On Hindu and Muslim Conversion to Baha'i: A Muslim of India Speaks
A Muslim blogger in India notes how Baha'is in his country cannot be recognized on the basis of their surnames.
The lady's surname was Patel but she was not a Hindu. She was a Bahai, those who believe in Baha'ullah and their most prominent place of worship in this country is the Lotus Temple in Delhi. [They have feast every 19 days and assemble at the local Haziratul Quds. In every city they have a local spiritual assembly.]
There were Mishra, Patil and Ghosh. All Bahais. People with seeming Muslim names also. That confuses many of us. Because in India, we generally associate names and surnames with religions. If someone is Rahmat Ali, he ought to be a Muslim and Ramesh Joshi should be a Hindi. Some Christians have Hindi/ Sanskrit/ Arabic names but most of the people can be identified. Even Jains are often distinguishable due to their surnames--either Jain or Khandelwal/Shah/Kasliwal/Singhai etc.
I find many Hindu and Muslim converts to Bahai faith. The Bahais are under intense religious persecution in Iran. They are not allowed to run schools and kept under state surveillance. That's really unfair. Many consider them as a sect of Muslims, which they are not--an independent religion.
However, a journalist got irked with Bahais. 'You hide your identity', he charged them at a gathering they organised to highlight persecution in Iran. 'We don't", they said. The journo asked, 'If you believe in all religions equally then why you convert?', the debate continued.I don't have any thing against Bahais. If anyone wants to get converted to the faith, he has every right to do so.
indscribe, "Hindu, Muslim conversion to Baha'i," Mindspeak:A Muslim Indian's Speak (Blog) : Mindspeak stands for Muslim of India Speak. It is the sane, secular voice of an individual who stands for dignity of human beings and comments unabashedly on all issues. This Indian Muslim's Blog stands for humanism & nationalism but condemns all forms of fundamentalism and blind chauvinism(national, cultural, religious et al).
3 comments:
nice post! these fair humanitarian people are not very few in the world but compared to millions of indifferent people, they are like treasures.
thanks for the change of title.
there are good questions in the debate:if accpeting all religions, why converting.
i also have another: you guys accept mohamad and his quran, right?
hasn't he said: islam is the last religion and i'm the last prophet?
then how come Baha'i can emerge? and how come you guys believe any era can potentially bring about the requirement for another refined form of the previous religions?!
do you interpret it differently from the muslems who believe that no other religion will emerge after islam and naturally no other prophet? they believe islam is the completed form of a religion that can meet all spiritual and material needs of the humans for good!!?!
i presonally used to think mohamad was very smart to say he is the last one. but now i feel he was selfish and self-centered and actually a fool becuz with this remark he has caused and will cause a lot of clashes and oppressions and...
just look how iranian regime does... i don't think the Wahabis in Saudi Arabia would also be open at all to emergence of other religions after mohamad?!
hi paradox,
for the first question, yes we accept all religions because they are all essentially the same message. the one true religion of god is for the good of humanity and moral values do not change. all the religions of god want the best (love, equality, respect, etc) for humanity and this theme is seen in all of them. you ask why do people convert then to the bahai faith if all religions have the same message... good point! the answer to this is the following: while each religion of god brings the same message of morality to humanity, they also do so with rules/laws that are appropriate for humanity in its time. it is not possible for a several-thousand-year-old religion to have laws that are fitting for today. and by laws, i only mean the societal laws (moral ones, of course, are constant). it is principally these laws, on the surface, that are required to change every thousand or so years in order to match humanity. i will give an example from islam; from surah 2.828, it says that a woman's testimony in court is worth half that of a man's. perhaps this was necessary for some reason in the time and geographical location of islam, but, unless you disagree for some reason, men and woman should both have equal rights under god since they are created equal, and therefore need equal testimonial value, as taught by the bahai faith. this is merely an example to represent why convert. why do you replace counting with your fingers as a child with doing mental arithmatics? you are still doing the same math (mathematics do not change their laws).. you are just doing it in a way that now suits your age and in a more advanced way to match that age. when the time comes, the bahai faith's societal teachings will no longer be appropriate for humanity, and it will be necessary for bahais to be able to recognize god's next manifestation. that was really long.. sorry!
your other question, lol:
yes we except mohamad as a messenger of god, and accept the quran (for its time). yes we do interpret it differently from the muslims.
i will ask you a question first: do you think that god would ever leave humanity alone? i was asked this so many times when i was receiving bahai education from my parents and others... anyways, of course, we are meant to do things on our own and to learn from trial and error, but still, after so many hundreds of years, we still need to touch base with god's message. another question: why do you think christianity is not the last, and that islam comes after? probably for the same reasons that bahais think that islam is not the last and that we come after.
a difference is that we are clear that we are NOT the last religion.
*the claim that islam is the last of god's religions and that mohamad is the "seal" of the prophets is discussed a lot. you can read about it on this page:
http://bahai-library.com/essays/seal.html
the main point is that the word 'phrophets' is understood by muslims as prophets/messangers of god, whereas bahais view it just as prophets. mohamad can surely be the final one in the phrophetic cycle, but he is not the last of the messangers of god! (see the site for the details). we are also told in the kitab-i-aqdas (the bahai holy text) that we should not let confusion of names and words trouble us and stop us from seeing the light of god (K167)... and not to let the word 'prophet' withold us from the "most great announcement" (k167).
in short, we believe that islam ended the prophetic cycle and that baha'u'llah ended the messanger cycle and started it again... with another messanger coming eventually (like another 1000 years).
to directly address something you said -> "they believe islam is the completed form of a religion that can meet all spiritual and material needs of the humans for good" .... so like the answer for the first question you asked, muslims have unfortunatly taken this as true, but bahais believe there is more, and there will always be more because god loves us and by his covenent, will never leave us unaided.
why do you think mohamad was smart to say he was the last? regardless of your views, its kindof disrespectful to call him a 'fool.' i dont believe he did in reality say he was the last one (see my explanation), but it seems that muslims interpret his words as saying he did.
its sad that in countries like iran and egypt and indonesia, muslims that change their faith to the bahai faith are prosecuted/harmed/killed because of this belief in the finality of islam. if the muslim powers in those countries do no recognize the bahai faith as a new religion in god's progressive revelation, they should at least not kill/torture/deprive those that choose it for their own souls. i dont know if this type of action towards converts is allowed by islam (i think it is). this is not right! its a violation of human rights, you cannot kill people for their choice in loving another faith from the bottom of their souls. if this is permissible by islam, then it is, i believe, another reason why the time of islam is no longer compatible with the evolved societal standards of this age, and a newer faith (updated revelation of the same old ever constant religion of god) is necessary. that is why i chose the bahai faith.
i'll end with the very first lines of our most holy book (k1):
"The first duty prescribed by God for His servants is the recognition of Him Who is the Dayspring of His Revelation and the Fountain of His laws... Whoso achieveth this duty hath attained unto all good; and whoso is deprived thereof hath gone astray, though he be the author of every righteous deed."
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