All totalitarian approach and ideologies are certainty about a certain truth as perceived by actors with institutional authority and power. Totalitarian approach that claim to understand the truth of all history and humankind often militate against pluralism and diversity that drive human creativity and eternal search to make sense of the nature and universe in billions of expressions.
The aesthetic of life is in its diversity of expressions. Dogmas are authoritarian doctrines that are imposed on the thinking of the people and imprison the imaginative potential of human beings. It is the totalitarian political ideologies ,often inspired by the materialist dogma (including dialectical materialism) and religious dogma that killed the largest number of people in the world. More than 250 years of crusades killed millions. Those who are familiar with the history of inquisition will know what a dogma can do to those who are suspects or non-conformist. Galileo suffered as he was perceived as an enemy of the reigning dogma of the Catholic Church. The interesting thing is that as the world progressed the most organised religious institutional network in the world( Catholic Church) kept on redefining and refining their dogma to cope of up with the changing times and the world. That is why Catholic Church survived as one of the oldest organised and religious institutional power in the world.
All those who preach their conviction of a dogma seek blind believers to confirm to what they perceive as the theology of the world, heaven and hell. Their comparative religious understanding is not a genuine understanding of multiple searches to understand human beings, society, nature and universe. Their comparative religious 'dialogue' is a tactical shallow polemics to deceive few more to their dogmatic certainty.
The irony is that often they speak about love and end up promoting suspicion and hatred. They will claim to be humble and then argue the superiority of their pet dogma. They claim to preach peace and their totalitarian approach create war within and beyond.
Great Prophets and those who touched the souls of the world never created a religions. All religions survived and thrived as they were the political ideologies to rule the world in the name of the God. There is no religion in the world that survived without the political patronage. That is why even now the Holy Bible is Kings James version.
Religions exist at five level. At the level of basic human experience to commune and communicate beyond the immediate and the yearning for collective experience 2. At the level of philosophical searches, asking questions that are relevant beyond time and space and questions that seek to understand the human nature and nurture in relation to the society, planet and universe- and God. 3. Religions exists as norm making institutions that tend define human relations through managing birth, marriage, procreation and death. 4. As a set of doctrines that tend to discipline human behavior by drawing boundaries and limiting options of choices and the institutionalized religion operate in everyday life at the fourth level. Lastly as authoritarian dogmas that often use the identity of the blind believer and ultimate conformists to build political power to rule and annihilate the nonconformist and skeptics as heretics.
It is often the first level of religion that is authentic, plural and diverse. The last level is the dogmatic authoritarian version. And most of the preachers belong to the last two levels of religious power structures, though their seek to shift their followers from the authentic experiential level to the doctrinal dogmatic level, because the institutional power of religion is often based on the political power of their institutional network of dogma.
Hence Dr. Zakir Naik is preacher of dogma with a communicative command over English and political patronage of theocratic monarchy like Saudi Arabia. He is not actually much different from the southern Baptist preachers and televangelists. He seeks to combine the American mode of aggressive televangelism with an authoritarian doctrinal strand of the Islam. It is his 'modernist' posturing with medieval world view that does the trick- as he seeks to communicate to the educated as an 'educated' man who claim to quote from all scriptures, though he is more than often using the usual rhetorical tricks to impress the audience. In his rhetorical flourish, the audience often tend to think that he has come to a a 'scientific' conclusion about the ultimate truth after studying all religions, though his understanding of comparative religions seem to be more rhetorical tactic and lack the depth of understanding of plural tradtions and interpretative strands of all religions.
The problem is not about the genuine religious experience. The problem is when preachers of one or other kind subvert authentic experience of the people to promote mono culture and monopoly of power. And there are enough number of such preachers of all religions in India too.
Dr. Zakir Naik at one level is the Islamic version of the entrepreneurial preaching and televangelist industry in the USA . His Peace TV is a business enterprise that mint money. At this level he is not also much different from the Yoga entrepreneurial charlatan called Ram 'Dev'. At another level, he is also a master of subversion and use a theological dogma of medieval world in the modernist grab. As he preaches the superiority of his dogma in the 'modern English' educated grab, it tends to impress many educated people with his rhetoric and pseudo logic of 'dialogue'. It is his medieval dogmatic ideology of absolute truth that make him dismissive of diversity, pluralism and many ways of understanding and appreciating divinity even within the Islamic traditions. But the point is that he is not alone in this business. India too got so many who pedal in the old brahaminical and castist dogma in the new grab of modern 'educated' posturing of ' Harvard' educated blah, blah, blah Swamy types.
Preaching is now a business enterprise to make money and have millions of fans. They sell themselves like celebrities in the market place of souls. But the issue is that market elites are in new nexus with political elites. Hence, Zakir Naik is a great man in Saudi Arabia and he may be a suspect in his country of birth. That is the tragedy and comedy of our times.
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