| Idol worship
- Believing in many gods. It is the most apparent kind of Shirk. All religions
in which people worship many gods or idols or anyone other than God or associate
God with anyone, are polytheistic religions. The followers of these religions
are Mushriks. There are many religions which practice idol worship. Zoroastrians
believe in two gods - god of evil (darkness) and god of goodness (light). Buddhists
do not believe in God. But Buddhists worship the statue of Gautam Buddha as their
god. So do the followers of Jainism. They both are polytheistic religions. In
Hinduism, there are three main gods, and traditionally 33 million other gods and
goddesses. In order to call themselves monotheistic, they say that behind all
these gods, there is also a single spiritual entity called Brahma. Christians
also believe that God is present in three forms. This is known as trinity i.e.
they believe that in one God there are three Divine persons - the Father, the
Son, and the holy Spirit or holy Ghost. This means that Christians divide god
into three par ts, Father - Son -Holy Spirit, and unite them together to make
one single god. They use paintings, statues, and other art to depict their sacred
figures and stories from the Bible. In Eastern Europe and the Near East, worshipers
give special reverence to icons (images of Jesus Christ or the saints). Christians
known as iconoclasts opposed the use of images because they considered it idolatry.
But other Christians argued that such images (icons) are merely symbols to help
worshippers think of God. A dispute called the iconoclastic controversy raged
between the two sides during the AD 700s and early 800s. The iconoclasts
destroyed the pictures and statues in many churches. A similar disagreement
over the use of images broke out between Protestants and Roman Catholics during
the 1500s in which Protestant destroyed many statues and images which were
being worshipped by the Catholics. The ancient Greeks and Romans had polytheistic
religions. They assumed sky, stars, sun, planets, moon, and many other things
as gods and used to worship them. They named each day of the week and month by
their god such as Sunday (sun), Monday (moon). The ancient Egyptian people
considered their kings ( Pharaohs ) to be living gods. In the Shinto religion
of Japan, gods are thought to reside in particular trees, rocks and streams. Before
World War 11 ( 1935-1945 ), the Japanese people honored their emperor as god.
On September 2, 1945 Emperor Hirohito who was considered and worshipped by Japanese
as their god, officially surrendered and announced his defeat. Thousand of Japanese
were weeping seeing their god in such a humiliated condition. On Jan. 1, 1946,
Emperor Hirohito renounced all claims to the divinity (god) that formerly had
been claimed for him. The constitution of 1947, which he approved, changed him
from sovereign to symbol of the state The Gallis or Ghullat
(extremists), among Muslims, form another group of Mushriks. They are also called
Mufawwiza. They believe that Allah has delegated His powers or entrusted all affairs
to the Holy Imams. According to them, the Imams give life and death, and they
also give us sustenance. According to all Shia Ulama, any person who has this
belief or similar views about Imams is a Mushrik. Islam considers all such
religions as polytheistic and believes in the absolute oneness of God. Quran
has rigorously condemned all these religions and tells that the followers of these
religions will be severely punished. Thus, all religions, except Islam,
are polytheistic religions. Islam is the only religion which strongly believes
in pure monotheism (i.e., absolute oneness of God).
|