“Was vernünftig ist, das ist wirklich; und was wirklich ist, das ist vernünftig.”

The quote above was done by Georg Hegel, a German philosopher who is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. It means: “What is rational is actual and what is actual is rational.” However, the existence of religion is not simply because it is the “actual”. Since no one in the world has the scientific evidence to prove the myth and legends in religion, the fast spread of religion comes down to the factor of propaganda. In other words, the government supports religion because of its benefits. Religion provides consistency in explaining the order and legitimacy under the ruling class. The order explained what to do, what cannot do, and how to do things in society. It serves as the equivalent piece of modern-day laws. legitimacy explained why people need to follow the rules. It enforced the “laws” on the followers of the religion.

The caste system in Hinduism is almost overwhelmingly criticized in Modern days. From the perspective of modern people, the discriminative caste system is selfish and horrible. However, the caste system lasted for thousands of years and even affected the assimilation of conquerors like the invasion of Islam. What does the caste system provide? Connecting the perspective to the actual history, the existence of the caste system was based on cleanliness and reincarnation regarding what the world is like explained by Hinduism. The human beings in the world are all changed from different parts of Brahma, the creator god——1. The head of Brahma has become Brahmins. The intellectual class was also the priest class. The priest’s rights include communicating with the gods, writing and explaining the classics, the caste system itself, or the entire Hindu system designed by Brahmins; 2. The arm of Brahma has become Kshatriyas, the ruling class, including kings, nobles, and warriors. The legitimacy of the ruling class is given by the priests, so it must be ranked after the priests; 3. The legs of Brahma have become Vaishyas, bourgeois, farmers, craftsmen, and businessmen, these people generally have fixed means of livelihood in India; 4. The feet of Brahma have become Shudras, the proletariat, generally, people who do coolies and do services. In addition, the place where Brahma stepped is the Dalit who is outside the caste, the slave class, who specialize in work related to dead bodies, excrement, and blood, such as cleaning Toilet sewers, tanning, shoemaking, butchers, funerals, etc. The earliest sources of untouchables are untraceable, and they probably include aborigines in South Asia, criminals, prisoners of war, and those who violate the caste system who reverse marriages in relation to gender discrimination. Because the tropical environment of South Asia has more disease-causing factors than the grasslands of Central Asia, such as waterborne diseases, mosquito-borne diseases, food poisoning, parasitic diseases, and skin diseases, caste may be the earliest isolation system. The ancient Indians noticed that in the tropical subcontinent, there are things especially prone to disease—dead bodies, excrement, and blood, and they assigned “slaves” to do it. These people who do dirty work have developed a stronger immune system due to long-term dealing with dirt, and can come and go freely in the dirt; while members in the caste system may be infected if they come into contact with them, so the Dalits are also called "Untouchable". Due to the objective existence of certain illnesses and diseases, it is logical that the entire society will form a consensus to quarantine and isolate the sick. Because the cleanliness of different castes is different, as long as you believe in this concept of cleanliness, you will naturally keep a distance from people of other castes to prevent sickness and disease, and the caste system is further consolidated. The higher the caste, the more Indians will pay attention to keeping "clean" in their lives. Because eating meat is considered unclean, vegetarianism is very popular in Indian society, and people who like to eat meat will be regarded as vulgar and inferior people. According to the theory of reincarnation, every life form is constantly circulating in this system. People’s parents can be the reincarnation of the animals someone randomly killed in the past life. Therefore, people of lower castes are looking forward to the afterlife and they will not be jealous of the higher class people. This set of logic works almost unbreakable, laying a solid cornerstone of order and legitimacy about problems such as social division of labor, social stability, and the sanctity of the upper class of the ruling class have been perfectly resolved.

Islam was birthed from the teachings of Muhammad. “The last prophet”, the name given by the believers, provided consistency and stability to the religion. In a highly informal way, the Jewish people tampered with Canaan's original polytheistic worship, resulting in Judaism; Jesus tampered with Judaism, and the religion became Christianity. Now, Muhammad shut down the possibilities of changing by declaring himself “the last prophet”, making sure the beliefs follow along for generations and generations. Comparing Islam to its “ancestors”, the religion pushed the presence of faith and the need for self-dedication to the next level. Taking an example of praying, there are five timed prayers each day that is considered duties in Islam. The prayers are recited in the Arabic language and performed in the direction of the Kaaba. Also, the tradition of fasting during the month of Ramadan is important. The Ramadan fast precludes food and drink, as well as other forms of consumption, such as smoking, and is performed from dawn to sunset. The fast is to encourage a feeling of nearness to God by restraining oneself for God's sake from what is otherwise permissible and thinking of the needy.

In the twelfth century, Muslims conquered the Indian subcontinent by sheer force. As the religious order system in the pre-modern era, Islam was finally stopped when it spread to India where the Indian social order based on the caste system was impeccable for thousands of years. It is too difficult for Islam to persuade upper-class Hindus to convert to Muslims, for the fact that they are the ones who benefit in regards to the caste system. As a result, those low-caste untouchables became the target group of Muslim missionaries. Even if the slaves convert to Islam, they have nothing to lose. However, when these poor new Muslims joined the Islamic society, they raised the dissatisfaction of the old Muslim aristocrats in relating to Muhammad's teaching that "everyone is equal". In order to calm such contradictions, Muslims in South Asia took the initiative to learn from the “successful” experience of the caste system. Ziauddun Barani, a political thinker of the Delhi Sultanate in the 14th century, proposed to divide the Muslim community into three levels: Ashrafs the nobles, Ajlafs the commoner and Arzals the untouchables, and to implement isolation and endogamy, thus ensuring the After the untouchables convert to Muslims, slaves will still be slaves and will not take up the social resources of the “old money”. Any Muslim who dares to oppose this caste system will immediately be declared untouchable. Following up on the development of domesticated Islam, a new form of religion is popularized. Citing Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, “There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim.” Sikhism absorbed the power and stories told by both Hinduism and Islam. Absorbing the cohesion of Islam in the unity of belief, the binding force of moral behavior, the legitimacy of the ruling class powered by the one true God, and religious intolerance all have incomparable advantages, Sikhism connected the caste system which symbolized the reincarnation and the cleanness, forced stabilizing the system and stopped people’s willingness to reform.

As society and technology keep on developing, it seems like there will be less and less need for religion to explain what and how things happen. As civilization keeps on developing, the government needs fewer and fewer religious elements to convince people to justify the ruling. To a single person, the belief would be a peaceful dock whenever the journey of life gets way too heavy.

Citation:

Esposito (2002b), pp. 18, 19 What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-515713-0.

Hedayetullah, Muhammad (2006). Dynamics of Islam: An Exposition. Trafford Publishing. ISBN 978-1-55369-842-5.

Molly., Aloian (2009). Ramadan. New York: Crabtree. ISBN 978-0778742852. OCLC 227911610.

“Sharing the Sikh Experience.” SikhNet. Accessed May 20, 2023. sikhnet.com/.

Marwaha, Sonali Bhatt (2006). Colors of Truth: Religion, Self and Emotions: Perspectives of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Islam, Sikhism and Contemporary Psychology. Concept Publishing. pp. 205–206. ISBN 978-81-8069-268-0.

随水. “开局一个神，故事全靠编--起底世界三大文化圈.” 微信公众平台. Accessed May 20, 2023. mp.weixin.qq.com/s/eLnFzxW2jDswFgdJjG2Zrg.