Page 256 - Islam and Far Eastern Religions
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               atom has a common order governing it all which proves the existence
               of one Creator. To think otherwise, to think that there are other deities
               besides Allah Who have separate powers, is great ignorance and fool-

               ishness. Allah reveals in the Qur’an that idolaters like the Shintoists
               who believe in millions of imaginary deities are erring:
                   Allah has no son and there is no other god accompanying Him, for
                   then each god would have gone off with what he created and one of
                   them would have been exalted above the other. Glory be to Allah
                   above what they describe, (Surat al-Muminun: 91)

                   Shintoists who accredit the dead with divinity should reflect upon
               this verse carefully, should free themselves from fictitious and perverse
               beliefs in their minds, acknowledge Allah’s clear existence and submit
               to him.
                   Shintoists, with such nonsensical beliefs about the dead, have on
               the other hand no concept of death, Judgment Day, the life of the here-
               after, hell or paradise. Their false beliefs led them to irrational and non-
               sensical practices in these matters which are incompatible with reason
               or logic. According to the erroneous Shinto scriptures, the well-being of
               the dead “depends on the care, food and other offerings presented to
               their graves by the living”. They hold to the illogical belief that the
               dead will take revenge if they are not revered, presented with offerings

               or given presents. For this reason a Japanese person believing in
               Shintoism considers the reverence of the dead, visits to the grave, and
               offerings made to the dead as a very important duty, at least in his own
               eyes. This belief regarding death and the dead, like all the other beliefs
               of Shintoism, is another great error inherited by the Japanese from their
               ancestors.
                   No manmade teaching can be accurate about what comes after
               death because no man has died and then come back. The only reliable
               source from which we can acquire true knowledge about death and the



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