The Differences Between Hinduism And Islam

Religious conflicts in South Asia have been instigated and fueled by ideological assumptions without an accurate understanding of history. This has led to “Hinduism” and “Islam” being considered independent from each other and religious identity being deemed as exclusive. The book Beyond Turk and Hindu challenges these misconceptions by outlining the ways in which Hinduism and Islam intermix and overlap. The authors of chapters two and three, Shackle and Narayanan, examine regionally specific literature and challenge the view that interreligious differences in South Asia are not set and irreconcilable. Shackle talks about how creed, not religious differences, played a role in Panjab, and Narayanan shows the fusion of Hindu (Tamil) and Muslim identities in a literary work. Two main themes, the idea of love in Panjabi song lyrics and love stories (qissas) and periodic literature, are used by them to show that rigid religious boundaries do not exist and …show more content…
However, Narayanan tries to show that Muslims have always been an integral part of South Asia by highlighting their interest in and engagement with Indian culture. She uses the famous text Cirappuranam to show how Muslims made an effort to simultaneously construct an Islamic and Indic identity using ideas and cultures shared by both Hindus and Muslims. In this text, the life of the Prophet is described as having a Tamil background by adapting the genre of Tamil poetry (Narayanan 75,79). Muslims also created Persian translations of Sanskrit works. On the other hand, Hindus made efforts as well to interlink Hinduism with Islam by incorporating Muslim saints and teachers into their religious practices (Narayanan 77). The chapter discusses numerous other literary works in which Hinduism and Islam merge and