Thursday, December 3, 2009
Heavenly Ornaments
I have a friend who is from India and studying at UT for a year. She's told me about herself, and that she's Hindu, and about some of the holidays Hindus observe, and they really do sound a lot like those things that the book is berating Muslims for doing. I think it's really encouraging, though, that there's been a cultural fusion among Indian Muslims and Hindus. I hope they use these little similarities to grow a bit closer to one another, particularly considering the political climate between largely Muslim Pakistan and largely Hindu India. It makes me wonder if Heavenly Ornaments had any role in engendering the present hatred that lies between these people.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
How could it not really, I mean if your family and you have to buy into it. The social context, at least at that time, was crazy with a type of anxiety about woman and when you are constantly being told not to be like those in another culture how can you not have harsh feelings towards them. Especially if you are being personally scrutinized for acting in any way that even in the most remote way seems to portray them.
ReplyDeleteFor me, it's helpful to recall that the cultural fusion among Indian Muslims and Hindus happened long before the present hatred between Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India, and that the antagonistic attitude between them was largely created in the intervention of the British as well as influenced by the former subjugation of the Hindu's by the Mughal dynasty.
ReplyDeleteI do think that Thanawi may have contributed to some kind of rift, but at the same time, he was responding to a socioreligious crisis caused by the fall of the Mughal dynasty, the rise of the British raj, and the crisis that followed the 1857 mutiny. That rift was already, inherently part of that crisis.