The Gita and The Quran- A comparative Study

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Once in my early childhood I happened to listen to a discussion on a great bloodshed of Hindus and Muslims in a communal riot. On my remark, "Why did Hindus' Bhagavan and Muslims' Allah not stop them from beings perished through fighting each other?" A Maulana explained to me in detail that Allah is only One, Who created all human beings including Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Chris-tians and others and also clarified that He has different names in different religions and languages. Then I started questioning innocently: 'While Hindus and Muslims are created by the same God, why do they fight or kill each other? Are they not real brothers as there is no doubt about their creator, who is the father of all in the real sense? Who created various religions and which one is the best? While only Islam is the best religion why God created bad religions also, as you say Allah never creates an irrelevant thing?' The Maulana could not satisfy me with his answers instead he doubted my sincerity. Even he got irritated on my asking, "Had God given you birth in a Hindu-home could you deny it?"

According to the Gita and the Qur'an God Himself chooses religions for all human beings, therefore all should stick to their respective religions. However if a person wants to improve his religion, he should do so as all religions are badly in need of being improved. All things of the creation without .exception are bound to change under the natural pressure of time, place and circumstances. Therefore, those who oppose' even a suitable change in their religious faiths are sure to face downfall. For instance, radio, television, telephone, banking establishments involving usury and very many more scientific and technological inventions of the modern era were prohibited yesterday, while a nation cannot prosper without them today, hence they are permitted silencing the religious trouble-makers. Nothing can stop the speed of change under compulsion of time. Whosoever will try to do so will be crushed under its weight? The change emanates from God.

Similarly placing women behind the curse of veil (Pardah) or permitting polygamy or frequent divorces is not only harmful, but also suicidal today. What a pity, almost half a population of a nation was made handicapped in the prisons of Pardah! After all why should women hide their faces? Are they nose cleft or ugly or doers of shameful acts? Why should lions ask their lionesses to behave like stupid creatures by covering their faces even before the jackals? They should be taught to face an evil attempt of a rowdy with bold-ness and to extract an eye with a lustful gaze. Let a loose character die a natural death on seeing an excellent beauty. Why should women protect him by covering their faces? Let him restrain his own evil desires or shut up his own eyes. Women are no other than men's mothers, sisters, grand-mothers, wives and even beloveds. Let all men fight for women's emancipation. Is there female population four-fold to male's in any country? If not, why four wives to anyone depriving others of having even a single wife? The psychological and the humanitarian considerations are also ignored in practising polygamy. For example, an affectionate father brought up his darling daughter with a loving care and gave her in marriage to a deserving boy with high hopes for her decent settlement in life. But after a few years he married another woman, then third and fourth. Think impartially with the God-given intellect how can a woman live in peace in an atmosphere of many wives of her husband? Such a home is certainly a hell for her. The sooner this wrongful practice is dome away, the better.

Inspite of my pondering on the injunctions of various scriptures, I sometimes find myself without a solution and hence wandering. Should I believe in what I see with my own eyes or what is written in the scriptures? For example, a helpless woman was weeping in tears on her husband's marrying two or three more women. Should I believe that she IA as laughing in joy for her husband's doing something within the framework of Shariat? Elsewhere, another woman was crying with folded hands while being dragged for being burnt at her dead husband's burning pyre. Should I believe that she was singing for being sati for the sake of her Dharma? One should utilize one's God-given intellect for solving a problem of conflict of duties with the firm faith that the essence of religion rests in the service of humanity rather than that of God, Who is not at all in such a necessity. God loves those who serve His created beings. A good intellect with a foresight is certainly a divine revelation and a supreme scripture!

With these reformatory ideas fluttering in my mind in search of reality, I read the Gita and the Quran extensively and came to the conclusion that human race, religion and relation is only one all over the surface of the earth-the visible difference is on account of the time, place and circumstances. Fighting or killing on the basis of religion is an act of madness on the part of human beings and hence a great sin. With a view to strengthen the thread of national integration and universal brotherhood for a deeper understanding, I had decided to bring out a comparative study of the Gita and the. Qur'an-the two major scriptures of the two major com-munities in a book form.

At the time of this publication I. shall be failing in my duty if I do not remember with indebtedness my revered teachers Dr. R.S. Tripathi, Professor and Head of the Dept., Dr. G.L. Shastri, Prof. P.S. Gupta, Dr. G.N. Shukla, Dr. P. Anand, Dr. S.S. Sharma Rakesh as well as Prof. Saefd Ahmed Akbarabadi, Prof. A. Aleem, Prof. Nazir Ahmad, Prof. K.A. Nizami and Prof. S. Nurul Hasan of the Departments of Sanskrit, Theology and Comparative Religion, Islamic Studies, Arabic, Persian and History of the A.M.U. Aligarh, who always offered their earnest advice concerning my plans for working on the lines of national integration.

MN best gratitude is due to the Govt. Of India, which sanctioned an adequate grant for the publication of this book. My sincere thanks are also due to M/s Nag Publishers, who took keen interest and pains in bringing out this work into light with-in a short span of time.

I express my sincere thanks to the learned scholar and philosopher Dr. Lajpat Rai, who took pains in making corrections at the time of its printing.

Besides, my best thanks are due to Prof. Dr. R.V. Joshi and Prof. Dr. Satyavrata Shastri of Delhi University as well as. Dr. R.N. Dandekar of the Bhandarkar Research Institute of Poona for their sincerity and fair-mindedness towards me.

Lastly I would like to recognise with loving thanks the painstaking help rendered to me by my only daughter Sara Durrany and both the sons - Dara Durrany and Agha Durrany in going through the proofs. Inspite of the best attention paid to the task of proof-reading a few errors are left unnoticed. Patient readers may kindly bear with me for this and convey to me their views and suggestions for the improvement and enrichment of this book.

In this volume an attempt has been made to present a picture of a comparative study of the human duties with their classifications according to the Gita and the Qur'an. These two scriptures preached originally in India and Arabia respectively play an important role in the field of religion, philosophy, ethics, culture and civilization, politics and the social advancement of the whole world. These are, in fact, by virtue of their cosmopolitan views, representatives of the divine messages came to mankind occasionally under the compulsion of time, place and circumstances. Neither the Gita is preached only for the Hindus nor the Qur'an for the Muslims, yet they are misunderstood to be the scriptures of the Hindus and the Muslims respectively. This misunderstanding is on account of the non-conveyance of the messages of both these scriptures to the public at large. The Gita and the Quran both are very widely accepted to be the sacred volumes of the world and hence intensively studied and variously commented, yet there remains so much work to be done in connection with them. It is quite improper that the Hindus prefer only to strive for reading and understanding the Gita and the Muslims, in the same way, like only to read and understand the message of the Qur'an neglecting the former, while God repeatedly declares in the Qur'an to believe in all the sacred books preached before to be true.' The Gita also, likewise, maintains the same spirit by proclaiming, ‘whenever, there is decline of bodies Himself forth for the protection of the virtuous, for the destruction of the evil doers and for establishing Dharma on a firm footing.'1

It should be borne in mind that by this divine statement depicted in the Gita, 'I body Myself forth for establishing Dharma,' as reflected in 7th and 8th verses of the 4th Chapter of the Gita, is not meant that God Himself takes birth in the human form, while He is Unborn, Eternal and Indestructible, according to the Gita and the Qur'an both.2 But in the times of distress to the virtuous, He sends His apostles, specially endowed with his reformatory calibre as His representatives to act on His behalf. God is absolutely devoid of taking birth and dying, but His messengers or representatives are put to the cycle of birth and death as Lord srikrishna Himself admits that He has passed through many births.3The reader is requested to see my commentary on this point in the 8th Chapter of this work.

A great majority of the people can be available in the world which may be well versed in either the Quran or the Gita or the Bible or any other scripture of the world. But there can be found a very few persons who may be specialized in the comparative studies of the two or more scriptures. God Himself passes laws and regulations for every community for judging mankind according to their respective codes. Had God willed, He could turn all mankind into one community. But He does not do so knowingly, so that He may judge prejudiced or non-prejudiced views of mankind towards their various communities set forth by Himself.4 The Gita also enjoins the same thing in this respect by pronouncing, 'Even those devotees, who endowed with faith, worship other gods, they too worship God alot, though not in accordance with divine rules.' God further declares in the Gita that I am equally present in all beings, there is none hateful or dear to Me, they, however, who devoutly worship Me, abide in Me, and 1 also stand revealed in them. Even if the vilest sinner worships Me with exclusive devotion, he should be considered a saint, as he has rightly resolved.1 Women folk, Vaigyas, Sildras and even those who are horn of the womb of sin, such as the pariah, taking refuge in Me, they too reach the Supreme Abode.2' This statement is intended by the Divine Lord for instigating mankind to be aloof from communal feelings towards each other. The Qur'an also appears to be very keen on this point in its preaching, 'Those who believe in that which is revealed to the prophet Muhammad or those who are Jews or Christians. or Sabaeans and believe in Allah and the Last Day and do meritorious deeds, their reward is certain with their Lord and there shall be no fear to come upon them neither shall they grieve.3

Though all the sacred books of the world, by virtue of their being preached through some divine agency, are basically similar as to their divine imports, but I am, at present, directly concerned only with the Gita and the Qur'an in connection with the human duties depicted in them, therefore, I concern myself wholly to deal with them.

The religious role of a country depends upon the followers of a particular scripture. As regards the religious life in India, the followers of the Gita, that is Hindus and those of the Qur'an say Muslims are in majority and they, due to their lack of comparative knowledge of both these scriptures, con-sider themselves to be a different folk and taking the grounds of divergence in their religions mistakenly stand hostile to each other. Thus, the hostility between the Hindus and the Muslims is basically caused by lacking knowledge of the Gita and the Qur'an at the same time. It is, undoubtedly admit table that the prejudiced views of the generality of the Hindus and Muslims should come to an end after minutely, going through a comparative study of the human duties as enjoined in the Gita and the Quran. This is the sole purpose in devoting myself for bringing out the chief perspectives of 'the Gita and the Qur'an in the light of their comparative study of the human duties in a book-form.

For facilitating understanding of this volume, it is divided into two broad divisions containing eight chapters. The first Tour chapters of part one are devoted to the preliminary discourse on the Gita and the Qur'an along with their back-grounds and the next four chapters of part two to the main theme thereof as systematised hereunder:

In the first and second chapters the pre-GITAIC and the pre-Quranic ages are reflected in the light of historical, social, political, cultural and religious backgrounds. A few glimpses of the religious system of the Arabs prevailing during the time of ignorance before the revelation of the Qur'an are even traceable in the Qur'an itself, bearing the confirmatory seal of the prophet of Islam. Most of the pre-GITAIC systems of religious performances are corroborated by the Blessed Lord in the Gild also. A summary of the biographies of Lord Krishna and Prophet Muhammad have also been affixed respectively at the end of these two chapters.

**Contents and Sample Pages**