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Hindu stone temple to be built in Abu Dhabi by 2020

EmeraldRabbit

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https://www.thenational.ae/uae/hindu-stone-temple-to-be-built-in-abu-dhabi-by-2020-1.702891

The first traditional Hindu stone temple in the Middle East will be built by 2020 and hand carved by Indian artisans.

The first temple in Abu Dhabi will be built at Abu Mureikha, off the Dubai-Abu Dhabi highway, said a spokesman from the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha that will design, construct and manage the temple.

“The stones will be carved by temple artisans in India and assembled in the UAE. The BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha is both honoured and humbled to have been invited and entrusted to design, construct and manage the Temple by the rulers of the UAE and the Government of India,” he said.

The temple in the UAE would be unique, he said and among the 1,200 temples managed by BAPS in India, UK, USA, Canada, Australia and Africa.

It would include a visitors’ centre, prayer halls, exhibitions, learning areas, sports area for children, thematic gardens, water features, a food court, a books and gift shop.

The temple will be open to people of all religions and will be part of the UAE’s aim to foster tolerance and peaceful coexistence.

“It will facilitate the traditional practice of the Hindu faith and serve the over 3.3 million Indians residing in and the millions of international tourists annually visiting the UAE through interfaith dialogue, pluralism and universal human values. It will also nurture the children of today and future generations towards a brighter future,” the spokesman said.

The best known temples run by the Trust or Sanstha are the two sprawling Akshardham temples in India, in Gandhinagar and New Delhi, and a third being built in Robbinsville, New Jersey.

The Abu Dhabi temple will likely resemble the architecturally intricate temple in India’s capital New Delhi and the under construction temple in New Jersey, according to people with knowledge of the project.

Akshardham means ‘divine abode of god.’

The Abu Dhabi temple will be much smaller than the New Delhi monument, and likely on the lines of the temple in Jersey where the marble carvings are against a sandstone building backdrop.

Some of the main striking features of the existing temples are a water body surrounded by a green open space with the pillars, arches and small domes looking over the site.
 
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And Pakistan can't have a beach resort with alcohol? Looks like the adopted trying to outdo the orginals LOL.
 
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So what's the big deal? Am I missing something here?
 
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So what's the big deal? Am I missing something here?

Personally no

People need the freedom to worship

I hate Hindus and everything about them but they should have the freedom to worship within reason
 
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Return of the idols to the Arabian Peninsula?

BTW pre-Abrahamic/Semitic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) of the Arab world, are the oldest recorded religions and most complex ones. If you compare it with paganism in most other places of the world, they were quite complex and progressive for their time. In fact a lot. However using Islamic sources is not the best source for that. You need to look at non-Islamic sources as historians have already done.

Personally Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism or whatever, it does not bother me.

BTW maybe this will be used by some people from the Pakistani Hindu community too? I am serious, here, why not?

There are approximately 3.5 million Pakistani Hindu nationals. Not a huge number but not too negligible either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism_in_Pakistan

It seems that there are quite a few Hindu temples in Pakistan itself.

No shame in UAE adjusting to the ground realities (for the time being) and opening 1 single Hindu temple. I thought that they had done that ages ago and that there would be more than 1. Shows how much this kind of news (the establishment of Hindu temples in UAE) is on my agenda.

If not you would hear crying about UAE being "intolerant" and when they do it "they are gathering for pagans". Can't make everyone happy.

I know that there are plenty of churches in all GCC countries with the exception of KSA. "All" that we have are some of the oldest churches (ruins) in the world. No longer in use.

For instance the Jubail Church built 1700 years ago.



Jubail Church
Jubail Church is a 4th-century church building near Jubail, Saudi Arabia, discovered in 1986. It originally belonged to the Assyrian Church of the East, an ancient Nestorian branch of Eastern Christianity in the Middle East.

The Saudi government hides it from locals and even archaeologists as the Kingdom follows a strict version of Islamic law and prohibits all non-Islamic forms of worship. Recently, they have put a fence around the church to prevent potential tourists from seeing it. However, the fences have not stopped locals from coming in to vandalize and damage the building. Churches are officially banned in Saudi Arabia and a limited number of Christians, mostly westerners, are permitted to worship in private as long as no Christian symbols are openly visible.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubail_Church

Really, it is a no-issue. I doubt that most locals in the UAE will have a problem with it.

I don't have a clue how Hindus and Buddhism were looked at by early Muslims and if they were given freedom to worship as Jews and Christians were. There were not many (if any) Hindus and Buddhists in Arabia/Arab world in the early Islamic age and until recent migrations to the region, mainly starting with the oil boom after 1973, so not sure what to compare with here. Pre-Islamic Pagans died off/disappeared from history long ago and from what I understand not much was written by them aside from the initial era.

And Pakistan can't have a beach resort with alcohol? Looks like the adopted trying to outdo the orginals LOL.

Pakistan is apparently home to 3.5 million native Hindus. Don't you think that they have their own places of worship inside Pakistan?

I know that the Brits built churches in Pakistan (seen some myself being posted here power by users) so I am quite sure that Hindu temples exist in Pakistan. If that is the case, why would any Pakistani user here have a problem with UAE building 1 Hindu temple for the local Hindu expat community that is what, 2 million big?

Such topics should not be a priority for us as Muslims or societies IMO. Tons of more important issues.

Muslim societies, even the earliest Caliphates were very tolerant and progressive for their time (the most in fact). That Mongol destruction in 1258 pretty much destroyed much of what was seen as normal before that. You can read about this in detail in 1000's of books.
 
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Praise Lord! I wonder how would Prophet Abraham(PBUH) would have reacted?

Wonder if Prophet Mohammed(PBUH) would have allowed this? Or the Imams(PBUT)? Or the initial Caliphs? Would they've allowed temples where multiple idols are worshipped? All of this in Arabian Peninsula.

People ought to know the difference between Abrahamic faiths(Church, Synagogues etc) and idolatry(idol worshipping, temples etc).
 
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Praise Lord! I wonder how would Prophet Abraham(PBUH) would have reacted?

Wonder if Prophet Mohammed(PBUH) would have allowed this? Or the Imams(PBUT)? Or the initial Caliphs? Would they've allowed temples where multiple idols are worshipped?

People ought to know the difference between Abrahamic faiths(Church, Synagogues etc) and idolatry(idol worshipping, temples etc).

Are there not 100 or 1000 times the Hindu temples in Pakistan than in UAE? How many Hindu temples are there on the Arabian Peninsula and in the Arab world? 2 or 3 in total?

Why is it a problem to give temporary expats (non-Muslims, non-Christians and non-Jews) a place (that they have financed themselves) to worship in? They have paid for it, they are running it and visiting it. They are only leasing the land.

I see no problem and I am not even a UAE citizen.

I believe that it is a good gesture and step by UAE seeing that churches already exist there. 1 Buddhist temple too If I am not wrong.
 
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Are there not 100 or 1000 times the Hindu temples in Pakistan than in UAE? How many Hindu temples are there on the Arabian Peninsula and in the Arab world? 2 or 3 in total?

Why is it a problem to give temporary expats (non-Muslims, non-Christians and non-Jews) a place (that they have financed themselves) to worship? They have paid for it, they are running it and visiting it. They are only leasing the land.

I see no problem and I am not even a UAE citizen.

Man are you seriously taking Pakistan as an example? Lord help you!

This is idolatry we're talking about, but anyhow, whatever floats their boat.
 
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Man are you seriously taking Pakistan as an example? Lord help you!

This is idolatry we're talking about, but anyhow, whatever floats their boat.

Why not? What is the difference between UAE and Pakistan? Both claim to be Islamic states if I am not wrong. Pakistan an Islamic Republic. UAE an Islamic unitary monarchy composed of 7 emirates with their own degree of Islamic law. Abu Dhabi and Dubai are less conservative than other emirates.

Yes, it is idolatry in the eyes of Muslims but since no Muslims are going to attend (I assume) what is the problem exactly? Such people would have been doing some kind of religious rituals and services at home anyway. Now they have one specific place to go instead. So the idolatry is confined to one place instead of 1000's of places.

There are idolatry temples in Iran too next door (Zoroastrian fire temples) and the Mullah's seem to tolerate this.

It is not like Hinduism is going to be propagated or that locals have any interest in it.:lol:

Or do you really agree with the entire Arabian Peninsula being cleansed of all non-Muslim places of worship? Where do you draw the line? In Iraq or Jordan, since those two are geographically a part of the Arabian Peninsula (large parts of both countries) and both are home to indigenous Christian Arabs?

Is Daesh not in favor of exactly such policies? Did Muslim rulers in the past in South Asia destroy all non-Muslim places of worship? Did the Mughals do it? Just asking again as I highly doubt it.
 
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Okay. Good on the UAE. People criticising this need to reevaluate their life.
 
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Why not? What is the difference between UAE and Pakistan? Both claim to be Islamic states if I am not wrong. Pakistan an Islamic Republic. UAE an Islamic monarchy.

Yes, it is idolatry in the eyes of Muslims but since no Muslims are going to attend (I assume) what is the problem exactly? Such people would have been doing some kind of religious rituals and services at home anyway. Now they have one specific place to go instead. So the idolatry is confined to one place instead of 1000's of places.

There are idolatry temples in Iran too next door (Zoroastrian fire temples) and the Mullah's seem to tolerate this.

It is not like Hinduism is going to be propagated or that locals have any interest in it.:lol:

The gist I am getting from your post is that if Pakistan, a supposed Islamic Republic, or Iran allows it then it is ok for UAE to allow it as well? Weak argument if that's the case.

Wonder if Prophet Mohammed(PBUH) would have allowed this? Or the Imams(PBUT)? Or the initial Caliphs? Would they've allowed temples where multiple idols are worshipped? All of this in Arabian Peninsula.

Once again, there's a big difference between the Abrahamic faiths and idolatry...can't be mixing these two.
 
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A temple in UAE is a great thing.
But giving that job to an organisation like this Sanstha is undermining Hinduism.

This is a result of lobbying from a certain angle. UAE don't care which part of Hinduism is expressed since their objectives are different.

This is really unfortunate.
 
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