Satya Sai Baba - man or God?

The uniqueness of Satya Sai Baba lies in the fact that of no man had it ever been asked in his own life time whether he is God. Today, as his body lies in state for the darshan of millions of his devotees, it would seem fair for his many critics to ridicule his claims to divinity, particularly considering that he died at the age of 86 rather helpless after being on life support system for almost a month and did not fulfill a prophesy that he would live to be 96. Whatever the verdict about his divinity, it cannot be discounted that he was massively popular, highly praised for his many charitable institutions and his teachings were simple and potent enough to inspire many to take to the spiritual life.

It is likely that in the days and years to come, the Sai religion would gather more adherents as the world’s youngest religion nestled in the lap of the world’s oldest religious culture – Hinduism.

The difference between Hinduism and Islam in one sentence

The difference between Hinduism and Islam is that while the former says that truth can be expressd in many ways, the later says that truth can be expressed only as authorised by the Quran.

On non-Muslims using the word Allah

Allah is an Arabic word for God. So when anyone speaks of God in Arabic, he would naturally use the word Allah. Thus the word God and Allah are generic in English and Arabic respectively. What precise concepts we have of these words would depend on the religion we follow.

Words are products of language with general meaning, while specific meanings in a language are products of culture. The words of all languages when spoken in another language would mean the same. The word Allah in Arabic would mean the same as the word God in English or Ishwar in Sanskrit. But the same words used in Islamic, Christian or Hindu culture would mean differently in each to the extent that each word would then have a specific connotation. So the word Allah when used as part of expressing oneself in Arabic would have a generic meaning and when used as part of expressing oneself in the context of Islam would havd a specific meaning. This distinction ought to be kept in mind, otherwise it would lead to confusion.