UNANIMITY OF RELIGIONS

When we look at the history of man we view an incessant bloodshed and massacre. The human history, in fact, is a long story of the murder of humanity and human values. As a result of gradual evolution, man became civilized but with this advancement he became more cruel and ruthless. In tribal life, human murder was restricted to one or two only, but presently as the whole world has become a single society, people are being slaughtered beyond thousands. We see a stream of blood flowing from the murder of Habeel up to the massacre in Bosnia Herzegovina.

No thinker or scholar can deny the fact that out of all the murders on the face of earth fifty percent were committed in the name of religion. Those who were murdered for the sake of money, land or woman are far less than those who were killed in the name of religion.

In the near past, we have passed through two global wars and the third one seems to be quite at hand. There can be no two opinions about the fact that the number of persons killed in two world wars was lesser than those butchered in the name of religion. In the background of the said two wars, in addition to other factors, one factor was religion too.

If we try to find the reasons of Nazi tyranny on the Jews, it becomes clear from the Jewish history that -it was the reaction of the policies of the Jews that lasted for centuries. The lust for power always slew humanity in the garb of religion. The most pious man of the world (Christ) was, crucified in the name of religion instead of Barabbas, the dacoit. There were so many Prophets whose blood was shed as a service to religion.

In various wars between Islam and other religions of the world the bone of contention was nothing but religion. In a single religion there can be found so many militant sects which are brutally killing human beings. This is being done even today. After all why? There may be a clash of two religions or sects, but it results in the destruction of mankind. Is there any religion which attaches little importance to man?

There seems to be no such religion. The religion is meant for the welfare of mankind and not man for the religion. Even the strictest order of any religion has an exception. This exception is not only for the safeguard of man but also for the whole creation. For example, there is no ritual worship or any prayer, which might be counted more precious than a soul. This can be established by an example. Suppose a person is offering his prayer and a puppy is drowning in a nearby water pond. In such a situation it is mandatory that the said person should give up the prayer and save the drowning puppy. If the puppy is so important then what to speak of a baby in similar circumstances ? So the safety and welfare of humanity is certainly more important than the worship of God or other rituals. This priority can be proved in another way. If a man owes something to another man, on the day of Judgement only the owner can forgive that. A murderer will only be forgiven if a reprieve is granted by the man whom he murdered.

Religion enjoins two sets of rights:

(i) Rights of God on man which are mostly ritual commandments and

(ii) Rights of man on other fellowmen.

God Almighty has full powers to write-off his own rights, as He is forgiver of sins and Merciful. But no pardon will be allowed by God Almighty so for as the second set of rights is concerned. So pardon in this case will become difficult, if not impossible. Thus it is more dangerous to damage human rights.

God Almighty deputed 124000 Prophets firstly to propagate His Oneness and secondly to teach man to love his fellowmen. The main objective of all the revealed religions was to create in man a sense of mutual peace, respect, love, safety and confidence with specific stress on a complete, comprehensive and ever-ready safety for the whole human race.

As a man is naturally habitual of seeking backdoors, here too he searched out new methods of cheating, fraud, looting and killing under the guise of religion simply to thwart the teaching of the prophets. No religious leader allowed both killing and plundering or gave a free permission for moral degradation. The religious preachers kept a balance in their teachings for different sets of men in different conditions. They told cruel persons that their God is the Just. The tormentors were told that God could give painful punishment. The repenters were told that God is forgiver of sins and Merciful. He accepts repentance and is more kind than parents. Later on when the mischievous preachers acquired power they assured the cruel persons that God is Merciful and Bountiful. With this interpretation they gave a free play to the oppressors for doing what -ever they liked.

The main aim of religion was put aside and side issues as well as prejudices were flared up. The edifice of human character was built on the foundation of hate. Some evil thinkers presented religion nothing more than bias and prejudice only, with the result that the mistranscriptive ideas got the central position, biased preaching got the power and petty differences provided justification for bloodshed. Man became quite shelterless on the face of earth.

It became a routine that whenever any religion acquired power, it tried to wipe out the followers of the other religions. It was considered just to oppress and dishonour the weak, to loot their assets and disgrace the womenfolk. Nobody can point out a single religious leader who allowed ravishing the women of opponents. If some one succeeds to present any such proof about the top leaders of any religion that will not be more than a blame on these personalities. Religions came into existence for man and not man for the religions. All the topmost religious leaders who came in this world presented identical codes of morality. The same have not even the slightest difference. The ethics of all the religions of the world is quite identical. Falsehood, fraud, murder, theft, dacoity, illicit intercourse, slander, backbiting, brutality, wickedness, abusing, insult etc. all the moral crimes have equally been condemned and denounced by all the religions. If we make a deeper study, we shall find that even the smallest degree of the crimes enumerated above was condemned. For example Moses said, "Don't commit illicit intercourse". Christ said, "An evil look is like an unlawful intercourse. Don't cast an evil look." The Prophet of Islam (P.B.U.H.) said, " Don't think of illicit intercourse because it amounts to actual committing of the same". This is an evolutionary effort to lift man step by step, on the stairs of piety. With the gradual refinement of man, various aspects of a single crime were taken notice of. Such as to commit murder, intention of murder and to plan a murder; or to commit a theft, intention of theft or to plan of a theft. Similarly various aspects of all the crimes were defined with the clear intention to save man from crime and to make him more pious. So I can safely declare that the moral laws pronounced by all the prophets or other important religious personages are quite the same. Their notions of lawful and unlawful or right or wrong also coincide.

A study of all the seven prevailing religions today has brought me to a definite conclusion that the basic concepts of all of them are the same. Their 90% ethical similarity shows that all the religions are 100% the same. The difference of 10% is not real but a creation of ulterior motives. It is high time that we all should make a study of various prophets and their religions positively and not critically. We should not stop to underline the points of difference and indulge in uncalled for discussions but we should study them to bring out common directives, common ideas and common moral values. We should also try to view as to how far we are similar to our other counterparts. The critical and biased discussions have already resulted in loss of innumerable human sculs. We should stop going further in this direction.