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VINOBA BHAVE AND HIS UNDERSTANDING OF ISLAM
Ali Engineer, Asghar
Ali Engineer, Asghar
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Abstract
"I think after Maulana Azad, Vinobaji from amongst Hindus, has showed proper understanding of spirit of religions including Islam. Today unfortunately scholars of religions – and I am referring to scholars of all religions, project religion more to serve political needs than as religion per se, much is being written on Islam, for and against, but to serve certain political agenda. Either way religious spirit is lost or we score some political points. It is therefore highly necessary to retrieve original spirit of Islam and Hinduism and project them on the basis of their religious philosophy and this can indeed do a yeoman service to our conflict torn country. Democratic politics, having become merely a power politics, politicians put their own religion at stake. Power must be won at any cost even by rendering immense disservice to ones own religion. Hindutvawadis distort their own religion and Muslim extremists do same disservice to Islam. In the sixth chapter of his book Vinoba Bhave attempts to capture true spirit of both Hinduism and Islam. Before I put forward Vinobaji’s views on Islam I would like to point out one error committed by him right in the beginning of the chapter itself. He says that Muhammad Rasulullah was coined by his followers and he himself never claimed that. This is fundamental mistake which must be corrected by the editors of the book perhaps in the footnote. Qur’an itself, which is divine, proclaims Muhammad as Rasulullah (Messenger of Allah). But when Vinobaji says Muhammad never claimed to take Allah’s place, he is very right. Qur’an itself describes Muhammad (PBUH) as ‘abduhu wa Rasuluhu (i.e. His servant and His messenger). Vinobaji rightly points out that Muhammad (PBUH) said that he has brought no new truth but is proclaiming what the same truth as proclaimed by previous prophets. Perhaps in this respect Hinduism comes close to Islam as it also accepts truth everywhere and the Rigveda also proclaims that truth is one but the wise call it by various names."(pg 1-2)
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Preprint
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2009-10-16
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With permission of the license/copyright holder