Nexus Between Entities Influencing India

[Husky]

Post 2/3



NS Rajaram's fixation with cutting Hindus off from their past (to terminate the religion's continuity and thereby end Hindus' religion in the future) as seen in the following statement is also repeated in his comments when reviewing another article, reproduced further below.

if we keep engaged in “complicated Vedic rituals and Agamas” dear to people living in the past.

The problem is a false one: he first manufactures the notion that traditional Hindus are a people living in the past. (Next he may advertise for "progressiveness" like other anti-Hindus frequently attempt.) In reality, traditional Hindus live in the present, but their heathen rituals - i.e. their heathen religion - are timeless: they Work at all times (as long as the heathen Hindus retain their heathen mindset).





The following is NSR's coverage of an article called "Myth of Islamic science: Were there any great Muslim scientists?" by Waseem Altaf.



I'm skipping the actual essay that Rajaram's reviewing: it looks like it's pretty much a rehash of similar essays exploding the myth of the 'golden age' of islam by such as I think Faith Freedom, possibly also Anwar Shaikh or else Ibn Warraq's defunct secularislam.org. I think the Atheist Foundation of Australian also did a review of Robert Burns' book wherein a chapter covers the so-called "islamic" golden age. The matter of "islam" or even "arabian" in 'golden age' is also contested by ME christians calling themselves "Assyrians" (uh, isn't that more identity theft? IIRC Assyrian kingdom lived and died heathen centuries BCE) who are predictably seeking to divert the 'golden age' of un-islamic seculars for *christianism* instead and who, BTW, also claim their ancestors donated zero to the islamic Arabians.

Etc.



Therefore the expose of *islam*'s non-participation in the so-called 'golden age of islam' is not the point of this post. Rather, the aim is to look at how Rajaram discusses Hindus and their religion, versus how he compares them to islam/christianism*. Which is why I'm posting only his interjections/comments/notes to the article, and not the article itself. (In fact, I suspect Rajaram's whole purpose in dredging up the well-known topic of "nothing islamic in islam's golden age" is only to beat Hindus over the head with the lectures and constant admonition he gives Hindus in his comments.)

[*As a fun exercise: try to guess beforehand who he holds up as an example for Hindus vs who all he compares/equates Hindus to. Go on, guess.]





sookta-sumana.blogspot.com/2012/09/american-voters-must-learn-too-that.html

Myth of Islamic science: Were there any great Muslim scientists?





In this provocative essay, the author argues that the notion of a golden age of Islamic learning is a myth created to counter the current sorry state of intellectual life in the Islamic world. This editor [NSR] suggests that Hindus also can learn from it and stop fantasizing about their past.

Waseem Altaf



[...]

[Sic: Muslims are not alone in this. Many Hindu scholars also make extravagant claims in the name of ‘Vedic science’ and the like that have no basis. Considering their numbers, the Hindus don’t have a particularly good record, compared to say, the Jews. India and Israel became independent countries around the same time but in science there is no comparison. Retreat into religion in the name of ‘spirituality’ must take its share of the blame. Hindu moneybags spend lavishly on religious endowments and dubious holy men, but are measly when it comes to supporting temples of learning. And the few they do (like the Hindu University of America) are an embarrassment and get bogged down in obscurantism and mismanagement. NSR]



[...]

[Sic: Many Hindus today seem to be no different. In contrast, Jews and Christians don’t hark back to an imaginary Golden Age. They acknowledge their failures (like the Church dominated Dark Ages and the Inquisition) while building outstanding universities— ] temples of modern learning. As just noted, Hindus seem to spend a lot of money and effort trying to revive their past than build great centers of learning. NSR]



[...]

Concluding comments

Whether one agrees with the author’s radical conclusions or not, it is undeniable that the contributions to science under the great Islamic empires was disproportionately small considering their wealth and power. We already saw their record in India even during the supposedly ‘great’ Mogul empire was dismal. Part of the problem was that Islamic rulers, instead of encouraging learning, hired foreigners and mercenaries— like Hindus in India and Jews and Christians in the Ottoman Empire.

Indian Muslim historians like Irfan Habib have tried to explain this intellectual vacuum of the Islamic period in India claiming that its rulers were mainly nomadic tribes from Central Asia (like Turks) who were more interested in military exploits than learning or scholarship. But why only under Islam?— in a belt from India to Turkey and beyond, and that too only after the coming of Islam. One has to agree with the author Waseem Altaf that Islam (like Medieval Christianity) was mainly responsible for this continuing backwardness. Others, notably Hindus should learn from this and avoid getting trapped in the past.

With "temples of learning" Rajaram means *schools/universities*, as seen in the second instance he mentions the phrase. But since he wants to influence Hindu readers into thinking it's an an exclusive Either/Or situation, he speaks of "temples of learning" (presumably he imagines Hindus respond to the word temple and not to its meaning), and posits these "temples of learning" - i.e. universities - as a *replacement* for Hindu temples. Which is contrary to what heathen Hindus and other heathens always had: universities AND temples.





In the final statement, he's comparing Hindus' current state with islam and "medieval" christianity, as if it's the same.

But he exempts contemporary christians from the criticism. Indeed, he compares them favourably to Hindus:

Christians don’t hark back to an imaginary Golden Age.

Apparently Rajaram doesn't know christians never *had* a Golden age. The secular present doesn't count as christianism's golden age.

(It wasn't until humanistic movements took over significant power in Europe that schooling was made universally available and all classes of people in the west started becoming literate. Dickensian illiterate England got changed to post-Dickensian England - including by using even methods of *Hindu* education in India, all while the christobrits destroyed Hindu education in India in return.)



While christianism never had a golden age (unless one counts Constantine's rule, since many Hellenistic libraries, schools and universities were still around at the time, though that's specifically Not to christianism's credit...), it remains a fact that in India's history, many a *heathen* Hindu made up the ranks of the ancient logicians, grammarians, and other sciency stuff etc. Heathens by definition being all-rounders - as opposed to one-trick ponies - they didn't find it hard to do science AND do their heathen rituals (AND do artsy stuff AND play sports AND have a family life) etc.



Even today, you find a lot of *heathen* Daoists and Hindus doing research work. Of course, in their private lives and free time, they do other stuff - like art: Japanese and Chinese heathens are incredibly creative and make really great artwork - including especially pursuing their heathenism.