What's your opinion on shrines? Do you think going to shrines is "shirk" ? Are these people really 'worshipping' their saints or simply 'paying their respects'?
Saima Mohsin from Pakistan asked this question to be debated on face book.
Reply by Afzal Tahir@all above: I tried to read through some of the messages. The general impression both far and against, reflect an image of a literal Islam. The entire religious rituals are questionable, not only the shrines. Firstly let us clear what is religion itself? What is Ka'ba itself? Don't we know the entire Iran till 15th century was Sunni? Don't we know the entire Egypt, Yeman, Tunis, Libya and Algeria were Fathmi just before they been conquered by Slauddin who was Kurd himself, where the rituals of Yazidi sect miles away from the mainstream sunni islam? Is there any element of truth that the main-stream religion Islam, in fact a tradition been imposed by the successive rulers of the time?
The point I am trying to raise is this: religion is a domain of metaphysics and supernatural. It is not subject to be verifiable through human sensory tools, be that the concept of God, the concept of angels, the concept of prophesy or the sainthood. When we say the saint has died and it is a dead man's grave? Dead man is unable to offer any thing? Who said so? Those oppose shrine. Those believe shrine do not consider them dead man. In their faith, Prophets, Saints and Holly people never died, in fact they disappeared from human eyes. This is their faith. Here anti shrines are trying to challenge the fundamentals of a believe system of a faith community, yet when others try to challenge the anti-shrines believe system, they recourse to blasphemy. What could be the logic of prayer's to be rewarded in degrees. 10% and 70%. How do we measures the percentage of virtue? How do we differentiate the entire reward concept of divine from the worldly concept of materialism? Is the whole doctrine of shariya and towheedi group based on fear and greed? Any concept that dictate human mind because of fear and greed, could not be from high moral ground. Virtue relate itself to high moral ground and humanly understandable.
Burying the dead, historically was the western Asian culture. There fore the historical evidence suggest that traditions of visiting the graves of dears and nears, shrines of holly people or the places linked to holly people through the historical tales or religious stories, had always been part of people's culture. What is safa and marva? Every Hajji have to repeat this historical tale linked to Hajra. The pagans of Mekka us to perform Hajj exactly the same way, the Muslim do today. The Abrah, who was Christian, a man of book, came to demolished the Ka'ba. The Grand Father of the Prophet stood on the wall of Hateem and had asked for help from Allah to safe Ka'ba. The Ka'ba which was containing idols including latt, munat and uza. God's help had come in support of pagans against the man of book and shariya, the Abrah. Here God protected idols. Why? There fore visiting shrine is a fundamental believe system of main stream Muslims in line with the tradition of Hajj where they have to visit Mecca for Ka'ba, Medina for Prophet's Shrine where Prophet himself along with Abu Bakr and Ummar buried. It is also in line with other shrines such as Hazrat Ali in Najaf Ashraf, Imam Hussain in Karbala and many more. So, in Pakistan people visit their local shrines.
There fore no one have any barometer to check which one is true and which one is false except to respect people's faith as long as the subject faith community is not harmful to the society because of their faith, others do not have right to criticise their faith.
The point I am trying to raise is this: religion is a domain of metaphysics and supernatural. It is not subject to be verifiable through human sensory tools, be that the concept of God, the concept of angels, the concept of prophesy or the sainthood. When we say the saint has died and it is a dead man's grave? Dead man is unable to offer any thing? Who said so? Those oppose shrine. Those believe shrine do not consider them dead man. In their faith, Prophets, Saints and Holly people never died, in fact they disappeared from human eyes. This is their faith. Here anti shrines are trying to challenge the fundamentals of a believe system of a faith community, yet when others try to challenge the anti-shrines believe system, they recourse to blasphemy. What could be the logic of prayer's to be rewarded in degrees. 10% and 70%. How do we measures the percentage of virtue? How do we differentiate the entire reward concept of divine from the worldly concept of materialism? Is the whole doctrine of shariya and towheedi group based on fear and greed? Any concept that dictate human mind because of fear and greed, could not be from high moral ground. Virtue relate itself to high moral ground and humanly understandable.
Burying the dead, historically was the western Asian culture. There fore the historical evidence suggest that traditions of visiting the graves of dears and nears, shrines of holly people or the places linked to holly people through the historical tales or religious stories, had always been part of people's culture. What is safa and marva? Every Hajji have to repeat this historical tale linked to Hajra. The pagans of Mekka us to perform Hajj exactly the same way, the Muslim do today. The Abrah, who was Christian, a man of book, came to demolished the Ka'ba. The Grand Father of the Prophet stood on the wall of Hateem and had asked for help from Allah to safe Ka'ba. The Ka'ba which was containing idols including latt, munat and uza. God's help had come in support of pagans against the man of book and shariya, the Abrah. Here God protected idols. Why? There fore visiting shrine is a fundamental believe system of main stream Muslims in line with the tradition of Hajj where they have to visit Mecca for Ka'ba, Medina for Prophet's Shrine where Prophet himself along with Abu Bakr and Ummar buried. It is also in line with other shrines such as Hazrat Ali in Najaf Ashraf, Imam Hussain in Karbala and many more. So, in Pakistan people visit their local shrines.
There fore no one have any barometer to check which one is true and which one is false except to respect people's faith as long as the subject faith community is not harmful to the society because of their faith, others do not have right to criticise their faith.
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