Asalaamu Alaikum guys and welcome to another episode of Smile2jannah.
In the last couple of days, India has celebrated one of its main festivals, Holi. Now, you may not
be familiar with the name of this celebration, but the process of throwing colors at each other
is something that you may have seen pictures or clips of. Now, because India's ruling party
rules by the RSS extreme ideology, which you may be familiar with by the name of Hindutva,
that has permeated pretty much every aspect of modern-day India. And like I've said before,
"hate does not discriminate", and we're seeing this come out in different aspects, be it religious
(in)tolerance and also in the festivals as well. You'll see clips of Indian men fondling random
women under the guise of the "Holy Festival". Now, before we jump into some of these worrying
and concerning examples, we want to know the basis of Holi. Where does it come from? Let's first deal
with the fire of Holi. Hiranyakashipu was a king who was granted special powers by Brahma. His son,
Prahlada, worshiped Vishnu and refused to worship his father, much to his frustration.
Hiranyakashipu's sister, Holika, had a fireproof cloak. At the request of her brother, she was told
to kill Prahlada in a fire, but the cloak flew and protected the child instead of her. She,
on the other hand, burned to death, and it's this fire that is commemorated in the fire of Holi.
Now, doesn't this seem quite concerning? That a woman that's been manipulated and coerced
by her powerful brother to harm a child, and she burns to death, but somehow this is a good thing?
Secondly, is the story of the powder. Now, this can't be traced to the original Hindu scriptures.
However, it does culturally trace back to two main stories. The first is Krishna liked Radha. Yeah,
Krishna is one of their gods, but Krishna was dark-skinned, and she was fair-skinned,
and he was worried that she would not like him because of his dark color. And he longed for her,
and he worried. The mother noticed this, and she offered a suggestion: why don't you take
some colored powder and smear it on her face? (as you do) Yeah, and he went there, he did that,
and somehow it worked. Yeah, I mean, what do we learn from this? Firstly, if it's a God,
what sort of message is he sending (to) an already confused population? Because in India, Pakistan,
one of the most famous creams is something called Fair and Lovely that lightens your skin. Although
we say the British went there and colonized us for 200 years, so maybe that's why we look
up to the white man, but this doesn't help the situation, especially when "God",
picks a color or puts down another color. That's not very helpful. And in India, it's pretty hot,
mate, so the majority of the people are quite dark complexioned. And this is the same thing
that we say with regards to Christianity. If you're saying Jesus is God, why is he white,
mate? Why is he picking a color? Is he saying that he would rather pick white over black?
"Do you see? It raises too many questions. You can try to wiggle your way out of it,
but it's just not very helpful. So, at the very least, you can say that Krishna
understands that the color is a disadvantage to him and the white color is seen as better.
The second story is Krishna likes Radha. Radha likes Krishna, but Radha doesn't
express this like. So he goes and smears her with a color, and then she does. I mean,
what do we learn from this? That if you like somebody and you think they like you back,
you can start touching them and smearing stuff on them? Is that okay?
And that's exactly what we're seeing happening. We're seeing this happening with foreign tourists;
a Japanese woman being touched up and groped such that the police have to get involved. Another
issue, and this was a couple of years ago, she uploaded it, but again, it's still relevant now:
"After that, one guy grabbed my boob, and like, it wasn't even a boob grab, he put his arm around me
and twisted my nipples so hard." And not to mention Muslim women that are minding their own
business being attacked, forcibly included in a festival that they do not believe in.
If the Muslims were doing this like the second Festival, the Eid of Sacrifice,
if Muslims sacrificed animals that we then consume and we give it to the poor, Hindus don't consume
beef. Imagine if we started force-feeding and throwing at them. It would be all over the news,
mate. But because the main India news stations are under the control of their prevailing extreme
government, is there any wonder that stuff like this doesn't get spread that much? In fact, the
situation is so bad that even if they suspect you of transporting beef, they will kill you, yeah."
As you can see from this news story, this is very recent. Ironically speaking,
India is the biggest exporter of beef. It's okay to give it to McDonald's and these guys,
but maybe transporting it, that's going too far. And to conclude, guys, you know what
the ironic thing is? They love accusing Islam of disrespecting women. I'm sorry, you tell
us one festival in which we are non-consensually allowed to grope and touch women. Tell us in our
books and our teachings in which we are allowed to do that. Let's just say non-festival-based,
you can't. It's not in our teachings. And the latest example I can give you is something
that happened here in the UK with the Imam of the Mosque of Hayes, meeting with the Princess,
you know, Princess Kate. She extended a hand, and he respectfully declined because in the orthodox
opinion of Muslims, a strange man is not allowed to touch a strange woman. Look how beautiful this
religion is. In a time where four out of five women here in the UK are being sexually harassed,
where you've got the MeToo movement, you have Islam that says you are not allowed to touch a
strange woman. This is the beauty of Islam, and this is the relevance of Islam. So how
dare you come and bring these little floppy old "Triple Talaak". I'm seeing some of these comments,
they're so dead. They're so dead where you're fondling people left, front, and center under
the guise of a festival. And to be fair, if you're saying that this faith or this belief is from God,
why would God allow such things that can be abused by morons? That's why in Islam,
it kills it off from the root, mate. You should not even be shaking the hands of a woman. Yeah,
not touching like shaking hands or shaking hands, okay? In culture, no, no, that's where it starts.
Me? Islam lobs it off. Why? Because Islam is practical. Is it any wonder that Islam is the
fastest-growing religion in the world, and the people entering it the most are women? That's
because they find peace and sanctuary within the authentic teachings of this religion, and the
beauty is that you can track anything that we're doing. It's in the text. The texts are accessible
by anyone. I just wanted to share a few of these messages. May Allah help our brothers and sisters
that are suffering in India, and yeah, let's leave it there until next time Asalaamu Alaikum.