Home

 Articles

 Op-ed

 Authors

 FAQ

 Leaving Islam
 Library
 Gallery
 Comments
 Debates
  Links
 Forum

 

 

 

Muhammad is not predicted in Hindu scriptures

Zakir Naik and Abdul Haque Vidyarthi Exposed    

 By S. Prasadh

Purpose Of Article  

Recently, it has become a fad for all Islamic websites to publish Dr.Zakir Naik’s (An Islamic Propagator from India ) and Dr.Abdul Haque Vidyarthi’s article on Muhammad foretold in Hinduism. It is a well know fact that the same websites insult HINDU scriptures, their idols, their ideology and criticize them vulgarly. But their desperation leads them to cherry pick some verses from Hindu scriptures and decipher them in their own terminology and claim that many mantras point to MUHAMMAD. Let us take some of the alleged prophesies of Muhammad in Vedas. Any internet search engine containing the worlds Muhammad and Hindu returns a large number of results on this theme. A number of textual proofs are given in support of this claim. While this comforts the faithful, let us analyze these proofs rationally and see whether the claim holds up under the clear light of reason, not fogged by religious sentimentality. However, I must confess that I have been unable to get hold of the book written by Dr. Vidyarthi, and therefore I am refuting the material available on  this page,  a clear material about claims of Dr.Zakir Naik has been presented in his home site.  I shall be arguing on the premises of 5 aspects of such claims. At the end of this article, you shall infer the truth about these Islamic propagandists.

The Rebuttal

 

1. The first premise is based on the Qur’anic belief that There Never Was A People Without A Warner:

Qur'an 35:24, Qur'an 16:36, Qur'an 4:164, Qur'an 3:81-82 all declare that Allah had sent messengers or apostles before to various nations of the earth telling them to worship Allah and accept the apostles as His messenger. To the Muslims these verses mean that every religion had its prophet of whom Muhammad is the last and final. From this they deduce that scriptures of other religions must contain mention of Muhammad. To a Muslim there is no proof needed but the Koran; but for unbelievers the Koran by itself is no proof. Satisfactory proof is yet to be given that Allah exists or that the Koran is God's Revelation. Nor does it automatically follow that Mohammed's arrival would be predicted anywhere. FFI contains many articles that actually questions and sometimes disproves the credibility of both.

 

2. The next argument is based on linguistics:

I have already given sufficient substantiation on how linguistics play an important role in interpreting other scriptures related to the Qur’an in my previous article titled Quran And Royal Plural .

The writers seem to indicate that Sanskrit has been borrowed from Arabic. They have found this by an analysis of the Vedas. However, when we come to the actual words given as examples, the ground is too shaky to withstand scrutiny.

(a) Brahma, the Creator in the Hindu Trinity, is declared to be actually Abraham. The initial letter A in Abraham has apparently been moved to the end making it Brahma. We are told "This analysis is accurate when one writes the two words in Arabic script, a language close to that spoken by Prophet Abraham". This immediately raises the problem of what language Abraham actually spoke and also that "a language close to that spoken" is not the same thing as the actual language. Also since the analysis is based on only phonetic similarity and on changing the position of the alphabets, the Hindus can with equal justice claim that Ramadan/Ramazan is actually a corruption of 'Ramanavami'.

Not only that, let us take a look at the linguistic root of Brahma. The term Brah comes from the root Bri which means "to worship, to select, to surround". When an h is added to Bri it becomes Briha meaning to "increase, to grow". By addition of 'an', we have the word Brahman who in Hinduism is the Supreme God. Brahman thus is the original word. Brahman is without form, without gender and cannot be plural. The cosmos came into being by its will alone. When Brahman is imagined as a masculine being engaged in the act of creation, then it is called Brahma. When Brahman is imagined as a feminine being, who is the source of energy without which the act of creation cannot take place, then it is called Brahmani. Brahma thus has nothing to do with Abraham (incidentally we can also claim that Abraham comes from Brahma), but comes from Brahman and is clearly the God of creation/the creative aspect of God and not a human.

(b) "Similarly, Abraham’s first wife Sarah is mentioned in the Vedas as Saraswati". This again depends on mere phonetic similarity. Unfortunately, when we study the Rigvedic verses we see that Saraswati was actually a river. There is great dispute as to where this river was, but there is no doubt that it is a river. Rigveda again and again declares it to be a river with descriptions of flowing down from the mountains into the sea and it is worshipped as a river-goddess. Later on, somehow or other she became the goddess of learning as well. It was only in the Middle Ages that she became the consort of Brahma. In the Vedas, she is definitely not Brahma's wife. Unless one is willing to grant that the Sara of the Bible was originally a river, one cannot see any connection between the two.

( c ) "Noah or Nuh is mentioned as Manuh or Manu." The only similarity between the two characters lies in their stories. Like Noah Manu too was saved by God during the Flood. But this proves nothing except that these are two stories that involve flood. Moreover, the rest of the story simply does not match: Manu had no ark (only a boat tugged by God in the form of a fish) and definitely no kind of animals with him to repopulate the world. Not only that, Manu is a generic name for 14 sovereigns of the world in the myths and there is a female Manu as well who is the Mother of mankind (Manava > children of Manu (fem.) )

(d) Similarly, it is argued that 'Maleccha' (unclean ones) come from Hebrew word "Ma-Hekha which means 'thy brethren'. (e.g., And he (Ishmael) shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. Genesis 16:12; i.e., Ismaelites are the brethren of the Israelites). This word therefore means a descendant of Ishmael, and it is well known that Muhammad (s) is a descendant of Prophet Ismail through his second son Kedar. Those who can read Arabic Script can easily see that a mistake in separating Ma from Hekha will produce a single word ‘Malhekha,’ and when adapted in another tongue like Sanskrit might sound like Malechha". Again this relies on the belief that ancient Hindus knew Hebrew and had read the version of the Bible, as we find it today. Linguistically, the term comes from 'mlech', meaning to speak indistinctly, barbarously. So 'mlechha' came to mean those who could not speak the Vedic language, those who are outside Hindu society. The term is definitely ancient since it is found in Vedas.  

 

  1  |  4   next >   

 

 

 

 

 

Articles Op-ed Authors Debates Leaving Islam FAQ
Comments Library Gallery Video Clips Books Sina's Challenge
 

  ©  copyright You may translate and publish the articles in this site only if you provide a link to the original page.