07-09-2008, 10:09 AM
Muslims lost an opportunity
Sandhya Jain
Abrahamic faiths are vastly different from non-monotheistic traditions because they begin with a human founder at a specific point in history. He launches an exclusivist religious mission which involves the quest for a people and the conquest of an external (and ever-expanding) territory for those 'chosen' people. This necessarily involves the takeover of land peopled by others and the annihilation of the existing religion and culture; often, the original occupants of the land are simply exterminated en masse. The Old Testament testifies that this is what happened at Jericho, "land of milk and honey," when Moses' disciple Joshua set its walls tumbling down. The genocide of Native Americans in North and South America is another grim example of the logic that drives exclusivist religious traditions. In India, we have the Kashmiri Hindu story.
Sandhya Jain
Abrahamic faiths are vastly different from non-monotheistic traditions because they begin with a human founder at a specific point in history. He launches an exclusivist religious mission which involves the quest for a people and the conquest of an external (and ever-expanding) territory for those 'chosen' people. This necessarily involves the takeover of land peopled by others and the annihilation of the existing religion and culture; often, the original occupants of the land are simply exterminated en masse. The Old Testament testifies that this is what happened at Jericho, "land of milk and honey," when Moses' disciple Joshua set its walls tumbling down. The genocide of Native Americans in North and South America is another grim example of the logic that drives exclusivist religious traditions. In India, we have the Kashmiri Hindu story.