Dear
Friend, you asked a very pertinent question when you said: "If Vedas
and Quran are from the same source, why does it is said in following
Hadith that before Day of Judgement people will start worshipping idols
which is considered a "Shirk"?
Aisha (R.A) reported: “I heard Allah’s Messenger (P.B.U.H) as saying: The (system) of night and day would not end until the people have taken to the worship of Lat and ‘Uzza.” [Muslim]"
First and foremost, I must congratulate you for continuing the search of truth to the extent that you are even reading books of traditions. I have not seen the aforementioned tradition but if you have mentioned it, it must surely be in some book.
Let us first see what is meant by 'shirk'. Shirk means bringing in somebody else as companion or equivalent to God. Muslims believe in One Absolute God, who is formless, omnipresent and all powerful. This is exactly the concept of Mahesh or Ishwar or Absolute God mentioned in the Upanishads. Therefore, it is wrong to say that Hindu scriptures don't have a concept of Formless, Omnipresent and All Powerful One God of Universe.
What is truth though is that all Hindus do not understand the concept of One God and worship the idols of deities, who were in truth not Absolute God, but definitely Divine Beings having some connection with God. Since they are not God themselves, worshiping them as God is akin to creating a duality with God and this is the reason why certain Muslims go to the extreme of criticizing the Hindus for idol worship.
To give an example, the idol of Krishna is worshiped. I can give great proofs to show that Krishna is not God; but the truth is that the Manifest Self created by Absolute God viz. Paramatma was speaking from the body of Krishna, thereby meaning that Divine Light was working in his body. But even Gita is referring to Absolute God in Third Person who is the creator of Manifest Self or Paramatma too.
Show me one place in Gita or any Divine Book where it is written that idol of Krishna may be worshiped. In Gita, Krishna says in Gita that Paramatma i.e. Manifest Self need to be worshiped and tells that worshiping the Devatas is an unorthodox form of worship.
The fight between Krishna and Kauravas was also for this reason alone. The Kauravas as well as the Brahmins of the period had started worshiping the Devatas of Vedas but Krishna, though he endorsed the sanctity of Devatas in Divine Plan, talked of worshiping the Manifest Self or Paramatma. It was this teaching of Krishna and his criticism of Kaurava worshiping Devatas as well as other powers which led to Kauravas coming to fight Krishna. The purpose of showing the Divine Image to Arjuna was that all the powers that people of the time were worshiping were in fact subservient to the Manifest Self and hence only Paramatma or Absolute God should be worshiped. Will you disagree with this? Have you ever formed an idol of Paramatma? No! If there is no idol of Paramatma formed, it shows that the idols that we are worshiping as gods are idols of beings inferior to Paramatma.
It all depends on what is your intent. Quran also says that one should pay respect to shayrallah. Shayrallah are people or things which lead us to God. Therefore, if our intent is to pay respect to Krishna or Rama because they were the people who will lead us to Absolute God, then there is no issue but if the intent is to worship them as gods and also worship Devatas as gods, then that is equivalent to creating duality with the Absolute God and hence comes in the ambit of 'shirk'.
Tell me one place in Vedas where idol worship is sanctioned. Krishna left Gita after him. Tell me one place in Gita where Krishna is talking of or giving sanction to worship of his own idol. There are Upanishads which describe Rama's conversation with Hanuman. Read them; Rama is talking of a higher power. When Rama and Krishna are confessing of higher powers over them, how can we consider them as gods.
The divinities were introduced all across the world at one point of time. They were introduced as our saviours and as rope to salvation in Indus Valley Civilization as well as in Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Greek Civilizations. In all civilizations people started worshiping them and then new avatars were sent to correct their teachings. It was then that the concept of Holy Spirit or Rooh or Paramatma was introduced. And later the concept of One Absolute Invisible All-Pervading God was told.
You may ask why this was done? It was because the people of yore were incapable of understanding invisible powers. They wanted to see the gods in person. Now in the age of ultraviolet rays and electromagnetic waves, light energy and atom energy, it is very much in the capacity of a thinking mind to understand an invisible absolute God.
However there is another aspect to it. There is an Absolute God but that God Himself sanctified Kaaba as His House on Earth. Kaaba is a material structure and akin to an idol. It is towards Kaaba that Muslims prostrate and worship. This shows that it is not possible to undo use of material things in order to understand God. Even Quran that is in our hands is a material books. These material things were used to make us understand the abstract God. It was this reason why Devatas were created with both ends, one end as light which had link to Manifest Self or Paramatma and the other end as human body in which light descends so as to create the link with humans. It is only through the Devatas (Ahlulbayt) that we can climb to understand higher Divine powers. It is only through the Devatas (Ahlulbayt) that material man can transcend the higher spiritual levels towards recognition of Manifest Self.
It was for this purpose only that the light of Devatas kept descending in human body in different parts of the world and finally came together as Ahlulbayt. Either as Rama, Krishna, Budha, Moses, Jesus, Mohammad or rest of Ahlulbayt, the purpose was only to lead mankind towards salvation. Whether we create an idol or whether we prostrate before God without understanding the true identity of these who comprise rope to salvation, we are not going to get salvation. Some of the Muslims who abhor idol worship are today worse creatures on earth. They need to answer whether those who are worshiping idols of Rama and Krishna and trying to understand their teachings and follow them are better or those who do not believe in idol worship but their soul is at the level of beasts.
Aisha (R.A) reported: “I heard Allah’s Messenger (P.B.U.H) as saying: The (system) of night and day would not end until the people have taken to the worship of Lat and ‘Uzza.” [Muslim]"
First and foremost, I must congratulate you for continuing the search of truth to the extent that you are even reading books of traditions. I have not seen the aforementioned tradition but if you have mentioned it, it must surely be in some book.
Let us first see what is meant by 'shirk'. Shirk means bringing in somebody else as companion or equivalent to God. Muslims believe in One Absolute God, who is formless, omnipresent and all powerful. This is exactly the concept of Mahesh or Ishwar or Absolute God mentioned in the Upanishads. Therefore, it is wrong to say that Hindu scriptures don't have a concept of Formless, Omnipresent and All Powerful One God of Universe.
What is truth though is that all Hindus do not understand the concept of One God and worship the idols of deities, who were in truth not Absolute God, but definitely Divine Beings having some connection with God. Since they are not God themselves, worshiping them as God is akin to creating a duality with God and this is the reason why certain Muslims go to the extreme of criticizing the Hindus for idol worship.
To give an example, the idol of Krishna is worshiped. I can give great proofs to show that Krishna is not God; but the truth is that the Manifest Self created by Absolute God viz. Paramatma was speaking from the body of Krishna, thereby meaning that Divine Light was working in his body. But even Gita is referring to Absolute God in Third Person who is the creator of Manifest Self or Paramatma too.
Show me one place in Gita or any Divine Book where it is written that idol of Krishna may be worshiped. In Gita, Krishna says in Gita that Paramatma i.e. Manifest Self need to be worshiped and tells that worshiping the Devatas is an unorthodox form of worship.
The fight between Krishna and Kauravas was also for this reason alone. The Kauravas as well as the Brahmins of the period had started worshiping the Devatas of Vedas but Krishna, though he endorsed the sanctity of Devatas in Divine Plan, talked of worshiping the Manifest Self or Paramatma. It was this teaching of Krishna and his criticism of Kaurava worshiping Devatas as well as other powers which led to Kauravas coming to fight Krishna. The purpose of showing the Divine Image to Arjuna was that all the powers that people of the time were worshiping were in fact subservient to the Manifest Self and hence only Paramatma or Absolute God should be worshiped. Will you disagree with this? Have you ever formed an idol of Paramatma? No! If there is no idol of Paramatma formed, it shows that the idols that we are worshiping as gods are idols of beings inferior to Paramatma.
It all depends on what is your intent. Quran also says that one should pay respect to shayrallah. Shayrallah are people or things which lead us to God. Therefore, if our intent is to pay respect to Krishna or Rama because they were the people who will lead us to Absolute God, then there is no issue but if the intent is to worship them as gods and also worship Devatas as gods, then that is equivalent to creating duality with the Absolute God and hence comes in the ambit of 'shirk'.
Tell me one place in Vedas where idol worship is sanctioned. Krishna left Gita after him. Tell me one place in Gita where Krishna is talking of or giving sanction to worship of his own idol. There are Upanishads which describe Rama's conversation with Hanuman. Read them; Rama is talking of a higher power. When Rama and Krishna are confessing of higher powers over them, how can we consider them as gods.
The divinities were introduced all across the world at one point of time. They were introduced as our saviours and as rope to salvation in Indus Valley Civilization as well as in Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Greek Civilizations. In all civilizations people started worshiping them and then new avatars were sent to correct their teachings. It was then that the concept of Holy Spirit or Rooh or Paramatma was introduced. And later the concept of One Absolute Invisible All-Pervading God was told.
You may ask why this was done? It was because the people of yore were incapable of understanding invisible powers. They wanted to see the gods in person. Now in the age of ultraviolet rays and electromagnetic waves, light energy and atom energy, it is very much in the capacity of a thinking mind to understand an invisible absolute God.
However there is another aspect to it. There is an Absolute God but that God Himself sanctified Kaaba as His House on Earth. Kaaba is a material structure and akin to an idol. It is towards Kaaba that Muslims prostrate and worship. This shows that it is not possible to undo use of material things in order to understand God. Even Quran that is in our hands is a material books. These material things were used to make us understand the abstract God. It was this reason why Devatas were created with both ends, one end as light which had link to Manifest Self or Paramatma and the other end as human body in which light descends so as to create the link with humans. It is only through the Devatas (Ahlulbayt) that we can climb to understand higher Divine powers. It is only through the Devatas (Ahlulbayt) that material man can transcend the higher spiritual levels towards recognition of Manifest Self.
It was for this purpose only that the light of Devatas kept descending in human body in different parts of the world and finally came together as Ahlulbayt. Either as Rama, Krishna, Budha, Moses, Jesus, Mohammad or rest of Ahlulbayt, the purpose was only to lead mankind towards salvation. Whether we create an idol or whether we prostrate before God without understanding the true identity of these who comprise rope to salvation, we are not going to get salvation. Some of the Muslims who abhor idol worship are today worse creatures on earth. They need to answer whether those who are worshiping idols of Rama and Krishna and trying to understand their teachings and follow them are better or those who do not believe in idol worship but their soul is at the level of beasts.
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