Love Jihad and some serious thoughts about religion

Today, I had a chat with my old colleague, a young girl who speaks in Valluvanadan vernacular. She told me “I made a mess of my life, etta.”

When a young girl calls you “etta” innocently, how can’t you be her responsible big bro? So I lend both my ears to her as sincerely as I could.

She had known a guy since she was in 2nd std (Grade), who naturally became her best friend, until he proposed to her. She had no second choice, but to accept it at cloud nine.

Like any typical Indian Love story, after a dozen of melodious duets, the climax is set for tragedy (I hope there will be an anti climax, where they both join together at some airport). She is a Hindu and he is a Muslim – A perfect setting for Love Jihad!

Though her parents stood by her choice, his parents disagreed. They could accept her only as a Muslim.

She asked me for advice. I had nothing to give, but to hide an aching heart.

She said "I am good at silent weeping, but my tears vehemently defy to stay where it should be". (I wish I could recollect her words for you, it was more poetic than what I put here.)

I bid farewell to her with a kind of pain in throat with which one comes out of theatres after watching a tragic love flick.

For some time, I thought about her tears, about her pain, about love and religions.

Why do Muslims insist on marrying only Muslims?

After all, who is a Muslim?

The Arabic word “Muslim” means the one who consciously surrendered his free will before the Absolute God. It is just like the sun, the earth, the moon, the stars and galaxies, which surrender to the laws of motion set by God, the human beings surrender his life to the will of God. Ultimately every thought, every action of human beings should become God-centric, that is what the word "Muslim" mean.

Every major religion insists that he highest plain of human thought is the belief in Absolute God (Monotheism). According to Hindu belief, this is the highest rank a person can achieve, as stated by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, the great philosopher and India’s first Vice President, in his book “The Hindu view of life”. He writes:

“Hindu thoughts believe in the evolution of our knowledge of God... the bewildering polytheism of the masses and the uncompromising monotheism of the classes are for the Hindu the expressions of one and the same force at different levels. Hinduism insists on our working steadily upwards and improving our knowledge of God. 'The worshippers of the Absolute are the highest in rank; second to them are worshippers of personal gods; then come the worshippers of the incarnations like Rama, Krishna, Budha; below them are those who worship ancestors, deities and sages and lowest of all are the worshippers of the petty forces and spirits'”

And while addressing the Worshippers of the Absolute, The Quran says “You are the Best of peoples evolved for mankind - enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong”.

If you look at it, the God is ONE for the entire human kind and, all religions talk about the same God.

But are the Muslims we see around us “True Muslims” (ie, those who surrendered their will to ONE God of entire humanity and universe)? I believe not. Muslims and Hindus failed here miserably to scale up to the highest spiritual level. They have surrendered their will before bodily desires, worldly pleasures, and in the fight for the survival of the fittest. Where are the highest ranking human beings? Where are the best of peoples?

In a God-centric world it makes sense for people to associate with the highest ranks or the best of peoples. But how do we qualify for this position? Every act of us, every thought of us, leave us among the lowest (even lower than animals).

In a self-centred world, what is the point in people of one sect considering themselves as highest ranking or best of peoples and looking out for the people of the same sect alone for marriage? Aren't they all following the same path of materialism? What does it leave behind, but echoes of silent weeping and drops of tears shed by innocent lovers?

I wish I could advise my Valluvanadan friend. But I dare not tell her something when I find myself lacking. I will have to climb up from my self-centered world to that highest plain of God-centric life before I could give her some advice. Till then I will have no advice for those who ask.