Please cirtique my writing

[aneeshm]

That's still an ad-homimen fallacy.

Check the factual veracity of the sources. The references to Muslim documents, with quotes, are given. These people are not talking out of their arse. In fact, they are letting the Muslim historians speak for themselves, in the second book. No bias there.

[Arrian]

Oh please, unbiased! I'm reading chapter 1 of book two and it's blatantly biased.

The story as related in the Commission’s report combined with the Note from the Government of Gujarat tells us a few things about the behaviour patterns of the different parties involved in the dispute - the Trustees of the Jãmi‘ Masjid, the Archaeological Survey of India and the Government of Gujarat. It also gives us a glimpse of the quality and character of leadership thrown up by the two communities in the dispute over a place of worship.

Indeed it does, but not necessarily what the writer believes. Neither the Muslim "side" nor the Hindu "side" comes off looking good.

...

Hundreds of years ago, a Mosque was built on top of a temple. DEAL WITH IT, or suffer the fate of the Israelis & Palestinians.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Rare is the historian or archaeologist who had related this vandalism to the theology of Islam based on the Qur’ãn and the Sunnah of the Prophet. On the contrary, the subject has been politicised by the votaries of Secularism who become hysterical by the very mention of the untold story. Politicians in power have made and are making frantic efforts to suppress every tip of the iceberg which chances to surface in spite, of the conspiracy to keep it out of sight.

The nefarious forces of Secularism and Islam, hand-in-hand, keeping the Hindu down!

-Arrian

[DaShi]

Most of its sources are biased as well. The others are probably taken out of context. Other articles in there don't have sources at all. This is one of the most biased websites I've ever come across since the People's Daily.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Arrian
Oh please, unbiased! I'm reading chapter 1 of book two and it's blatantly biased.



Indeed it does, but not necessarily what the writer believes. Neither the Muslim "side" nor the Hindu "side" comes off looking good.

...

Hundreds of years ago, a Mosque was built on top of a temple. DEAL WITH IT, or suffer the fate of the Israelis & Palestinians.

-Arrian

Forget the ideology, concentrate on the scholarship. These people have meticulously sifted through records of the times to document every instance of temple destruction they could find. And what they found is very, very damning.

Please read the chapters I indicated, which deal with the actual evidence, instead of focusing on the other parts of the book, which are more ideologically motivated.

[Arrian]

I feel like I'm arguing with BK about gays. It's the same story. "Forget that this study was done by the University of Jesus Saves! It's scholarly, really, and proves that gays shouldn't marry!"

Pul-leaze. Don't insult my intelligence.

-Arrian

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by DaShi
Most of its sources are biased as well. The others are probably taken out of context. Other articles in there don't have sources at all. This is one of the most biased websites I've ever come across since the People's Daily.

Are you saying that court records of Muslim kings, written by their hagiographers, are biased against the Muslim king? Or are you suggesting that court records require "interpretation" the same way that religious texts do?

That's a ridiculous assertion. Please read the two chapters I indicated of the second book - no bias is possible there, because it was the Muslims themselves who recorded that history. These scholars have sifted court records, which are simple factual chronicles of daily events, not some holy text requiring "context". When a king says, "X destroyed Y temple, and looted Z amount of gold", what is left to contextualise?

[Arrian]

Of course court records require interpretation, especially if you are drawing conclusions about the motivations behind a particular action or set of actions (which your Hindu nationalist articles do)! That's basic historiography.

500 years from now, I sure hope that historians don't treat the "court records" of the Bush Administration as gospel!

-Arrian

[Barnabas]

Aneeshm, dont you consider at least, the curtailing of human sacrifice, sati and the caste system, positive influences of islam and the west on indian culture?

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Arrian
I feel like I'm arguing with BK about gays. It's the same story. "Forget that this study was done by the University of Jesus Saves! It's scholarly, really, and proves that gays shouldn't marry!"

Pul-leaze. Don't insult my intelligence.

-Arrian

But they're quoting the Muslims, dammit!

But I can accept that you may have a hard time accepting the credentials of these authors, given their ideological bias. So I'll ask you to do just one thing: please read this link and tell me that the scholarship in that chapter, the references given in that chapter, are bogus.

[Arrian]

They are quoting Muslims in a context of their choosing, discarding (no doubt) whatever doesn't help their case, and then interpretting it through the lense of their Hindu nationalism.

...

So I'll ask you to do just one thing: please read this link and tell me that the scholarship in that chapter, the references given in that chapter, are bogus.

So you give me a link to the same website?

Look, I'm not arguing that Muslims didn't destroy Hindu temples. Why would I? I don't know much about Indian history, but I find the idea of one religion destroying another religions temples to be perfectly plausible. It happened all the time, all over the world.

It's the conclusions drawn that concern me, not the records of "Temple X in province Y was destroyed/looted/converted by so-and-so in such-and-such year."

-Arrian

[Arrian]

This is pretty funny:

The apologists of Islam are likely to point out that quite often the instances of iconoclasm have been copied by succeeding historians from the writings of their predecessors and that this repetition should be kept in mind while assessing the extent of temple destruction. There is no substance in this argument. Firstly, there are many instances of temple destruction which are not reported in the histories but which archaeological evidence proves. Secondly, what is relevant in this context is that the historians regard some instances as significant enough to bear repetition. It is obvious that no account of some reigns was considered complete unless the concerned ruler was credited with the destruction of Hindu temples. Had it not been an important pious performance from the point of view of Islam, it is inconceivable that historians who wrote in times when the dust of war had settled down, would have cared to mention it. The repetitions are valuable from another point of view as well. In quite a few cases, succeeding historians add details which are not found in the preceding accounts. It is immaterial whether the details were missed by the earlier historians or are the products of the succeeding historians’ imagination. What matters is that the historians thought them fit for the glorification of Islam

Bah! Facts aren't really important, see. What matters is that Islam is BAD.

-Arrian

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
Aneeshm, dont you consider at least, the curtailing of human sacrifice, sati and the caste system, positive influences of islam and the west on indian culture?

Sati (which, incidentally, finds no mention in the Vedas, but is a later innovation based on a wrong interpretation of the Ramayana epic) was banned thanks to the efforts of a Hindu reformer, Raja Ram Mohan Roy.

The caste system was neither weakened nor strengthened by the coming of the Muslims. In fact, did you know that it was the castes considered low who offered come of the most fierce resistance to Muslim rule? Did you know that there is still a caste system in place among Indian Muslims (the Ashraf Muslims, who consider themselves descendants of Arabs and Central Asians, mistreat and consider inferior the Ajlaf Muslims, or local converts), which is as bad as the Hindu system, and with less hope of reform, because very few people outside the community even know it exists?

As for human sacrifice - I am not aware of any Brahminical ceremony involving human sacrifice. It is possible that some sects have come up with such a practice, but it finds no mention in any religious book I have read, and the ancient lawbooks (I've read them) treat this as a crime.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Arrian




The nefarious forces of Secularism and Islam, hand-in-hand, keeping the Hindu down!

-Arrian

This needs some explanation.

In India, secularism does not mean that the state does not concern itself with religion. It means that the state actively interferes in religious matters, and gives away to the Muslims 70% of the money collected from Hindu temples, appoints Christians and Muslims and communists to Hindu temple boards, and in general meddles with Hindu institutions. This sort of pernicious meddling has been going on since independence, and is still going on. That is the reference, not what is usually meant by secularism.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Arrian

They are quoting Muslims in a context of their choosing, discarding (no doubt) whatever doesn't help their case, and then interpretting it through the lense of their Hindu nationalism.

...

Actually, they aren't really interpreting at all in the chapter I just linked to. They're just quoting.

Originally posted by Arrian

So you give me a link to the same website?

To show you that the scholarship is genuine.

Originally posted by Arrian

Look, I'm not arguing that Muslims didn't destroy Hindu temples. Why would I? I don't know much about Indian history, but I find the idea of one religion destroying another religions temples to be perfectly plausible. It happened all the time, all over the world.

That's the point - it didn't. Hindus DID NOT destroy other people's places of worship. They did NOT have an iconoclastic imperialist ideology which they tried to spread by the sword.

I'm concerned with the destruction, not with the conclusion, because they draw different conclusions, and I draw different conclusions. I'm just saying that when it comes to factual accuracy, you can't beat those people.

Originally posted by Arrian

It's the conclusions drawn that concern me, not the records of "Temple X in province Y was destroyed/looted/converted by so-and-so in such-and-such year."

-Arrian

But don't you see - simply using another person's scholarship to prove a point in your article does not imply that you agree with that person's conclusions drawn from that scholarship!