How Did Islam and Hinduism Manage To Coexist in India For Centuries

[Ice Factory]

What do you think?

[icebreaker]

May be because Muslims were a minority and Hinduism never evoked feelings of opperessing ones right to choose their religion! These are my honest views and I am not trying to take a stance on either side! But that is the only logical conclusion I can draw!

[tomkartar]

The answer is simple:
There was no western influence!!!

[observer]

Islam was brought into India by Muslim rulers over the centuries who established their rule over India and made it a complete empire. They weren't here as governors of another empire (think the British). So even while the Muslim rulers were foreign to India, they turned large parts of India into a unified, sovereign empire and cared for the welfare of the people, episodically maybe more for those who embraced Islam and at other times for everyone regardless of their religion (like the secular Mughal emperor Akbar). But the Muslims did not exploit and leech India off its resources to benefit a foreign land. And this in my opinion, is the reason why great animosity towards the foreign rule and religion of Islam wasn't aroused in pre-British India.

[megrisoft]

There are several examples of synthesis of Islamic and Hindu local traditions. It would thus be wrong to maintain that there was confrontation between Islam and Hinduism in India all through. They lived in peace and harmony and profoundly influenced each other. It is also wrong to say that Muslims have not been part of Indian mainstream.
And all praises are for the One and Only God and Creator Allah, who alone is worthy of devotion, complete submission and worship.

[venky]

This post may be out of context with the theme of this thread, but I guess an appeal to all indians in religious context is OK to be posted here :)

India is home country for hindus, muslims, sikhs, christians, parsis, jains, buddhists, and so on. Its their country, period.
(Can somebody tell me how many types of religions are active in india?)

It is natural to feel insecure if you are a minority in a country. But rest assured that india is your country. Im an indian hindu who lives in USA. I understand some of your feelings of being minority in a country.

Look at top achievers in india from different religions. Look at your prime minister and president. Take inspiration from them and work your way to the top.

You are indian first. This comes ahead of your religion, ideology etc. Religious tolerance is a must for all indians.

Leaders will evoke partisan feelings to their advantage. Look who is getting richer day by day, you or them? Look who is fighting in the streets in the name of religion, places of worship etc. Look who is getting injured. Look whose livelihood is impacted due to curfews, closing down shops etc. Look who is preaching ideologies that wont serve to improve your life and of your countries? Look whose long term interests are getting affected, yours or theirs?

We, indians living outside india are proud to see so many achievements by india. We will try our best to improve india hand-in-hand with you.

Its time to get back to work and get better. We have lots to do and miles to go.

[India1989]

THere are like 15 religions in India and 20 tribal religions.
There might be more then 15 religions in India.

And muslims and Hindus are still coexisting peacefully even now and they did so before too.

[megrisoft]

If we see history of India (http://www.onlineindian.com/forum-11.html), Hindu- Muslims relations were worse. But now, they are living with peace in India.

[India1989]

past was past. present is what matters. As long as we live peacefully then we will prosper and also be known as more diverse.

[Silverbackman]

THere are like 15 religions in India and 20 tribal religions.
There might be more then 15 religions in India.

And muslims and Hindus are still coexisting peacefully even now and they did so before too.

Yea Hinduism itself is actually many religions in reality. India is also a country of many languages and many different cultures.

India is a prime example of why a one world government can work in the future.

[Omni]

past was past. present is what matters. As long as we live peacefully then we will prosper and also be known as more diverse.

One famous author said otherwise and that goes something like if we live in the present we will end up living the past but if we learn the past we can make the future.

Our ancient hindu masters have taught this several times, its in our scriptures, our faith, our ideologies, our instinct but we just walk the opposite way hoping to learn from the masters of other nations to help improve ours.

So how can we forget the conflicts, the evil and tragic events that has been put to us. We are perhaps lucky living in this generation but the next will not be as lucky. We have already witnessed unessesary warfare, unending famine, loss of territory, interruption in the progress of our goal and the list goes on. I'd say enough is enough to prosper is to fight. If we want a stronger nation we might have to start changing our percpective and take whats rightfully ours. Never forget, never lose hope and never give up.

[India1989]

see buddy. first of all let me say this. we have learned a lot from the past but if we keep thinking about the past then that will be the only thing in our mind which will think that this shouldn't have happened and we can do mistakes. best is to learn it and then act properly.

15 religions in India is not including the sub religions in Hinduism and Islam and christianity and stuff. Those are broad 15 religions.

1752 languages including all dialects.

22000 languages including all subdialects.

4600 ethnic groups in total and many more are to be found.

1000 different type of tribes.

10 broad type of ethnic groups (caucasoid, mongoloid, indo aryan, dravidian, negroid etc.)