Pakistan's church burning, local generosity and the limits of religious tolerance
There's a video from Pakistan where a church official tells the reporter that a delegation from the Deobandi sect came to them after their churches were burned, and invited them to pray inside their mosques just like they would, in their Church.
(Reportedly, it was the Barelvi sect that burned down the Churches)
It's undoubtedly a noble gesture, but it also highlights the limits religion places on people's morality.
The reason why Deobandi maulanas offered Christians space in their mosques is that there's a hadith where the Prophet allowed a Christian delegation to pray inside the mosque.
Would the same people allow Hindus or other polytheists to also worship idols inside their mosques, if their temples were burnt? Obviously not, because polytheism is anathema to Islam.
They wouldn't even have allowed Christians to pray had the Prophet not done the same, because Christians also commit the supreme Islamic sin of "shirk" by assigning divinity to Jesus. And "shirk" cannot be allowed inside mosques.
But the Prophet's example made it kosher.
(It goes without saying that Ahmadis wouldn't have been offered this generosity either)
That's the issue with religious literalism. I'm sure there would have be many decent kind-hearted Muslims who would love to welcome persecuted Hindus also inside their mosques for prayer, but they wouldn't be able to do so because their religion prohibits it.
But had they found a single instance of the Prophet having allowed polytheistic inside mosques for a special occasion, they would have gladly done that, and used it as an example of how tolerant and accommodating Islam is.
To be fair, it goes both ways. Religion can extract the most benevolent behaviour out of you, but it can also place strict boundations on how compassionate you can be.
As another example, the vast majority of scholars would not allow asking for mercy and forgiveness for a departed non-Muslim because of a religious injunction that prohibits this. Your natural instinct to pray for a kind person's soul would be curbed because your moral universe is constrained by religious decrees.
I've just used Islam as an example here, but it's true for all religions. Once you surrender your judgement of good and bad, to ancient codes of law, there's only so much ethical progress you can ever make.
PS 1: This example doesn't mean that believing Muslims won't help persecuted Hindus in other ways. Just because they're not allowed to idol-worship inside mosques, doesn't mean it's prohibited to be kind and helpful to them in other ways. My point is that certain acts become allowed/prohibited not on the moral merit of the act, but on the basis of whether some sacred law allows it
PS 2: Also, I'm talking of Islamic principles as a whole here. There would obviously be instances where ordinary Muslims banded together to allow even polytheistic worship inside mosques, in an emergency situation. But a delegation of traditional ulema would never agree to do that
PS 3: Muslims or any other religious group has absolutely no obligation to go against their religious proscriptions in order to be valid and acceptable citizens of their country. This post is just for internal self-reflection, not to pressurize them to go against their religious norms just to please the majority population.