Why did the Muslims destroy Hindu temples? PART 1, by anwar shaikh

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Idolatory, Islam and India
by Anwar Shaikh

Why did the Muslims destroy Hindu temples? One can say that it was an excuse to plunder India, and an attempt to spread the message of the Koran?

Though there is some truth in both the assertions, the reality is psychological, whose roots go back into the ambitions of the Prophet Mohammed himself. This statement may be somewhat ambiguous and thus requires explanation:

Like the physical order of the universe, the social structure of mankind is also hierarchical, that is, broadest at the base and narrowest at the top. This is the reason that an organization is not possible without observing this principle. Thus, a nation of several million people is governed by a government of twenty to thirty members, who are themselves headed by one person called the Prime Minister, President, Dictator or King. This truth was represented by the conduct of Alexander, the Great, who believed in a universal monarchy. Taumburlain, the Conqueror, stated it eloquently: "As there is one God, so this earth can support only one King."

What are the connotations of this statement? It means that humans are endowed with a psychological peculiarity, which may be described as Dominance Urge; it goads people individually, and collectively to dominate others. One can see this urge in operation during political elections when competing candidates use all methods at their disposal to gain power; the concepts of morality, munificence and mercy are shouted at top voice, but are usually rooted in mischief, mordacity and malevolence. The urge of dominance admits only one conduct which leads to victory. Hence, might is right, and the idea of "right as might" acts just as a deceptive joke to appease conscience.

In fact, urge of dominance is a peculiarity of all animates and expresses itself through antagonism. Take, chickens, for example. Chicken "A" pecks chicken "B" simply to express its physical superiority and chicken "B" does it to chicken "C" for the same reason. Not only that, if C becomes stronger, it may turn on B to establish itself as the powerful.

Without urge of Dominance, nobody will try to rise to the top, create law and order and compete with others. However, urge of dominance also has its bleak side which occasionally clouds its effulgence as can be observed in the destruction of Indian temples. Even great countries have suffered a similar fate at the hands of foreign predators. England was subjected to plunder, persecution and perdition by the Vikings for over 250 years. Subjugation of nations by outlandish raiders through sword and fire is for establishing their dominance.

Urge of dominance has an unusual aspect; it does not always die with its possessor. When a mundane ruler breathes his last, this urge may die with him but in people, known as prophets, it proves to be immortal. A prophet commands people from his grave what to do and what not to do; he succeeds in doing so through the body of laws which he claims to be of divine origin, and leaves behind. Those who follow them qualify for heaven, and those who defy them go to hell. These laws are, in fact, a product of the prophetic mind purporting to impress his power on the minds of his followers through a system of reward and punishment, no matter how imaginary. The Islamic Law devised 1400 years ago is an example in point. Pakistan was created half a century ago to practise this law but people are still awaiting its introduction. The reason is simple: it is not workable. In fact, Pakistan follows the Common Law of England, which is totally averse to the Muslim traditions The Islamic Law is the legacy of Muhammad, requiring his followers to acknowledge his supremacy through obedience to his legal code. It cannot be of Divine origin becauce this universe and all that breathes is kept in order by the principle of change which demands constant adjustment. Allah does not seem to realise that humans live in a changing world and do not need static law, devised fourteen centuries ago. After giving man free will, which enables him to make laws to suit his changing circumstances, He could not have interferred with him by forcing him to observe the archaic laws which have no relevance to his problems.

From the above discussion, one concludes that prophethood is the highest expression of dominance urge. Since it is the prophetic dominance-urge which caused havoc to the Hindu temples and culture, it is appropriate to delve deeper into its make-up and purpose:

A prophet is a person who claims that he is the vicar or lieutenant of God on earth. He stresses that he carries the message of the Almighty who is the Creator of this universe and anxious to make man righteous by waging war against evil. The prophet insists that God does not communicate with anyone directly but through him. Since he is the divine medium, whosoever wants to approach the Creator must do so through his agency or perish. Yet the prophet declares that praise (worship) belongs to God; he himself is His humble servant, and does what is told by the Lord.

In fact, prophethood is a stratagem to project one's self as God in the guise of humanity. By asserting himself to be the agent of God, the prophet asserts his own righteousness by awarding himself a certificate of behavioural excellence irrespective of what he really is; the presumption is that God shall not appoint someone His agent, who has a second-rate character. A part of this stratagem is the assertion that the prophet has no axe to grind in it; whatever he does, he undertakes to obey the Lord. This impersonal approach is a sharp psychological weapon to convince people of the prophetic mission.

Once we look into the nature of prophetic claim, its righteousness soon loses its radiance. If God is the Creator, and He is so anxious for man to go straight, He would have surely designed human nature in such a way that he could not err. The God who depends on the good-will of a man, who calls himself a "prophet" cannot be more than a play-thing, and does not have the power to check the prophet from twisting His Word if he so wishes. This is a logical conclusion; if God cannot stop other people from doing what they want to do, how can he coerce the wilful actions of a prophet, who is obviously a clever and determined man. The God who is dependent on a man, has a lower stature than him. This is the real purpose of prophethood; a prophet is a man who aspires to be acknowledged as God indirectly because it is much easier to proclaim one's prophethood than Godhead.

Frankly speaking, one ought to say that the device of prophethood is not suited to spreading the truth by its very nature; making the prophet an absolute medium of Divine instructions, limits the Godly purpose; one man, no matter how clever, could not reach the whole world. It is especially true in terms of medieval ages. Acquainting mankind with the Divine Will would have been far more effective if the Lord had created them with a mechanism to receive His messages directly. Since He has not done so, He obviously needs no prophets, who are the cause of srocial strife, mutual hatred and wars. As man is endowed with intelligence and free will, he is quite capable of steering his own ship of life. It amounts to self-contradiction on part of God to coerce the intelligence and free will of man by sending messengers. In fact, the mere concept of prophethood has an air of ridiculing God.

Of course, a prophet declares that praise (worship) belongs to God, and he himself appears to be praising and worshipping Him. This is, in fact, mockery of Godhead for two reasons: firstly, worship is the worst type of flattery, and it is well known that a lover of sycophancy has a dwarfed, devious and detestable personality because it seeks to destroy the dignity, decorum and distinctiveness of others by forcing them to demean, degrade and debase themselves. A person with a flattened ego is like a bird with trimmed wings which loses the ability to fly higher. The purpcse of life is to elevate ego with moral splendour, a superb will and sense of personal greatness, which come from being upright and serving the cause of fellow-beings, and not by crying, creeping and crawling before an imaginary God, whose arrogance knows no bounds.

The second reason is more profound but crafty. In fact, it is a piece of psychological chicanery:

The truth as we know is that the concrete attracts and holds attention far more easily than the abstract. This is the reason that modern methods of teaching make use of toys, pictures, drawings/ etc., instead of relying on mere verbal instructions, which are less effective for being abstruse and thus usually beyond the reach of imagination. The concrete objects serve as visual aids to comprehend facts and the reality behind them. This is the philosophy of idol worship. All devotees know that a statute is just a stone, a piece of wood or a lump of clay, but their shapes help impart understanding ot the meaning of reality. It is a symbolical representation of the truth. Though there is no mention of idol-worship or temples in the Rgveda, I am inclined to think that the origin of organised idolatory lies in India. The reason is, the Vedic people believed that there is a power of divine origin behind every natural phenomenon such as lightning, cloud, fire, wind, etc. That power, they referred to as god or goddess, and adored it. These physical phenomena did have visibility: lightning could be seen, thunder could be heard, wind could be felt. They were glimpses of the gods and goddesses lurking behind these natural processes. Eventually, it led to the creation of idols representing the respective deities, whereas the priest knew the truth, the ordinary worshipper accorded gadly status to the idol itself. As every idol identified a particular natural phenomenon, it did not represent the totality of Divine Power individually. Though worshippers were particularly enthusiastic about the greatness of the statues they worshipped, they did not revile the idols of other devotees because of their belief that they, too, were divine for representing natural forces. This is what created pantheism, i.e., the doctrine that identifies God with the universe, leading to the worship of all gods. Oneness of Gad became ascendant, almost every nation followed the model of an Indian temple which housed all the gods. Thus jealousy among the gods did not exist, and if it did, lacked the force to engender sectarian animosity and carnage. In fact, the co-existence of idols prompted the attitude of "live and let live."

The device of prophethood is very similar to the idols as far as they act as the symbols or visual aids to recognise the divine power or deity concealed behind them, and eventually worshipping the idols themselves and not the deity concerned. When a person claims to be a prophet, he projects himself as the shadow, and God as the Reality, but as he possesses an immense dominance-urge, he is extremely anxious to reverse the order of priority, that is, people should think of the shadow as the Reality and of Reality as the shadow. This inverse ratio of relationship is the real goal of prophethood. The difference between idolatory is:


a. people worship statues through ignorance,
b. alternatively they know them to be mere visual aids, having no divinity in themselves.


I ought to add that hypocrisy is no part of idolatory because it is brought about by ignorance or the fact that a statue is just a visual aid. On the contrary, prophethood lacks sincerity because it is the goal of a prophet to be treated as God without taking off his mantle of humanity. It is done by exaggerating the wonders of the prophet to such an extent that he begins to look the reality and God recedes into the background as shadow. This reversal in terms of power and reverence imitates the principle and practice of idolatory whereby people take the idol for the Reality and forget all about the Reality itself.
Since Islam is an offshoot of Judaism, it may be helpful to illustrate the issue with reference to Moses, the founder of the Jewish nation and its philosophy.

It was Moses who brought out of Egypt, the Jews who had been subjected to cruelty and hard labour for over four centuries. They had lost their moral dignity and intellectual capacity through an incessant pressure of torment, tyranny and torture. The long servitude had made them submissive, and receptive to suggestion. Moses, who had been brought up in Egypt as a prince, was not only endowed with high capabilities but also had a tremendous urge of dominance. With these qualities went his stupendous love for his people whom he wanted to make into a great nation. This extraordinary man had the ability to turn his own ambition and national dignity into a harmonious whole.

As the Jewish history shows, he projected himself as the model of behaviour by declaring himself as the law-giver. But he did not say that the laws were invented by him. Following the old Semitic tradition, he announced that he had been appointed as the Vicar (prophet) by God, who had revealed His will through the laws which must be obeyed to escape the Divine condemnation. He knew that the nationhood of the Jews, who were no more than a rabble at that time, could not be affected without giving them a common measure of identity. So he declared:


1. Yahwe is the God of Israel (the Jews) who are his chosen and blessed people.
2. To make Godhead of Yahwe as the foundation- stone of the Jewish nationhood, he assured them that the Lord would not forsake them (Deuteronomy 4: 31) provided they kept his law. The first commandment says:

"You shall have no other gods before me."


The Bible goes even further to declare that the extreme love is to be reserved for God:

"And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
might." (Deuteronomy 6: 5).

To make sure that this divine order is taken seriously, Deuteronomy 5: 9 spells out in no uncertain terms that the Jewish God is a jealous God, who visists the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them who hate Him i.e. worship someone other than Yahwe.
With a view to inculcating this message still further into the Jewish heart, Exodus 22: 20 declares:


"He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed."

( As a footnote to this discussion, I may add that despite all the Jewish assertion of monotheism i.e. Oneness of God, the Bible acknowledges polytheism, that is, there is more than one God: )

"Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people." (Exodus 22: 28)

Here, I seem to be contradicting myself because Moses attaches supernatural authority and reverence to God and not himself. This is the sophistication of the doctrine of revelation or prophethood. The concept of God is abstract and therefore cannot be easily comprehended by the masses who need a visual aid for proper understanding. Once people nave confirrned their faith in God, the prophet, who is His sole medium of approach, projects himself as the Symbol of Divinity the same way as an idol acts as the representation of God. The stratagem lies in the fact that prophet looks uninterested in the divine honour, yet he bestows so much sanctity on himself that he begins to look God's superior, and people actually adore him instead of God, who ranks as a euphemism. Thus, in fact, it is prophet who is jealous of idols and everything else which may be adored. Therefore, he wants to see no other idol except his own and insists on their destruction.

1. First, he presented the concept of the Lord God.
2. However, before doing this he assured people that he did not want the apostolic dignity, and was acting as Prophet under duress to escape the wrath of God (Exodus 4: 10-14).

3. Then he proceeded to exert his superiority over God:


As the story goes, worship of the molten calf by the Jews kindled Yahwe's jealousy. He appears in divine glory and intends to consume the children of Israel with his boiling wrath, his gives Moses a chance to establish his superiority over God. He tells Yahwe impolitely that He is about to do a wicked thing against his own people and shames Him by asserting what the Egyptians would say if He destroyed them. After all, Yahwe had gone out of the way to secure the release of the Jews from Egypt.
Moses commands the Lord to refrain from this evil and repent. (Exodus 32: 12-14). What an event it becomes: God surrenders to man! Yet the Jews claim that their faith is monotheistic.

I must add that this is not the only occasion when Moses, the Prophet, humiliates God in front of every one. In an episode of similar nature when the Jews denigrate the Promised Land, and want to return to Egypt, Yahwe's indignation reaches boiling point and He threatens to kill them all. Moses steps in and skames God publicly. He yields to Moses as usual ( Numbers 1 4: 11 - 20 ).

In conjunction with the above events, one should also remember the following episode described in chapter 32 of Exodus:

As Moses took longer to return from God, his people contributed golden earrings to make a molten calf to worship it. God tells Moses to rush back to his people who have corrupted themselves. As he came near the camp, he found them dancing round the calf. Moses' anger knew no bounds; he burnt the calf in the fire, and ground it to powder, which he dissolved in water and made the children of Israel drink.

Had Moses left the molten calf to stand, it would have become a symbol of divinity, and eventually the Divine. He could not accept this situation because he had assumed the status as the sole Medium of God.

This Semitic tradition was enthusiastically followed by the Prophet Muhammad, who repeatedly claimed that Islam was not a new faith but the same religion as promulgated by Adam, Noah, Ibrahim, Moses and Jesus. He called himself the last exponent of this faith. He hated idols and advocated their destruction because he himself wanted to be treated as an idol to be worshipped. It seems a crazy theory but it happens to be the truth. To understand it, one must bear in mind that Allah was originally an idol of the Kaaba where it was worshipped by the Quresh, clan of the Prophet. I shall demonstrate later, Muhammad was inspired to idolise himself by Allah-worship. He destroyed all statues of Kaaba including that of Allah, yet he raised Allah to the status of God who is the Almighty, the Creator and the Omnipotent. He did so to replace Allah's statue with himself as the symbol Gf divinity. He knew that it is the symbol of divinity i.e., the idol, which eventually comes to be worshipped as God.

Now I may provide evidence in support of my claim:


1. Following the Mosaic model, first he claimed that Allah, the Islamic God had forced him into accepting prophethood ( Sahih Muslim: 301) . Having narrated this episode in my took: "Islam The Arab National Movement, " I need not repeat it here.
2. In the beginning, to impress upon people that he had no axe to grind in the matter, he asserted:

"There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger." This is the basic belief of Islam and is called Shahadah. Until he gained a large following which guaranteed him suzerainty, he projected himself as a mortal who was entrusted with the duty of Allah's message. See for yourself:


a. The Koran calls the Prophet a servant.
( The Cow: 20 ).
b. He does not know the Unseen.
( Cattle: 50 )

c. He does not have the power to perform
miracles.
( Thunder: 5 )

d. "... say, Glory be to my Lord! Am I aught
but a mortal, a messenger."
(The Night Journey: 95)

e. "... I have only been commanded to serve
God, and not to associate
aught with Him. To Him I call, and to Him I
turn. "
( Thunder. 3 5 )

f. The Prophet being a mortal, is equally subject to Allah's reward and punishment:

"If He will, He will have mercy on you
( Muhammad ), or if He will, He will
chastise you."
(The Night Journey: 55)

g. The Prophet is warned by Allah:
"Set not up with Allah
another God, or you
wilt be cast into
Gehenna ( Hell ), reproached
and condemned. "
( The Night Journey: 40 )


So far the Prophet has claimed that he is just a human who has been forced by Allah to convey His message to the people. He desperately needs this approach to convince people that he is simply discharging his duty. Thus it is easier for the masses to listen to him and believe him, but when he becomes powerful enough and can stand on his own, he discards this style and expresses himself as an integral part of Allah:

h. It is no longer enough to obey God only:
" Obey God and the Messenger
( Muhammad ) .
( The House of Imram: 25 )
i. "Obey God and the Messenger: haply so
you will find mercy."
( The House of Imram: 125 )


j. "Whoso obeys God
and His Messenger, He will admit him
to gardens...."
(Women: 15 )

k. As the Prophet gets stronger, he becomes a co-sovereign with Allah because whatever they do, they do it together, and people are not left with any choice but to obey the decision:

"It is not for any believer, man or woman, when God and His Messenger have decreed a matter, to have the choice in the affair. Whosoever, disobeys God and His Messenger, has gone astray into clear error." (The Confederates: 35)


Gradually, the Prophet, who was once a mortal and Allah's servant, and then an equal partner in Godhead, now raises himself to the status of real God, and Allah himself becomes Muhammad's devotee. It sounds blasphemous, but this is how the Koranic truth is. Here is the authority:

"God and His angels pray peace to the Prophet,
O believers, do you also bless him, and
pray him peace."
(The Confederates: 55)

Praying peace is the highest form of worship. It is very much like the devotional movement within Hinduism known as Bhagti which came into being during second or third century A.D. The Bhagti attitude has been inspired by the Bhagavadgita though Ramayana and Puranas have also contributed towards it.
Bhagti means the intense emotional attachment and love of a devotee to his personal God. Though a Hindu can choose any of his gods as the centre of his devotion, it has been particularly developed around Vishnu represented by his two earthly incarnations, namely, Rama and Krishna.

The Hindu worship includes the recitation of God's name, singing of hymns in his praise, undertaking pilgrimages to the places associated with him, adoring him in shrines, private meetings and temples as well as through charitable acts.

The Muslims, especially of the Indian sub-continent have adopted the same attitude towards the Prophet: they have developed a highly emotional cult known as "Ishq-e-Rasool" i.e. the intense love of Muhammad. This devotion is so great that a priest, politician or "pioneer" can easily mislead the Muslims in the name of Muhammad and make them do anything, no matter, how irrational. The Muslims hold that a priest, politician or "pioneer" can easily mislead the Muslims in the name of Muhammad and make them do anything, no matter, how irrational. The Muslims hold exclusive meetings to recite the name of Muhammad for hours, sing his praises endlessly, visit the holy places and even recite his name in the regular daily prayers.

It is amazing that when the Hindus pray to their gods with the aid of their statues, which are symbolic representations of the Reality, they are dubbed as idolators, but when the Muslims resort to similar practices, they become monotheists! In fact, they carry the magic of this riddle even further. In Hinduism, it is inevitably man who worships God, but in Islam, both angels and Allah worship Muhammad by praying peace to him!

Islam is essentially the cult of Muhammad-worship, yet it is called the True Religian of God, instead of being termed as Muhammadanism. How did the Prophet create such a large band of followers, who worship kim but claim to prostrate before God?

One can find the answer to this enigma by considering the following facts:

1. He destroyed the statue of Allah which was housed in the Kaaba: it was considered the most sacred idol of the Arabs because people took it for the real God owing to ignorance and tradition. As long as the statue of Allah existed, nobody could take the place of Allah because His statue was His divine symbol. It had to be demolished by someone to present himself as the divine symbol of Allah. Muhammad did that by projecting himself as the sole representative of Allah on earth, and like other idols came to be treated as the real God. He chose Allah because it represented his tribe and was considered the most sacred and powerful.

2. To further his cause, the Praphet claimed that he was sent into this world as mercy i.e. love for mankind:


"We have not sent you, except as mercy unto all
beings." (The Prophets: 100)

By projecting himself as love, he helped himself to become the centre of love of his followers. There are several hadiths which ardently advocate for the love of Muhammad. For example:

"No person attains faith, till I am dearer to him than the
persons of his household, his wealth and the whole of
mankind." (Muslim, Vol. 1: 70)

3. To be obeyed to the dot, he claimed that he was the divine model of behaviour and must be copied by all his followers:

"You (believers) have a good example in God's
Messenger for whosoever hopes for God and the Last
Day." (The Confederates: 20)

It is clearly stated herein that whoever wants to go to paradise ( "hopes for God and the Last Day" ) must imitate the behaviour-pattern of the Prophet. This is what Sunnah is; all Muslims want to live as Muhammad did, even to the minor details such as eating, drinking, walking, talking, sleeping, dressing, etc. In fact, the Prophet has come to control the psyche of his followers.
4. Intercessory power of the Prophet is the master stroke of his divinity. Though I have given its fuller account in the Second Volume, 6th issue of "Liberty," I may briefly state here the Koranic attitude for the benefit of readers; it repeatedly states that on the Last Day, it is exclusively for Allah to decide whether a person will go to heaven or hell.

To suit Muhammad's purpose, as in several other important affairs, the Koran changes its tone and eventually states:


"On that Day no intercession availeth except (that of)
him unto whom the Beneficient (God) hath given leave
and whose He accepleth." (TA HA: 109)

This point is well explained by the following Hadith (Sahih Muslim: Vol. 4: 5655)
"I will be the first intercessor and the first person whose intercession will be accepted (by Allah).

It means that the Prophet has the power to force Allah to do whatever he wills. He will send his followers to paradise even if they are murderers, rapists, thieves and liars but shall specify hell for all non-believers even if they have been highly righteous. The Koran states:


"Truly this is the word of a noble Messenger
having power, with the Lord of the Throne secure,
obeyed, moreover trusty."
(The Darkening: 15-20)

The Muslims interpret it to mean that on the Day of Judgement, the Prophet will share the Throne of Justice with Al lah and sit on His right-hand side. His recommendations will be binding on God. This is what they sincerely believe is meant by "obeyed, moreover trusty."
Now, one can see that Allah is no more than a figure of speech because the Prophet has taken over the destiny of humankind. In "Islam, The Arab National Movement,'' I have shown that Allah is a factotum of Muhammad because He does what He is told by the latter. For example, the change of Kibla, the vital issue, is decided by Allah to please Muhammad. Again, it is an Islamic law that if a Muslim has more than one wife, he must treat them all equally but God gave dispensation to the Prophet to suspend any of his wives as he thought fit. One should also bear in mind that the Islamic law lays down that a Muslim cannot have more than four wives at the same time, but the Prophet had at least nine wives simultaneously. He was obviously above Allah's laws. It is universally accepted that law is equally binding on the law-giver. Unless Muhammad believed himself to be Allah's superior, he could not defy His law. It shows the intensity of the Prophetic dominance-urge.

Now, it is obvious that the Prophet did not disapprove of idolatory but hated other idols because he wanted to substitute himself for them. In short, he himself aspired to be worshipped to the total exclusion of all other idols.

However, the Prophet realised that there are other people who have a tremendous ego and want to be remembered as spiritual heroes and adored accordingly. So he allowed the creation of a pantheon under his own divine shadow, which means that whoever believed in these lesser deities, automatically followed him. One learns about these minor divinities in Hadith no. 145 of the Sahih Muslims: they are members of the household of the Prophet, namely Ali (Fatima, Hassan and Hussain) as well as Abu Bakr, Umar Usman and several others who served him well to make his mission a success.

Continued.....

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