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Originally Posted by sunnyctg
Well I don’t think anything is going to change your mind, so I probably going to stop now. I understand its embarrassing for you to accept what I am saying since you have opened this thread about celebrating shab-e-barat where it doesn’t exist in Islam religion. And i am not blaming you, the society that we have grown up in gave us lots misconception about this religion. Anyway enough said, but next time BanCricFan, if you are trying to disprove something, attack the words of the speaker with your facts instead of lame attacks on the speaker himself. Because that is just rude and only succeeds to show the lack of intellegence on your part.
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sunny, little knowledge is dangerous
where do you think the idea of haj, fasting and proskynesis come from?
for centuries, bedouin arabs would be circumambulating around numerous holy houses like the kaba littered around arabia. there are around five of these huts mentioned in thamudic inscriptions and safaitic graffitti gave geographical details of three. lihayanite inscription also pinpoints one such holy house. since we are still working on deciphering new tablets and graffities found in arabia, and in some case still seperating the vowels from consonants, there might be many more found. so it would appear that the circumambulation of the kaba is actually an arab custom from pre-islamic times with it being first mentioned arond 2nd century BC.
fasting, where does it come from? in judaic and christian tradition fasting is also prevalent. the quran mentions the 'hanif', who were believers of one god before islam came about. sirat al rasul allah, muhammad's first biography mentions one hanif who was different from christians or jews. according to patricia crone, m j kister and some recent research on the notion of the hanif, fasting was widespread within the hanifs. so again, this custom pre-dates islam.
proskynesis, call it prayer through prosthetics or whatever had its origin in persian zoroastrianism as well as sects of the early christian church. most animistic religions from ancient arabia, particularly the worship of the gods baal and dusara, as well as the three daughters of allah invocated rituals that are very similar to the islamic prayer.
all of the above had been incorporated with the islamic tradition of interpretation. the quran does not specify the exact rituals but talks about the importance of them. the ulema settled on the ways of praying, how to go about performing rituals and the rest of the shariya through their 'interpretation' of muhammad's own example. throughout the centuries there had been many additions to these rituals wherever islam spead its wings. many ulema made a living out of propounding theories of rituals.
there are many elements of islam that have foreign origins. abdul wahab, the great theological patriarch of modern saudi arabia was heavily influenced by a number of earlier traditionalists as well as waliullah dihlawi from india. wahab wanted to purify islam of its sufi, ashari and kalam based medieval past. this idea would have grounded to a halt or remained a theory unless a certain tribal chief showed him patronage. thus ibn saud realised that his political ambitions would have much greater influence on arabs if it was wrapped in the cloak of islam. besides, the tribesman had given up islam and reverted to their muruuwa based religion by the sixteenth century anyway. so wahabism became a political cause. the arabs saw the mawala, or non arabian muslims as lesser mortals, in fact, pan arabism propounded the same principle but from the different vantage point. this also accounts for the fact that arabs generally look down upon all other muslims wherever they come from.