Some people attains greater significance in spite of time trying to bury them in the remnants of history. At times complexity of the current problems drives us back to those visionaries, whose warnings once we ignored and visions we defeated. The spreading epidemic of fundamentalism and intolerance takes us to the footsteps of such a person who devoted his life fighting it with all his might in the Indian subcontinent - Abul Kalam Azad, independent India's first education minister and a champion of syncretism.
Nothing has cost our mother land greater than the Hindu - Muslim discord. Cunning minds within and without aggravated and exploited it for their selfish mileages and still continues to. Minds that cared for humanity warned and tried their level best to teach the masses about the hollowness of intolerance. Azad's concept of 'Wahdat -e- Din' or 'the Unity of Religions' was a step in the direction.
As per the concept every religion has two aspects - deen and shariah. Deen refers to the totality of the metaphysical doctrines which constitutes the core of a religion where as shariah comprises of the rituals and practices, which are culture specific. Azad maintains that deen, which is the essence, is same for all religions (like belief in god, good and evil, mercy to all etc). What differs is the shariah which varies not only with religion but also within religion with region and age.
Azad's call was essentially to focus on those fundamental factors (deen) which unites every being of all religions and to be tolerant with regard to the marginal factors (shariah). Such a call for harmonious coexistence was very significant then as colonial India was frequently rocked by communal violences.
Decades have passed, intolerance still exists. The uncertainities of modernisation are giving births to newer varieties and shades of fundamentalism. Somehow often we forget that what binds us together and fall prey to what divides us.
mashoodkk
Nothing has cost our mother land greater than the Hindu - Muslim discord. Cunning minds within and without aggravated and exploited it for their selfish mileages and still continues to. Minds that cared for humanity warned and tried their level best to teach the masses about the hollowness of intolerance. Azad's concept of 'Wahdat -e- Din' or 'the Unity of Religions' was a step in the direction.
As per the concept every religion has two aspects - deen and shariah. Deen refers to the totality of the metaphysical doctrines which constitutes the core of a religion where as shariah comprises of the rituals and practices, which are culture specific. Azad maintains that deen, which is the essence, is same for all religions (like belief in god, good and evil, mercy to all etc). What differs is the shariah which varies not only with religion but also within religion with region and age.
Azad's call was essentially to focus on those fundamental factors (deen) which unites every being of all religions and to be tolerant with regard to the marginal factors (shariah). Such a call for harmonious coexistence was very significant then as colonial India was frequently rocked by communal violences.
Decades have passed, intolerance still exists. The uncertainities of modernisation are giving births to newer varieties and shades of fundamentalism. Somehow often we forget that what binds us together and fall prey to what divides us.
mashoodkk
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