Page 58 - Islam and Far Eastern Religions

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around 1 billion people who blindly put their faith into this superstitious
religion.
Today, the perversity of worshipping the Sun still persists in India.

The most important temple dedicated to the worship of the Sun is the
10
Konarak Temple in the Orissa district. Worshipping the Sun is another
feature of the Hindus that bears resemblance to ancient pagan cultures
and it is one of the oldest aberrations of mankind. Some people who re-
alized that the Sun provides them with light and warmth were misled to
believe that the Sun gave them life and thus they came to form the prim-
itive belief in the Sun as a divinity. This false belief led many a civiliza-
tion away from Allah’s religion in the history of mankind, a fact revealed
in the Qur’an which tells the story of the People of Sheba who ignorant-
ly worshipped the Sun at the time of the Prophet Solomon (pbuh):
I found both her and her people prostrating to the sun instead of
Allah. Satan has made their actions seem good to them and debarred
them from the Way so they are not guided and do not prostrate to
Allah, Who brings out what is hidden in the heavens and the earth,
and knows what you conceal and what you divulge. (Surat an-Naml:
24-25)
A careful examination of the situation reveals that it is ignorance
and irrationality that leads people to worship the Sun. True enough, the

Sun is our source of light and heat, but we owe gratefulness to its
Creator Allah, not the Sun, which is a huge mass of hydrogen and heli-
um created by Allah that will one day expire or be destroyed by Him be-
fore then. Allah has created all the stars in the universe, including the
Sun, from nothing and it is therefore only Him Who must be exalted and
praised. The following is one of the verses that reveal this fact:
Among His Signs are the night and day and the sun and moon. Do
not prostrate to the sun nor to the moon. Prostrate to Allah Who cre-
ated them, if you worship Him. (Surah Fussilat: 37)

Islam And Far Eastern Religions