shafique wrote:From Islam's perspective, the question asked is far from 'unanswerable'.
Islam acknowledges that Krishna, for example, was a prophet of God - sent to Indian people with a message for them - as the Quran says that Indians were sent prophets and logic tells us that records of their existence should still exist (and elevating prophets to Gods is not uncommon - eg it happened with Jesus). Similarly, Buddha, Confucious, Zoroaster are all compatible with being prophets with earlier localised messages for mankind.
Thanks for bringing up an interesting point of discussion vis-a-vis how religions view the founders of other religions. Do you agree with me that Islam is unique it that it acknowledges the veracity of these other founders?
Cheers,
Shafique
Q’ran says that a Muslim should protect even the enemy belonging to other religion. It says that a Muslim can speak about the preaching of Allah to the enemy and then leave the enemy in protected place. It never says that the religion should be spread by violence. It speaks about the war for justice, which is not the war for propagation of religion. For that matter, Gita arose only from the state of war, which was fought for establishing justice. Even Bible says that the rigid fools who do not realize should be thrown to the liquid fire, which is violence. Therefore, violence is not wrong. But the cause of violence should be perfectly justified. When Mohammad came, there were three hundred religions, which were quarelling among themselves with lot of violence. He tried His best by preaching the concept of one God. There was no alternative way to subside the violence between them.
Actually after Jesus, the concept of human incarnation was fully realized but this concept was exploited by cheaters. Every fellow became a prophet and declared himself as the human incarnation. The followers started preaching that particular form is only the one God. You can imagine easily the situation at the time. When violence is justified, it is called as punishment given by God. If the violence is not justified, it becomes Chaos due to egoism of a demon, which can be subsided only by divine punishment. Actually at the end, Hinduism speaks about the incarnation of Kalki and Christianity speaks about the final punishment given by God. Both these situations are of terrible violence only.
The last sort of God is only punishment, which can alone bring peace at least temporally for some time when the world is filled with brutal conservative fools, who are the wild beasts in the human form. The Lord says in Bible “Revenge is mine” which means the Lord punishes the unjust people. The Lord said in Gita that He will destroy the evil person (Vinasaya cha….). God is double-edged knife. Not only He protects the justice but also He punishes the injustice. A rich weak human being may protect the justice but may not be able to punish the injustice. A poor strong fellow may punish the injustice but not protect the justice by giving compensation. Thus, the human beings have limitations but the Lord is strong as well as rich and therefore is capable in both sides.
This is the meaning when Jesus mentioned about the divine kingdom on the earth. He means that one may escape the king on this earth but can never escape God. When you are affected by injustice, pray for compensation only (“Ask that shall be given”-Bible) and not for the punishment of enemy. You will be compensated. When you do not pray for the punishment of enemy, you will see the punishment of your enemy soon from God. You may react to your enemy with equal or double force. But God will react with million times of force. Draupadi was pestering Krishna for the destruction of her enemies. The Lord fulfilled her wish but all her sons were killed by enemies and Lord did not protect them. Some times God punishes your enemy through your self. Arjuna killed the enemies, forced by the Lord. But Arjuna was not having the intention to kill the enemies and was against the war. Since he was forced by the Lord, he fought the war for justice.
When Muslims followed Mohammad in His war for unifying the religions, it was justified because there was clear divine instruction. Since Mohammad was the last divine preacher, now the war for justice need not be carried on because in the absence of divine preacher there is every possibility of misunderstanding of every situation as requirement for war of justice. Therefore, the instruction of Mohammad was limited to that time because He was capable of deciding the correct requirement for war for justice. Mohammad removed the concept of human incarnation because the effects of exploitation were severe in that time. Muslims should realize that human incarnation means that God entered in the human body and not that God modified as human body. Mohammad objected only modification of God in to human body. This is not condemning the concept of human incarnation. God only enters the human body and Mohammad himself was the human incarnation because God entered in to Mohammad and gave Q’ran. Gita clearly says that God entered the human body (Manusheem Tanu Asritam..) and that God is not modified in to human body(Avyaktam Vyakti Mapannam…). Bible also says that God is in flesh and does not say that God has become flesh. Thus, there is no difference between three religions.