word making it a bogus and strange statement. Noble Verse 39:18 "Those who listen to the word, then follow the best of it; those are they whom Allah has guided, and those it is who are the men of understanding."

The Quran tells the Muslims to listen to every thing and follow only the best of what is said. it does not tell them to kill people if they say something that is not according to the cultural norm."

Let us look at Noble Verse 42:15 "Now then, for that (reason), call (them to the Faith), and stand steadfast as thou art commanded, nor follow thou their vain desires; but say: 'I believe in the Book which God has sent down; and I am commanded to judge justly between you. God is our Lord and your Lord: for us (is the responsibility for) our deeds, and for you for your deeds. There is no contention between us and you. God will bring us together, and to Him is (our) Final Goal.'"

The Noble Quran in all of the above Noble Verses is crystal clear about providing freedom of religion and choice to all people, Muslims and non-Muslims.

3- So how come Muslim Fundamentalists execute those who desert Islam then?
The interpretation of those who prohibit women from education, even though Islam clearly allows education for women, and prohibit them also from driving, and oppress men by forcing them to grow beards, even though beards are NOT mandatory in Islam, doesn't mean much to me.

As we've seen above, it is quite clear, and beyond any questioning that Allah Almighty prohibited compulsion in religion and allowed the absolute freedom of religion to everyone. When Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him executed apostates, he did it because Muslims were at war time and because Islam was still partial, and Muslims needed protection from the hypocrites of the Jews and Christians who purposely entered Islam and deserted it later to create confusion among the Muslims as shown below in the Noble Verse.

The Sayings of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, regarding killing the renegades came when Islam was partial and the Muslims were dealing with wars all the time. So if the person wasn't with the Muslims, then he was certainly with his people, the pagans and the other non-Muslims, and he would've then had to join the evil forces to fight the Muslims. So the case back then was different than today.
I have no sympathy for those hypocrites of the Jews and Christians who got executed:

"A section of the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) say: Believe in the morning what is revealed to the believers (Muslims), but reject it at the end of the day; perchance they may (themselves) turn back (from Islam). (The Noble Quran, 3:72)"

4- Rebuttal about the historical Muslims' battles with the Apostates:
According to the Islamic history, when Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him died, some of the Muslims had deserted Islam for several reasons. The biggest of those reasons was that they opposed paying the Zakah (2.5% of annual income of Islamic taxes for the poor).

Keep in mind that Allah Almighty constantly Warning the Prophet and the Muslims from the hypocrites (false believers). The Arabs before Islam were used to exploiting each others. The strong ate the poor, and high interest rates were enforced on loans given to the poor to ultimately force them to sell of their cattle, sons, daughters and/or wives as slaves.

After the death of our Prophet, some of the rich hypocrites decided to join with the Pagan Arab tribes to fight the Muslims and end Islam. The leader of the apostates/renegades was Musylama Al-Kath-thab or Musylama the liar in English, started his army of infidels in what we call today the country of Oman, which is more than 1,000 miles away from Mecca and Medina where the Muslims resided.
After Musylama became strong and popular and was able to gather a big amount of pagans and hypocrites to form an army, he led them to march to Mecca and Medina to fight the Muslims. When his army finally reached the mountains near Mecca, the Muslims had fought them several battles until he ultimately was killed and his army was soundly defeated.

The objection that I have with some Muslims is for the following reasons:

1- It was the renegades or apostates that declared the war on the Muslims. The Muslims did not start the war.

2- We can't use the story of Musylama Al-Kath-thab to prove that it is ok today to kill any person who deserts Islam. Musylama was not a peaceful renegade. He wanted to destroy the Muslims through war. He had to be fought and killed. We can't use him as a standard and kill all renegades, especially those in the West for instance, who might embrace Islam and then desert it later due to the overwhelming anti-Islamic media and lies.

3- As I proved in this article, Allah Almighty in the Noble Quran talked about the apostates several times, and not a single command exists in the Noble Quran that orders the killing of any of them.

4- The Sayings of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, regarding killing the renegades came when Islam was partial and the Muslims were dealing with wars all the time. As I said above, if the person wasn't with the Muslims, then he was certainly with his people, the pagans and the other non-Muslims, and he would've then had to join the evil forces to fight the Muslims. So the case back then was different than today.

5- Today, if a week-hearted and easily persuaded person for instance decides to embrace Islam and then gets easily persuaded to leave Islam, and then gets easily persuaded to embrace Islam again, and then gets easily persuaded to leave it and so on, then how is it right for us to apply the things that were applied to the hypocrites and Musylama Al-Kath-thab during and after our Prophet's time to this innocent individual?

6- We must never forget Allah Almighty's Command that honors the freedom of religion and choice in Islam in Noble Verse 2:256 and the others as shown in this article.

7- Some Muslims claim that the Caliphs did not apply Noble Verse 2:256 and others to the renegades, because the Caliphs knew that these Noble Verses are not applicable to them.

My response to this is that we:

1.Don't know if the Caliphs had any choice to apply them back in the hostile environment that they existed in back then.

2.The Caliphs are not the measuring stick that the Muslims today have to follow, especially after knowing that the Caliphs themselves did things different from each others several times before on very major Islamic issues: [1] [2].

5 Renowned Muslim scholars agreeing with not all apostates to be killed:
There are too orthodox scholars who agree with you, i don't mean just some scholars, but famous renowned orhodox scholars , like Ibn tamiyya and the maliki scholar Abul Walid al-Baji support our stance on apostacy, therefor your article is and stance is also a right orthodox view, where no one has the right to criticize you, since renowned scholars confirmed our stance. Check the article below, let me know what you think of it, and if you would add it to the article.

_______________________________________________________ ______________________

Volume 4, Book 52, Number 260:
Narrated Ikrima:
Ali burnt some people and this news reached Ibn 'Abbas, who said, "Had I been in his place I would not have burnt them, as the Prophet said, 'Don't punish (anybody) with Allah's Punishment.' No doubt, I would have killed them, for the Prophet said, 'If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him.' "
Many prominent scholars throughout the centuries have held the view that apostasy is not a hadd (singular for hudud = capital) offence. This view is founded on the fact that the Qur'an is completely silent on the death penalty for apostasy. In fact, freedom of religion is a fundamental tenet of Islam. In Surah al-Baqarah, 2:256, Allah explicitly states: "Let there be no compulsion in religion". This Medinan verse was revealed when some Companions asked the Prophet for permission to compel their relatives to profess Islam. It has been widely interpreted to mean that no one can be compelled to embrace Islam because religion depends upon faith and will, and this would be meaningless if induced by force. Islam itself means submission to the will of God; and the willing submission of the self to faith and
belief must be attained through conviction and reason, not through coercion and duress.

Islam began by inviting and persuading people to embrace it on the merit of its rationality and truth. In Surah Yunus, 10:99, a verse revealed in Mecca at the advent of Islam, Allah says: "Had your Lord willed, everyone on earth would have believed. Do you then force people to become believers?" This and verse 2:256, together with the norm of Shari'a which affirms freedom of religion, have led many Muslim countries today to include in its Constitution an article on freedom of religion as a fundamental right.

In his book, The Punishment for Apostasy in Islam, the former Chief Justice of Pakistan, SA Rahman, noted that even though the subject of apostasy occurred no less than 20 times in the Qur'an, the Holy Book remained silent on death as a punishment. Surah An-Nisa', 4:137-138, state that "Verily, those who believe, then disbelieve, then believe again, then disbelieve, and then increase in their disbelief - Allah will never forgive them nor guide them to the path. Give to the hypocrites the tidings that there is for them a painful torment." If indeed it was Allah's intention to impose the death penalty for apostasy, then such occasion of repeated apostasy could have provoked such a punishment. But neither the first instance of apostasy, nor repeated apostasy brought about capital punishment.
Those who advocate the death penalty for apostasy based their reasoning on a hadith which proclaims, "kill whoever changes his religion". But this hadith is open to varying interpretations on several grounds.

First, this hadith is considered a weak hadith with just a single isnad (this means there is only one chain of transmission or narration) and thus according to the rules of Islamic jurisprudence, it is not enough to validate the death penalty.

Second, this hadith is also considered a general ('amm) hadith in that it is in need of specification (takhsis); for it would otherwise convey a meaning that is not within its purpose. The obvious reading of the hadith would, for example, make liable the death punishment on a Hindu or Christian who converts to Islam. This is obviously not the intention of the hadith. According to the rules of Islamic jurisprudence, when a text is interpreted once, it becomes open to further interpretation and specification. Therefore, many scholars interpret this hadith to apply only to cases of high treason (hirabah), which means declaring war against Islam, the Prophet, or God or the legitimate leadership of the ummah.

Third, and most importantly, there is no evidence to show that Prophet Muhammad saw or his Companions ever compelled anyone to embrace Islam, nor did they sentence anyone to death solely for renunciation of the faith.

Based on these three reasons and the Qur'anic principle of freedom of religion, prominent ulama (scholars) from the seventh to the twentieth centuries have come out with the position that there can be no death penalty for apostasy. According to Professor Hashim Kamali in his award-winning book, Freedom of Expression in Islam, two leading jurists of the generation succeeding the Companions, Ibrahim al-Naka'I and Sufyan al-Thawri, both held that the apostate should be re-invited to Islam, but should never be condemned to death. The renowned Hanafi jurist, Shams al-Din al-Sarakhsi wrote that even though renunciation of faith is the greatest of offences, it is a matter between man and his Creator, and its punishment is postponed to the Day of Judgement. The Maliki jurist Abul Walid al-Baji and the renowned Hanbali jurist Ibn Taymiyyah have both held that apostasy is a sin which carries no hadd punishment.

In modern times, the celebrated Sheikh of al-Azhar University, the late Mahmud Shaltut who was esteemed for his vast knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence and Qur'anic interpretation, wrote that many ulama are in agreement that hudud cannot be established by a solitary hadith and that unbelief by itself does not call for the death penalty. The current Sheikh of al-Azhar, who was Egypt's former Grand Mufti, Dr Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, also declared that apostasy is not a capital crime.

Many scholars, including Ibn Taymiyyah, Shaltut and Tantawi, said that the death penalty was not meant to apply to a simple change of faith, but to hirabah, that is, when apostasy is accompanied by rebellion against the community and its legitimate leadership.

6- Conclusion:
As we clearly see from the Noble Verses above, apostates are no longer to be killed in Islam. I am not here promoting apostates, but there is no reason to kill someone who doesn't deserve to be killed. Certainly if the apostate is hostile toward the Muslims and joins the enemy in a war against them, or tries to corrupt the Muslims in the Muslim lands by trying to convert them to his/her new deviant religion, then the matter becomes different. But if a Westerner today for instance embraces Islam for a while and then changes his position due to the overwhelming false anti-Islamic media, then certainly killing that person would be a grave sin and a big mistake.

Peace,
Riaz

@ Riaz: Thanks for your post on Apostasy in Islam. I am sure that when you look up any of my posts on this site, you will know that I have said nothing against Islam, your Prophet.the Quran or Muslims. Nowehere did I say that Quran espouses death penalty to apostasy. I have used the Quran to establish the opposite. Please re-read my post. I never claimed Quran tags capital punishment to apostasy.

But please think about my motivation behind my post. You should point the first lines of your post on having brains and negating scholars with loaded interests to your friend Islamic Defender. He used some half baked scholar's post to try to deride the Vedas. Now you have displayed your displeasure when I named Islamic scholars that support death penalty for apostasy by negating the Quran. It is the same displeasure that I experienced when Islamic Defender used a half baked scholar to espouse a faulty logic. That evens it Riyaz.Adios.

@ Mushafiq, I am reposting my last message addressed to you. I just want to ensure that you did not miss it among the other messages posted above.
---------------
@ Mushafiq: Given you are waxing eloquence about Agni's attributes, it beats me as to why/how you are asking me to show you where is Agni personified as TRUTH, in Vedas? If I show you with the Khanda/Hymn/Verse number(s), will you be honest enough to admit that you were wrong about Agni? The very question of yours to me establishes,beyond reasonable doubt, your lack of understanding of Agni in Vedas.

And your other statement that never is any Supreme ONE seen in the Vedas is another factual error. That is a reflection of a) your conditioning based on West Asian ethos b)Your abysmal understanding and knowledge of Vedas. Again there is a point in the Vedas,where, this gets clearly established.I will await your response on Agni,first

About your statement on the mazdan faith, I have established with evidences and timelines that the Mazdan faith trails the Vedic faith by aeons in the relevant post of yours. So you are free to repeat the factual error.
---------------------------

And let me leave you with this while I await your response.

The most appropriate Vedic symbol for the lordship of the Lord is the figure of Agni - the friend of Man, the priest in the sacrifice,the sacred and sacrificial fire,the fire that is in the sun, the fire that burns in the heart of every man, everywhere the same and yet everywhere different.The invocation of Agni is neither nature worship nor pantheism (as you would like to call). It is the clear recognition of the polymorphic reality of the Lordship, which is symbolised by Agni.

Once again, please revert with whether or not you determined those hymns in the Vedas that link Agni and truth. If you did land those verses, it means you posted an article without doing reasonable amount of homework. If you are yet to determine those verses in the Vedas, it simply means that you are not looking at the right places. Either way, you challenged me to show where in the Vedas, Agni is linked to truth. I took up the challenged,for, on a weekly basis, I recite those very mantras and with my eyes closed, I can churn out the location of those verses in the Vedas. Irrespective of your response, this instance is proof enough of the nature of fidelity you have towards your research. You are repeatedly letting yourself down. If you want, please let me know & I will point you those mantras in the Vedas that tie agni and truth. Goodluck.

@ Mushafiq: You are digging yourself into a deeper hole. I am repeating my question. If I show you where Agni is linked to truth, are you willing to accept the fact that you got ir wrong about your post on Agni???

And you are substantiating my points more and more by restrictng Agni just to the physical fire that you claim the Vedic people worshipped. Again this is wrong.

-----------------

You will never be able to respond to my question (even if you know that you are wrong) on the verse tying Agni and Truth, as the nature of your research is pretty shallow and superficial. Anyway, atleast the other Hindus that may come to this site will know about what I am saying.

Here is the proof.

Agnir hotr kavikratuh satyas citrasrvastamah
devo devebjir a gamat.

May Agni, the will of the seer, the truth, the luminous inspiration
come, divine power with divine powers.

This is a verse from Rig Veda. And this flies in the face of your faulty assertion that Agni has no connection with truth. You are free to locate the hymn and verse numbers...

If Agni,as you claim, is nothing more than the physical fire, what are these verses (found below) all about??? And these verses are just for starters...

Men pray to him, yet he needs no asking,his mind has grasped all things. He goes as one who knows the first word and the last,with mind composed.

To him ascend these hymns, these steed swift prayers.He alone hears my words. All mover, all conqueror, conveyer of sacrifice, the child, ever aiding,
he assumes great power.

Uplift your prayer.He comes.He knows.His wisdom is implored.In him are counsels, in him requests, his Lord of power.

He is a being,of flood and forest who passes aloft.Knowing the Law, he inspires to right action,this wise and true Lord.

These verses convey Agni to be more than just physical fire. They describe Agni to be knowledge, wisdom, the one who knows both the first and the last words, an aid, the knower of Law, an inspirer of right action, bringer of joy, a friendly one who comes without being asked, the beholder of counsels....

Pal,so your premise that Agni is just fire and nothing more stands dismantled.Is a physical fire capable of the above mentioned functions???

These are again from Rig Veda. Given you know the Rig Veda, you can look them up.

------------------

So Mushafiq, both your claims about Agni not being tied to truth and Agni being nothing more than physical fire stand refuted.

And while I still await your grand post on OM (which you claimed you will come up, almost a month ago), let me see what you come up with on the names and lists of various forces in the vedas. Based on your past posts, I kind of get a sense of what you are gonna do. No problems. Time permitting, I will respond to that post of yours too.

@ Mushafiq: Agni is much more than what you care to know...

RV 10/79/1 & 1/77/1: Agni is Immortal/ Deathless amongst mortals...
RV 1/77/2-3: Agni is conciousness / mental power in men
RV 2/1/3-7: Agni is Indra, Agni is Vishnu, Agni is Rudra, Agni is Brahma, Agni is Savitar,Agni is Mitra, Agni is Varuna, Agni is Aryaman....
RV 2/7/6: Agni is strength

Mushafiq, I can pile up more & more. If you have not realized the fallacy of your post by now, that speaks volumes about your misplaced tenacity for the wrong purpose. You have not responded to any of my rebuttals on Tatvamasi or Maya or Bhagavad Gita. I'd love to hear from you on all that too.

@ Mushafiq: Hmmm...given your arguments based on abysmal knowledge of Vedas has been exposed, you are now waxing eloquence on theisms. You challenged me to show where in Vedas was Agni linked to Truth and you also made a claim that Agni is just physical fire. I took out both of your arguments by showing how Agni is linked to Truth and also showed how Agni is not just the physical fire, from Vedas.

Again, who cares about theisms? Only the so called people of the kitab worry about theisms. And on Agni, you have completely missed the way Agni is characterised to be a three in one power. Agni is heavely,cosmic and heavenly. There are verses in Rig Veda that establish this clearly. But hey, you missed them. And please do not shoot yourself on the foot again, by asking me to show them.

You are entitled to your opinions on who is the true God? If a God is burning a virtuous non-Muslim in eternal hellfire,that God cannot be true. Simple, eh?

And this magic number of 33 Million so called Gods that you claim are in Hinduism, please show which verse in the Vedas states so. On nature worship, you talk about Vedas sanctioning or not sanctioning nature worship. Vedas do not espouse that kind of jurisprudence,as, some other scriptures do.

Let us take Water for example. In Vedas, waters are neatly categorized to be divine waters and the waters of earth that sustain life. Verses dealing with the former tie back to the primordial waters from where everything emerged and the latter deal with the reality of everyday toil of human life. The same is seen in the Brahamanas too.

Similarly, where earth is concerned, in the Vedas, there is a categorization pertaining to the typical sustaining nature of earth and the also the might of the earth that is all consuming. And the verses express adoration of earth.

Where wind is concerned,it is ctegorized into 3 - the life giving breath, the spirit that moves and the blowing of the spirit. The verses expalin how wing captures, raptures and take away to the celestial sphere.

Mushafiq, again, you are gonna shoot yourself in the foot with the concept of nature worship, as understood by your conditioning.

It does not matter how many articles you post,like I mentioned a month ago, you are gonna be in error, all the way through.

On the 3-in-1 power of Agni, it ought to read, earthly,cosmic and heavenly. I repeated heavenly twice (typo)...

Bro Apolloreach,

On true God I shall try to clarify your doubts. You are again failing to understand the real meaning of the word Muslim and I believe I have made my best efforts especially with you to make you understand, but with your consistent and non open, resistant attitude you are falling on the trap again and again.

Prophet PBUH said that by birth all the humans have submitted their will to God's will. By birth all are God abiding creatures, Muslims. When a infant of any religion dies, we believe this infant reaches heaven since by birth he or she is a believer, Muslim - one who has submitted to God's will. Clear?

Only due to the prevailing circumstances and family practices, they take a opposite path against God's commandments -meaning they start doing shirk - associating partner with true God. This is the biggest sin as per Islam for which there is no forgiveness.

God is very gentle with his creatures. Don’t you think it won’t take less than seconds to prove his statements by overriding the FREE WlLL of all humans? Its simple, he is maintaining his great stature and decorum by not interfering with the basic free will of you and me, but he gives guidance. Its up to you and me to look forward. Hope this makes sense?

Now on your statement on virtuous non-Muslims and hell fire read the below.

When you say the word Non-Muslim, obviously it means that they did not believe in the oneness of GOD, Tawheed. Either they can by atheist or polytheist. Now you can add the word "virtuous" here. Virtuous Non-Muslim, Virtuous Non believer of Tawheed. Now you tell me how it’s logical to paint with the same brush of the correct and wrong follower

You still can claim that you are worshipping the one true god, but you fail to accept the facts mentioned in the Holy Quran about True God's characteristics and attributes. If you think vedas are God's word then you have to check with open mindedness on other scriptures also. You are losing in this front.

Further, By saying "Non Muslims" it means that someone who doesn't do obligatory things as commanded by the GOD. Say for example, praying 5 times is one obligatory thing.

Then the answer is if you do not pray the five daily prayers which is one of the pillars of Islam then you will be considered as a Non Believer. You may claim that you also pray, but you dont pray as how it should be prayed. We have correct guidance where as you are following your own guidance.

Prophet PBUH said: “Between a man and shirk(associating partners with Allah) and kufr(non-believer) there stands his giving up prayer.” Narrated by Muslim, 82

No righteous deed is accepted from the non believer, because Allah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“And We shall turn to whatever deeds they (disbelievers, polytheists, sinners) did, and We shall make such deeds as scattered floating particles of dust”
[al-Furqaan 25:23]

“If you join others in worship with Allah, (then) surely, (all) your deeds will be in vain, and you will certainly be among the losers”
[al-Zumar 39:65]

Al-Bukhaari narrated that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “Whoever forsakes ‘Asr prayer, his deeds are in vain.” (al-Bukhaari, 553).

What is meant by “his deeds are in vain” means that they become invalid and will not avail him anything?

This hadeeth indicates that in the case of one who does not pray, Allah will not accept any deed from him, so the one who does not pray will not benefit at all from his deeds, and no good deeds of his will ascend to Allah.

You may come up with your own tawheed as per vedas, which only you can interpret according to your understanding.

Now,You may come up with some exceptional hadees and stories on few people who were promised heaven. I admit that there are quite a few instances where certain exceptions are there and be aware tha Allah, the alimighty knows the best.

Bro, still you have time
All the best,
Peace,
Riaz

@ RSA: While your friend Mushafiq is embarassing himself more and more by failing to understand the Vedas, you are embarassing yourself and your faith with the above post of yours.

Assuming,as you claim from your scriptures, everyone is born as a Muslim, if we extend it to those thousands of messengers including the likes of Abraham,Job,Jesus Christ etc etc a few glaring things emerge.

1)These messengers before Muhammad did not worship Al Ilah. They worshipped Yahweh. Are Al Ilah and Yahweh, the same? If they are different, why do you folks accept the earlier messangers? Did they not do a shirk by worshipping a God that is not Al Illah? Based on your quote from Al Zumar, Jesus and Abraham are losers. So why do you accept them as messengers? And if Yahweh and Allah are the same, why is the word Allah found nowhere in the Torah,OT or NT??

2) None of the previous messengers prayed 5 times a day facing quibla, be it the old quibla in Jerusalem or the later day one at Mecca. You said that if one does not pray 5 times a day, he becomes a non-beliver. If so, why do you accept non-believers like Jesus and Abraham as messengers?

3) Based on your quote from Al Furqaan, the deeds of Jesus have gone to dust,as,based on your and Quranic criteria, he was a non-believer too. So why do you accept him as a messenger?

If we add up the 3 points I stated, all Muslims are committing a HUGE shirk by accepting thousands of non-belivers to be messengers!!! And you still claim that everyone is born as a Muslim???

And can you explain as to when did Al Ilah become Allah?? Al Illah means THE GOD. Al Lah is the shorter form of Al Ilah. Allah is not even a proper name. It is like calling a Prime Minister as THE PRIME MINISTER.But then Prime Minister is not a proper name.

@ Mushafiq: Man, I love this. Where have I bragged in any of my posts that Vedas espouse this theism or that theism. I have been repeatedly saying that Vedic knowledge is beyond theisms. And I comment here because you have gotten it absolutely wrong about the basics of Vedas and your posts can easliy ,islead gullible people. While you claim that you have repeatedly proved polytheism in Vedas, at every given instance I have shown you the integrated nature of the various menifestation of the Vedic God. Again when I pushed back with substantial evidence about what Agni is and is not in Vedas, you chickened out and started waxing eloquence about theisms.

Now to Islam. Am I seeing a mirror of what I comment about your understanding of Vedas - "Lack Of Understanding." Oh Yes... I am. I do not falsely claim that I am researching the Quran and I do not wax eloquence about my Quranic knowledge and I do not post huge articles deriding Quran. So if I am wrong about soething in the Quran, I will accept it with humility.

You say that the name issue is trivial (Al Ilah and Yahweh). But if the Quran confims all the previous revelations God cannot flip his own names. Can he? In Exodus 3:13, there is an important instance where,asked by Moses for HIS name, HE,responds back with "I am that" & then says "I am" & then says "Yhwh." While Yhwh is Roman,the Hebrewe equivalent is יהוה and this later became Yahweh. So Moses knows God ONLY as Yahweh and that is the name that is consistently followed in both OT and NT. Only in the Quran do we see Al Ilah. And the Quran has 90 names of Al Ilah but Yahweh is NOT one of them, right? So my basic question still remains. Are Yhwh and Al Ilah, the same?

And even here you are sweeping something under the carpet. If the core message of all Abrahamic scriptures is the same, will Muslims call Al Ilah to be the Father like how NT states Yahweh is??

And there is an even larger problem. The Quran does not accept that Jesus died on the cross. But the core of NT is that Christ died on the cross for the sins of humanity. The difference between the way Quran looks at the death of Christ and the way NT looks at it and purpose behind Christ dying are so vastly different and hence the messages of Quran and NT are so very different. In the Bible JC is clearly the divine Son of the Holy Father but that's a concept that is not there in Quran,as Muhammad has a murky lineage to Ismail but Muhammad is not the ONLY begotten Son of the Father,like how JC is. And you will still claim that the core message across Torah,OT,NT and Quran are the same??

And Abraham and Ishmael predate Muhammad. Assuming they did really build the Kaaba and prayed there, were they instructed to do so by Yahweh or Al Ilah or did they do son on their own accord? If it were Yahweh, let us remind ourselves that HE already had an earthy abode in Zion. And given Muhammad is supposed to have lineages to Ishmael, why does Muhammad deride the architectural work of Abraham and Ishmael?

Had not your people been still close to the pre-Islamic period of ignorance I would have dismantled the Kaaba and would have made two doors in it; one for entrance and the other for exit”. Sahih Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 3, Number 128.

The bottomline, the question on whether Yahweh and Al Ilah are the same is still open. And if you treat it to be trivial as all the Abrahamic scriptures are consistent with the same message, the charaterization of Jesus and his purpose in the Quran and NT are so vastly different. If Jesus,as the Quran states, did not die on the cross, NT becomes a redundant scripture,which means that Quran is negating NT. Is it so??

@ Mushafiq: Given you have quoted Genesis 1:1 you are gonna land up in many difficulties. I'd have been content walking away with Yahweh but you did not let me. There are many transliterations of Alyhm and Elohim. But if you even remotely understand Christian theology you would not have ventured into using Alhym and then deriving Allah out of it. Much less you would not have ventured into claiming that ALHYM is about majesties (plural).

Let us read Genesis 18-1&2
1 And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day;

2 And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground..

3 And said, My LORD, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant:

Here you see Abraham running to THREE men but addressing them as LORD. Can you explain this Mushafiq?

Here is what it is...The 3 men found above are divine beings, higher ups or forces, whatever you may call them. It is from here that Abraham is revealed the divine word. The divine word revealed to Abraham was ELOHIM (ALHYM), a plurality of divine forces. When pronounced in singular, it is called Eloha. To Abraham, Elohim were immanent forces that impacted the lives of him and his people.

When you immerse into Torah and OT fully, you will realize that Abraham/Jacob/Moses etc etc worshipped 'yhvh alhym' - the ONE preeminent God with a plurality of divine energies. Together they form one monarchy with a hierarchical order of forces. The Elohim are multiple manifestations of one God whose true nature is never fully revealed.

In simple words,from the Torah & OT, YHVH communicates the transcedental silence of God while Elohim are the immanent divine forces that can be experienced. And the first expressions of the divine forces come as the WORD.

In Abrahamic criptures (minus the Quran), when God reveals his name it is 'Yhvh Elohim' & when he shows HE exists by an act he is 'ALHYM' and when he is revealing himself as a Word it is 'Yhvh.'

Now Mushafiq, how did you insert "Allah" into the "Elohim or Alhym" of Genesis? You are Arabizing a Hebrew verse. Nothing more...

I thought you did not understand the Vedas. But now I am realizing that you do not understand the Abrahmic scriptures (minus the Quran), as well.

@ Mushafiq: Well you can claim all you want but you seem to sidestep certain things by design. You challenged me to show where in Vedas Agni and Truth are linked. I did. Instead of accepting it with humility, you waxed eloquence about theisms. And you can repeat as many times that nobody learnt anything or that nothing has been refuted, if it gives you joy. I lose nothing.

Again, like I said, it is "conditioned" minds that worry about theisms. Vedas are beyond theisms. And in order to locate Veda in the Vedas,our friend Agni comes to help. There is a verse in the 8th Mandala of RV about Agni that talks about Ved. So there you go. Mushafiq, you need to delve deeper into Vedas before making loud claims. Ofcourse, you never do it...

And you have missed a few critical pieces in your responses on Elohim.

1)Elohim is a pluralistic manifestation of divinities. Please re-read the Torah and OT. So, the Bibilical God is an integrated (ofcourse singular) entity of these. YHYH is singular and ineffable but ALHYM or ELOHIM is about pluralism.
2) You missed it bigtime on Exodus 3:13-15. If you look up any usual English Bible you will only see God instead of Elohim. That was loaded verse I quoted and I deliberately used YHVH but here is the proper English translation of the same set of verses. And the bi-polarity of the Bibilical divinity gets established.

Exodus 3:13 - 15.
Moses said to Elohim,when I come to the children of Israel, and shall say to them, the Elohim of Your fathers hath sent me to You ; and they shall say to me, What is His Name? What shall I say to them ? And Elohim said to Moses AHYH {I AM AND WILL BECOME}.And Elohim saidto Moses, Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, YHVH the Elohim of Your fathers, the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim of Isaac, and the Elohim of Jacob, hath sent me to You......

Did you notice YHVH at one place and AHYH in another place? Pal, YHVH pertains to singular, ineffable, transcedental God while AHYH pertains to the divine force of creation. Ofcourse you are reading the normal run of the mill English translations that substitute everything with God. And you raised a point about tetragrammaton. You answered the question yourself before raising it,saying that the Xtians and Jews themselves associate different names. Irrespective of translations it just means I'm that I'm. Yod he vav he....

3) Yup. Hebrew and Arabic do have close proximity. But Al in Arabic is a definite article. You are the expert here. Al Kitab is The Book. But El in Hebrew is derived from the ugaritic script, where El means God. El is God and anything that follows becomes an adjective like El Shadai (God All Encompaasing) or El Elyon (God Highest) or El Gibbor (God Migty) and so on...

So you cannot just make the Hebrew EL (GOD) into Arabic AL (THE) and claim that Eloha and Allah are the same. And again Allah was NOT Allah to start with,as it was Al Ilah, which, later became Allah. Hence Eloha (singular) is not the same as Allah.

Have a great weekend...

Apollo,

Now you are desperate and it shows your frustration and failure by using the word 'embrassing' on your comment. I really pity on you. When I can show you the logic of how non-MUSLIMs who commits shirk and his deeds will go into dust, you left no option to dig yourself into bible and torahs age. (No wonder coz you belong to the vedic age LOL - I mean you are vedic guy )

Now you seek help from the same books for your unhealthy theisms arguments for which you have no concern and care. Sounds really funny man.Take a break Argue with your strength dude not with weakness.

Once again you are showing your DOUBLE STANDARD of your stand that you respect Islam and Quran and now you are questioning the very GOD - Allah. You are now no different from your AV friends.

I can easily explain still in detail on your questions on Jesus PBUH and the GOD he worshipped and prove you. But I feel its a time WASTING effort to have discussion with you on theisms which you dont care about. Please concentrate on Vedas not on OT,NT etc.

Still you have not comeup with the challenge I posted to you long back on how vedas can benefit the common man with the given current social orders.

You tell me, why are looking for answers for the area which is of no concern to you?
Will you take up the challange that, if Jesus's (PBUH) God was the same God which we worship, will you embrace Islam and worship the true creator?

Even many chistians dont know who really was mathew,mark, luke and john and their first name and last name. On Jesus PBUH died for the sins of the mankind, dont you think this is utter foolishness on St.Paul? How can someone die for my sin??

What do you know about Jesus's killing on cross? Again if I can prove you that he was not killed? will you come in terms with us?

What do you know about Jehova?? when many chistians dont know how this word came from? Astonishing as it may sound, it is an admitted fact that prior to the sixteenth century, the word "Jehovah," was unheard of.

On the cross, as per bible, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI? that is to say, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me'? (Matthew 27:46).

Memorise the words - "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani." (Eli - pronounced like L and I in English) Utter the words - ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI; ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI, whether these words - "Eli, Eli," sounds like "Jehovah, Jehovah!" to you?

No! is the answer if you are not deaf. Further, whether "Eli, Eli," sounds like "Abba, Abba!" (meaning father, father! in Hebrew) to them! Again the reply will be "No!" if you are not deaf. Can't you see that the cry is to Allah? "Eli, Eli - Elah, Elah, Allah, Allah!"

Pass this to your St.Paul's chirstian friends and Let them hear these words from your lips and watch their reactions. No honest person can help agreeing with you.

Bro, its better you concentrate on vedas not with ours

All the best,
Peace,
Riaz

@ Mushafiq: Look who is talking about failure....

1) You could not even tie one verse of Atharvana Veda to the right verse in Rig Veda. You failed there.
2)Agni not being truth is your opinion. You are entitled to it.But from a discussion standpoint, you asked me WHERE is Agni tied to Truth in the Vedas? And I showed you WHERE in the Vedas are Agni and Truth tied.
3) You claimed Agni is nothing more than the physical fire in Vedas. But I showed verses in Vedas that gave an exalted position. You failed there.
4) You did not understand what Tat Tvam Asi is at all. You got it completely wrong.You failed there.
5) You could not derive sense out of simple verses in Bhgavad Gita and cooked up meanings. You failed there.
6) You understood zilch about the Maya philosophy. And posted plain erroneous stuff about it. You failed there.
7) You wilfully refused to understand the basic integrative aspect of multiple manifestations of forces in Vedas. You failed there.
You look at Vedas with the same tint as that of Quran & think they too espouse jurisprudence like how Quran does about do's and donts. You failed there.
9) Your question on Rig/Yahur/Sama etc NOT being found in the Vedas thoroughly thoroughly thoroughly exposes how shallow your understanding of Vedas is. In another post I tried to correct you on your opinion that Sage Vyas was NOT the AUTHOR/COMPILER of Vedas as you claimed. Veda Vyas simply arranged / classified the Vedas under the diferrent heads as Rig, Yajur etc. The whole body of Vedas existed as one undivided piece and Veda Vyas got them classified. So that explains why one cannot come across the words Rig or Yajur in the respective sections of the Vedas.

So this question of yours epitomises all your failures...

I am repeating the prounciation of tetragrammaton.

יYodh Y (Prounciation),ה He H(Prounciation),ו Waw W(Prounciation),ה He H (Prounciation)
If your are gonnas as the WHY of the pronounciation, it is a redundant question. It is like asking why is God in English pronounced as God?

And you claim that Allah is the personal name of the creator known by ALL prophets. In that case, why is Allah not seen in the Torah. And YHWH occurs more than 6000 times in Jewish scriptures. But not even once is Allah seen. Similarly, YHWH occurs many times and so are Elohim in OT/NT but not even once is Allah seen? Why?

And on Ya Allah. Like I said Allah came to be from Al Ilah. And you also know that Yallah is also used to say OK in Arabic.And in Arabic they also use Ya Muhammad as a very courteous way to start a conversation. YA is the English O. Ya is also used to abuse in Arabic Ya kadhadab is O Liar. Owing to the fact that Allah was derived as one word from Al Ilah, in Arabic, O God is Ya Allah.

And you mentioned that Quran does not deal with untrue or erroneous portions of NT and negates them. Now, is there a place where you can determine (from a Quranic standpoint) what is right and wrong in NT? Now is the following from the Gospel of Thomas kosher from a Quranic viewpoint?

Jesus' disciples asked him "Is circumcision useful?" Jesus replied "If it were useful all would be begotten circumcised.But true circumcision in spirit is what is useful?"

Jesus' disciples asked him "Do you want us to fast,pray and give alms? What diet should we eat?" Jesus replied " 'Tell no lie and do not what You hate, for all things are plain in the face of Heaven. For nothing hidden will fail to be revealed, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered."

Does the Quran agree with these??

@ Riaz: I am not desperate for anything. I am at peace with my faith and I am at peace with you worshipping Allah and following what the Quran says. You know why? I am not in the business of claiming that my Gos is true and someone else's God is untrue. Also I do not hunt others' scriptures to see if my God is prophesized in the other scriptures.

And there are many treats on the internet about how Vedas,when understood and followed correctly,can help the society. You are free to look them up. If you are unable to, I can help you. You calim Jehovas was unheard till 16th century. I have already raised a pertinent question on why Allah is not seen in any non-Islamic scriptures of West Asia to Mushafiq. Let us await his response.

So Mushafiq & Riaz, the basic disconnect and questions remain.

1) Elohim / Eloha and Allah are not one & the same and there is no evidence of prophets prior to Muhammad having worshipped Allah.Zilch in the Torah,OT or NT. And we have already seen that Hebrew El and Arabic Al are chalk and cheese.
2) If Quran negates portions of NT, where is it mentioned as to which portions of NT are negated?
3) If as claimed by Mushafiq, the messages across all Abrahamic scriptures are the same, we saw that it is not so. The latest evidence I have provided is from the Gospels. Circumcision is a key event after childbirth but we saw Jesus not being worried about it all and similarly, Jesus does not think too much about fasting either.

As things stand, Yahweh & Allah are different and the messages of Quran and OT/NT are quite different.

Apollo,

Come on man, if you are not desperate, then concentrate on vedas and refute with vedic debating skills, not with gospels. You wont score here. So many chistians failed and now its you.

If Allah is not the God's name, then why in arabic bible its referred there?? Do you want more proof for this? Dont come up with lame argument that, arab chirstian's bible is interpolated with help of arab muslims

Additional reference for you.

"Allah is found in Arabic inscriptions prior to Islam" (Encyclopedia Britannica, I:643).

"There is no reason, therefore, to accept the idea that Allah passed to the Muslims from the Christians and Jews" (Islam: Beliefs and Observations, New York, Barrons, 1987, p. 2.

Is it agreed that NT is the original ingeel? then why to inculde it for debate when its not your area of concern.

I already told you many Christians don’t know the origin or mathew, mark, luke and john, then why worry about their gospels on circumcision and fasting. We believe the original ingeel is lost.

See bro, you have total right defend your god, but we as Muslims have a duty to call you to the truth. Take it or Reject it. Its your prerogative. At the same time it’s my duty convey the message as instructed with iqma. What do you think is the mission of our Prophet PBUH.

Through the very second Wahi of Surah Al-Muddathir, Allah ordained him, "Arise and warn and glorify thy Lord", his mission was determined as to establish the authority of Allah, the creator, on this earth.

Subsequently, his mission was made categorically clear in
[Al-Saf Verse 9]
It is He who sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to manifest it over all religion, although those who associate others with Allah dislike it.

It is He who sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to manifest it over all religion. And sufficient is Allah as Witness.
[Al-Fathe Verse 28] and in Al-Tawba Verse 33 only to get the Deen of Allah dominant over the other systems of life.

Do not waste your time and mytime with gospels, as its already been established that YOU ARE NOT GOING TO LISTEN TO MY CALL (DAWAH).

All I can ask you is can there be two God's. (Capital G). One you worship and the one I worship?

Bro, do not escape by telling vedas material are available in the net? What if I can say you same for all your questions on Islam, where infact its available. Why dont you give it a try and be ready for a discussion on that?

Peace,
Riaz

@ RSA: I am not doing a Christian's bidding here. Where Vedas are concerned, for every distorted post of your friend on this website,I have been posting an evidence based rebuttal.I have posted a laundry list of points (just a sample, I have not covered your friend's ignorance about many other things on Vedas)where your friend is in error.And you are landing in more trouble by quoting Encyclopaedia Britannica. If Allah was known to Arabs before Islam (in which case the Arab society was a combination of pagans,Jews & Xtians)it means Allah was also a pagan God, right? So, Islam continued the worship of one of the pagan deities, right?

Your discomfort about me talking about Gospels and Al and El being different stems from your own areas of exposure. Now, you were the one that made a big deal about everybody being born as a believe or Muslim. I have shown with evidences that the thousands of Prophets before Muhammad did not meet the criteria that you claimed to befit a Muslim based on your scriptures. And your friend claimed that the name of the God was trivial and that what mattered was the message. I showed that even here there were many differences. Your friend claimed that Quran negated many things from NT. I asked if so, where was it mentioned as to which sections of NT were halal from a Quranic viewpoint, based on a couple of evidences from the Gospel. So the burden is on your folks to neutralize my evidenced based analysis.

By the way, let us use some practical common sense to deal with your statement that every child is born as a believer/Muslim. No child would even know the word God (in repsective Mother tongues) till the child's Parent(s) make an effort to explain the child about God. Even if we take the evidence based theory that a child in the Mother's womb can hear from month 5 of pregnency, still, the vibrations heard based on recitations (kalma or carols or vedic chants) are external stimuli. There is no evidence that a child knows God intuitively, be it while in the womb or when the child is growing. The bottomline, no child knows God unless a Parent says so. So how can you claim that a child is born as a beliver when the child is TAUGHT to belive in a God, only by his/her Parents????

And on what is the message of Vedas for humanity, there are many write ups by eminent personalities. If you are still unable to look it up, please let me know again and I can help you with it.

Very well written article. The holy books of ancient India are a mixture of variety of faiths. If Allah would not have sent the Quran then people would have groped in dark. It is very essentials that through the light of Quran people should through the depth of darkness of vedas, upanishads, gita, puranas people should churn out what is right and what is wrong. Very well written article.

I suggest the author of article should block commenting on site's article if he wanna make claim that they make sense.

@RSA

If Allah is not the God's name, then why in arabic bible its referred there

The same reason why in the Hindi Bible he is referred as Ishwar and Prabhu.


@ Apolloreach

Your discomfort about me talking about Gospels and Al and El being different stems from your own areas of exposure

May I suggest you to dig up El a little more? You will come with an Ugarit God which is cognate with both Eli and Allah. A little more into it and you might hit upon the mythic separation of Earth and Sky and corresponding events in Hebrew Bible too.

Appolo,

You slammed every argument posed once again. I realized through my own studies of religion, that to understand Hinduism, takes you on a different level and mentality, one that cannot be easily attained by people who are blinded by their own faith and mentality.

You continiously crush the authors arguments but all his rebuttals are simply through Islamic eyes as so are his supporters who happen to be majority Muslim as they too, have the same mentality.

I don't hate Islam, but the truth between the two religions was excellently executed by you in such a way that you didn't even need to mention degrading Islam. You simply killed them with logic and intellect. Way to go!

The author and likeminded Muslims like to take about 10 % of verses of the volumes of Hindu scriptures , most of the negative verses coming from Mahabharata and Manu Smirti and a minimal amount from (Vedas, Gita and Upanishads) in contrast with the rest of the 90% of beautiful and loving scriptural quotes, hymns, verses, songs of praises and poetry. With very little, they try so desperately hard to try and demonize Hinduism.
Interestingly, when I read the Hindu scriptures and I have read all of the main ones including the Vedas, I am filled with love and acceptance for all. It only makes me wonder why Muslims such as the author is not filled with such love and has made it his fulltime job to create a website that propagates conversion in reverence of Islamic supremacism?
What is his ultimate goal? We all know what that is- its to mask brotherhood in the guise of spreading supremacism and the website and distortions its agenda.
That alone speaks volumes.

^

Again "sungod" please do bother to show, where Apollo has "degraded" Islam using logic and intellect? I don't see any. His comments on Islam (the posts above) are not upto the mark. He keeps repeating things even after been answered.

@Antiloon,

Apollo has clearly point by point thrashed Sultans arguments, so much so that neither you nor any other Dawa-ist can come back and argue him. Since Sultan is the master Dawa-ist of the group, he simply comes back and goes in circles regarding the issues at hand.

Example-

The author gets proven wrong.

The author refuses to accept his postion and therefore counter argues by rephrasing the original argument.

For example, he tries to make the argument that Hinduism (Vedic religion) ulitmately doesn't have an identity and is therefore not a religion. He makes the claim upon the contention that is does not have one book, does not have a supremacist stance on God. This again is an invalid argument and is based on an Islamic perception.

Religion does not need to have one book to be a religion. Religion does not need to have a supremacists stance on God to be a religion.

Further, Hindus do not "worship the cow", rather we have reverance for the cow because in ancient times, the cow had a huge relevance on pastoral life and culture of the people. In ancient times, the cow was used in all aspects of life from soil/plantation to cow dung for cooking, it's milk and butter for use, (and it still does) of course it was given sacred status. What is wrong with giving it sacred status if it has importance?

^
You didn't even understand my question. Reread it.

@Apolloreach:- you win men.you are truly an intellectual person....I am Impressed

@Appolo:-I also want to enlighten my self from Vedas.Can you please provide some authenticated online resources for that..

When you believe that there is only one God in the world and everybody in the world must accept your doctrine of God, it will lead to conflicts. However dening this facts the religion of Muslims and Christians carry on their own doctrine very rigidly. if you believe in your doctrine of God, thet means that you are dening the other doctrines of God. However, no person in the world can undrestand the concept of God, it is not any one religion's right to define God. Each creature has this right and all of us must preserve this right for all. On the other hand all aryan religions including sanatana, bauddha, sikha, jaina leart to respect the all doctrines defining the God. Hindu is the word which is synonym of Dharma, it is not religion.
When we hindus say that Vedas is the base of religion it clearly means that knowledge and not the belief is the base of religion. That is why we respect science. God has given power to think to everyone and so each has right to think and cross check. if any denies the existence of God he has every right to do so if his doctrine is based on experience-knowledge. If one believes that God incarnates, he has every right to do so because the All Powerful God can do anything and nothjing is impossible for him. To say that God cannot incarnate is ti deny his Power. When we speaK AGAINST idol worhsip and nature worship we deny the omnipresence of God. We must accept that God has uncountable manifestations if there is God and if we must acccept all those who deny the existence of God or we have to prove it that it exists. This is all inclusive Dharma(HINDU) based on science and knowledge.

ACCORDING TO VEDA AND UPANISHADS ONE GOD OR MULTIPLE GOD:

http://www.islamhinduism.com/hinduism/analysis/92-on-vedic-deities#pc_2008

WHY HINDUISM IMPRACTICABLE?

1.SUPPRESS LOWER CAST PEOPLE:

" avidhom shchiva vidoscha brahmano divatham "(narada smrithi 9:317)

“A brahmin, whether he scholar or madman, believe that he is god”

" dushelo pi dhijo pujanitho shudro jidendriya "(parashra smrithi 8:33)

"a brhmin Butcher is better than scholar shudra "

"A Brahmin equal to god, they must forcefully suppress the lower cast people make them their slaves" (manusmrithi 9:317)

" shakthanopi hishudrana na karyo dhan sanjaya "(manusmrithi 10:129)

"shudra no right to education (Veda) and earn money”

" visrabdham brahmana srudad dravyo padanama charathe nahi thasyakthi kinjith swom barthey harodhanohisa "(manusmrithi 8:417)

“If they (shudra) have any asset, Brahmin must forcefully recapture the entire asset from shudra”

“If shudra talk against the Brahmin suddenly cut his Tongue, if he try to beat (action is enough) to Brahmin by his hand or leg, Brahmin suddenly cut that (hand or leg) body part as soon as possible “(manusmrithi 8:279-283)

golwaker says about manusmrithi “this is the social law that world ever and never saw like that. None of principle likes it."
(Golwaker: From the Red fort grounds)

From bagavath geetha Krishna says that"i create four castes for different quality and duty. " chathur varnyam maya srishtom guna karma vibagasha "(bagvath geetha 4:13)

Krishna says “different cast have different duty "(bagvath geetha 8:41-45)

“When a Brahmin killed the shudra jailed him one year and 12 cow penalty. But in case of shruda killed the Brahmin punishment was different killed him three short period with fire”
(gowthama dharmasuthram Ibid page-95)

“The Hindu Veda and Upanishath never give permission to shudra, women and other low cast Hindu, to prey temple and study the Veda and science”
(Indian Express 4-4-198

“If a shudra walking with Brahmin, beat him with scourge. if he steal kill him(punishment of Brahmin only bind his eye with cloth one or two hours).if he have desire to sexual affection with Brahmin girl, first cut his sexual organ, then capture his asset, then kill him. If he hearing the Veda captures him, cut the Tongue, pour the melted lead to his ear. "
(Swami krishnanada: aparthed system in India page 93-95)

NB:These verses indicate that 'Brahmin' is not belongs to his 'karma’, it belongs to his 'janma'.we can see from Upanishad "born Brahmin yoni" and "born shudra yoni".

Hindu religious scriptures, however, do give out the call to violence and injustice. For instance, in the Kaushithaki Brahmanopanishad Indran is quoted as saying, “Na’Mathravadena na Pithravadena nasthayena na broona hathys nasya paapam chana chakrasho mukaneelam vetheethi (3:1)
(Even if my people were to kill their mother and father; even if they were to steal and to practice infanticide; even if they were to commit such sins, they are to feel no remorse. Their faces should never be down-cast)

During the period of Ramayana Brahmin never died their lives. A Brahmin visits the palace of Rama; his complaint was that his son died. Raman discuss his pundit acharya,they know that a shudra(Shambukan)Penance for getting heven.Raman cut his head at mean time Brahmin boy got his life.

What we saw from the story is Raman was an ideal person?

There is nothing that is despicable in the legal prescription
Of the Qur'an. However, in some of the other religious scriptures there is a clear distinction between a person of a higher caste and another of a lower caste. For example, consider the punishment prescribed by the Manu Smrithi for insult and abuse: “ The punishment for the Kshatriya who insults the Brahman is one hundred coins; for the Vaishya it will be two hundred coins and for the Shudra it will be the whip. If the Brahman were to insult the Kshatriya his punishment would be fifty coins, if he insults the vaishya it would be twenty five coins and if the Shudra, twelve coins "
(Manu Smrithi 8:267, 26

Slavery existed in ancient India as a part of the rigid caste system that prevailed here. The caste system which originated as a result of the hegemony of priesthood continued to be an essential part and way of life of Hinduism. It is in the Rig Veda which is accepted as the most important of the Shrutis that we find the first seeds of the concept of caste system. (Purusha verse of the Rig Veda 10:90:12).It was but natural that under the caste system that was based on the reference in the Rig Veda that “the Brahman is created from the head, the Vaishya from the hands and the Sudra from the feet of the Parampurusha”, the Brahman was considered highly and the Sudra of a lowly stature. All the books of Hinduism have only sought to justify the caste system.

The Bhagavath Gita, which is known to be the book of shruthi of modern Hinduism, has itself said: “Chaturvarnyam Mayasrishtam guna karma Vibagusha
” (4:13). this means that, “I have created the four castes according to the division of their deeds.” It was natural then that the one who was created from the feet of God was destined to a life of foot-service alone. Indeed, it was believed that the sudra was specially created for the very purpose of service alone. The religious scriptures had taught that one is born of a lower caste owing to the sins of an earlier life and that if one is to attain salvation at least in the next life, he is to render service to those of the higher castes and employ himself in keeping them satisfied in this life.“Shreyan swdarmo viguna para dermal swanushtithal swdarmea nidanam shreya paradarmo bayavaha” (bagavath geetha 3:35). The Chandoupanishad has compared those of the lower caste to pigs
And dogs. From the Upanishath we can understand that ‘chandalan’ and ‘shudra’are equal to street dogs. (Chandokya Upanishath 5:10:7). A reading of the Manusmrithi and the Parasharasmrithi will serve to show that the attitude and conduit adopted towards them was crueler and wicked than that shown to the animals.

Observe the punishment prescribed by the Apasthamba Dharma Sutra:“The Sudra who kills a Brahman must be burnt to death slowly by immersing him thrice in fire. However, if a Sudra is killed by any, it would be sufficient to award one year imprisonment and a fine of twelve cows as penalty.” (As quoted by Krishnananda Swami in ‘The Caste-Wars in India’, P.94)

All the laws in the ManuSmrithi are, in their formulation, based on the caste system. This deplorable tendency is evident throughout the laws which sanctify the position of the Brahman while, at the same time, debase that of the Sudra.Wide disparity exists in the punishment prescribed for a
Brahman who commits a crime and the punishment for a Sudra who commits the similar one. Briefly then, these laws were not framed for the whole of humanity; they are meant for a society wherein caste system prevails.

2.SUPPORT INJUSTICE :

Are these people to be the role models? Great personalities have also been mentioned in the Hindu Puranas in a similar fashion. From Shri Ram himself who is depicted as the one who kills the Shudra Shambukan (Valmiki Ramayan Yudha Kandam) and as the one who abandons his pregnant wife in the forest (UttaraKandam) to Shri Krishna who is depicted in the Puranas as the one who steals the clothes of the bathing gopikas....and as the one who commits atrocities and treachery in the battlefield In this light, can it be said that they were the ones who had established moral laws? As for the Qur'an, it teaches that all prophets were pure and exemplary, in the conduct of their lives. The history which the Qur'an does put forward bears ample testimony to the facts in this matter.

The decree of Manu Smrithi is that if neither the virgin nor her father were to give their consent, it is permissible to carry away, by force, the woman of one’s liking and then marry her. Such marriages which are permitted to the Kshathriya are referred to as Rakshasam(Manu Smrithi3:26).

Indran drink alcohol (somarasm) and he killed varthyan (Rig Veda 2:15:4)

Veda promotes to worship to alcohol (somarasm) (Rig Veda 1:91:17)

According to Hindu Veda the following persons and their friends are ideal person:
Drunken, a man like sex with his guru wife, thief (gold), killer (Brahman),
(Chandokya Upanishath 5:10:9)

According to Ramayana we can show that Incarnation of god have drunken and sex with women (utharakandam sargam 42 slogan

According to Veda Raman Shaw his fundamentalist behavior:
He killed innocent shambukan (sukran) for the Brahmin boy.

According to valmiki Ramayana. He rescue seethe from ravana only for his prestige not for love of his wife. Then how can Raman an ideal husband?

Raman believes that raven used the seethe for sexual purpose.
He move away seethe when she pregnant. (It also for his prestige issue).

He never believe truth of seethea, even she prove her virginity through fire.

According to Ramayana we can show that Incarnation of god have drunken and sex with women (utharakandam sargam 42 slogan

How can we believe Raman was an ideal man?

Sree krishna taken their (gopikas girls) dress when they are bathing. He gave to their dress when they came barefooted one by one to him.

During the war he took immoral activity against his enemy. (Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: Riddles in Hinduism. Appendix III: Riddles of Raman and Krishna)

His marriage not an ideal marriage, he taken away the girl, her family already declares her marriage with other guy.