CASTE

Caste- one of the most horrifying words I have come across, especially when people forget the purpose and rituals that started the various castes!! But in the present society, though the entire context has changed people still follow it giving it a new meaning.

There are so many religions being followed in our country, and all have castes and sub castes. I don’t want to rather I can’t comment on the caste system followed in other religion, but would want to share about what is being followed in Islam, in general.

Friends, please forgive me if I hurt anybody’s feelings, but my only intention is to gather your views and eventually take some steps against such ‘not needed’ so called social practices!! I really find them anti social! These things, for which we cannot argue with our respected elders, can surely be taken care of at our own levels. We, as an individual can stand for the peace, avoiding such unnecessary issues, as we grow old. We can, need to, bring about changes in our thinking and start afresh.

As I mentioned in my previous post regarding following basics in Islam, same thing I would like to say again, to please follow basics. It is mentioned in HOLY QUR’AN, that the person who follows the caste system is bad in the eyes of The Almighty! But we find almost 99% of our Muslim friends following the same. Every body says, “You should be afraid of Allah, you should not do anything which is disliked by The Almighty” and similar things, but still people do follow this caste system which is not preached by Him! Where the fear of Allah goes while we discriminate people in the name of caste? Why?? The social image gets bigger than Allah?? All the values are kept aside, why? Doesn’t this mean that it’s all manmade and is easily manipulated by man as per convenience?? In that case where are the beliefs?

There are many more questions that arise within! All this makes me wonder what people mean by belief and are they true enough in following their religion!

Friends, this is not the way Islam is! In Islam, when a person is asked, “Who are you?” Then the reply should be, “I am a Muslim”, simple! No caste, no creed is required.

Most commonly these issues and discrimination arises in matter of marriages. Parents want their children to marry in the same caste; they see only caste and not the person. Parents do not allow their children to marry the person of their choice because of caste differences even if the individual would have all the desirable points. When their child insists, parent make the situation worse by putting the blame on their upbringing saying things like, “We could not be good parents, there must be something missing in our upbringing for which God is punishing us!”. This neither convinces the child, nor gives good feeling to parents. Instead builds in guilt within the child and a gap in the parent –child relation. This adamancy does no good; I believe that if we think that religion is all about beliefs and one wants to stick to beliefs, then one need to clarify the beliefs, their origin, and meaning.

With every passing day, I try to gather as much information about the do’s and don’ts in detail and about the good and evil practices being followed in Islam. It’s my requirement to know because I don’t want to follow any such anti social practice in the name of Islam, as I believe in Islam and want to maintain this belief with purity!