taj mahal consiparacy theory...

[al Furqaan]

http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/tejo.html

to me it seems it might have some merit, tho i wonder how it would have been usurped without anyone knowing it.

[Hatebreed]

Tejo Mahalaya? LMFAO.

Just another nutcase who can't tolerate the fact India's most recognisable and beautiful architecture was created by a Muslim ruler. Obviously these bouchedags can't just destroy one of the seven wonders of the world and build a temple on it, so now they are calling it their own temple! Simply astonishing.

[Electrequiem]

The first sentence alone takes away the credibility of the remaining portion of the article:

By now you all know through my previous articles, the irrefutable facts and deductive logic which prove that Islam is evil right at its very foundation.

You CANNOT use "irrefutable facts" and "deductive logic" to disprove a religion. Wait, you can never even disprove a religion! What a *ouche.

I didn't bother reading the rest of it.

Funny how this is being read just after the Taj Mahal was announced as one of the seven wonders of the world.

[ammark]

Asaad, just the first paragraph alone has stripped it off any credibility that I might have considered giving it. Such unsubstantiated opinions, really arent worth regarding as solid foundations for a conspiracy or whatever reasons he's choosing to put forward. From the sounds of it, its just hate speech.

I am completely open to differing ideas, as long as they are well articulated and provide a good argument. But emotions and outright statements like "evil right at its foundation" dont serve it too well. - As Myself.

As mod: I reserve the right to lock this thread if I see any comments here from ANY member which will be reactionary and reciprocally extreme/unjustified/unsubstantiated.

[al Furqaan]

Originally Posted by ammark
Asaad, just the first paragraph alone has stripped it off any credibility that I might have considered giving it. Such unsubstantiated opinions, really arent worth regarding as solid foundations for a conspiracy or whatever reasons he's choosing to put forward. From the sounds of it, its just hate speech.

I am completely open to differing ideas, as long as they are well articulated and provide a good argument. But emotions and outright statements like "evil right at its foundation" dont serve it too well. - As Myself.

oh i fully agree that the guy is a hater, but that doesn't prove any statements of his false, it can only offer context.

personally, i am 99% sure that the accepted version of events is true - but hey that 1% of doubt is always there.

but a great point, if the TM does face the south, why isn't it facing Makkah?

hmmmm....

[Ganguly da]

A major part of Indian history has been edited and re-edited to satisfy political ideologies, especially for Congress which ruled majority of the time since India became independent. This article has lots of meritable points and analysis. And I know for fact, Shahjahan was not a peaceful romeo emperor as he is portrayed, a lot of fabrication and false history has been added to beautify a lot of mughal history for some reason.

I have also wondered why those 22 rooms has been locked away from visitors and never was allowed to be researched like the pyramids....

There is also another fact that TAJ MAHAL is facing away from Mecca, as far as I know, all muslim structure around the world faces TOWARDS mecca.

[Electrequiem]

Originally Posted by Ganguly da
A major part of Indian history has been edited and re-edited to satisfy political ideologies, especially for Congress which ruled majority of the time since India became independent. This article has lots of meritable points and analysis. And I know for fact, Shahjahan was not a peaceful romeo emperor as he is portrayed, a lot of fabrication and false history has been added to beautify a lot of mughal history for some reason.

I have also wondered why those 22 rooms has been locked away from visitors and never was allowed to be researched like the pyramids....

There is also another fact that TAJ MAHAL is facing away from Mecca, as far as I know, all muslim structure around the world faces TOWARDS mecca.

...so are you agreeing that Taj Mahal is actually Tejo Mahaliya?

[Ganguly da]

Originally Posted by Electrequiem
...so are you agreeing that Taj Mahal is actually Tejo Mahaliya?

No, but I can't also ignore many points that has been put forth by the author... because there are obviously many question marks regarding the historical aspect of Shahjahan- Mumtaz relationship and Mumtaz's burial spot.

Further research needs to be done about this for sure. But one can't just complete deny everything as a mere coincidence.

[Tintin]

This has been doing rounds in chain mails for a long time and my understanding is that it is given as much credibility as the moon landing conspiracy.

Originally Posted by Ganguly da
A major part of Indian history has been edited and re-edited to satisfy political ideologies, especially for Congress which ruled majority of the time since India became independent. This article has lots of meritable points and analysis. And I know for fact, Shahjahan was not a peaceful romeo emperor as he is portrayed, a lot of fabrication and false history has been added to beautify a lot of mughal history for some reason.

I have also wondered why those 22 rooms has been locked away from visitors and never was allowed to be researched like the pyramids....

There is also another fact that TAJ MAHAL is facing away from Mecca, as far as I know, all muslim structure around the world faces TOWARDS mecca.

I know nothing at all about the points listed but this and the points 62-63 made me look at Bibi ka Maqbara, built for Mrs. Aurangazeb, which is nearly a carbon-copy of Taj Mahal

62. The Tajmahal has a reverberating dome. Such a dome is an absurdity for a tomb which must ensure peace and silence. Contrarily reverberating domes are a neccesity in Hindu temples because they create an ecstatic dinmultiplying and magnifying the sound of bells, drums and pipes accompanying the worship of Hindu deities.

63. The Tajmahal dome bears a lotus cap. Original Islamic domes have a bald top as is exemplified by the Pakistan Embassy in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, and the domes in the Pakistan's newly built capital Islamabad.

64. The Tajmahal entrance faces south. Had the Taj been an Islamic building it should have faced the west.

Picture from http://www.goworldtravel.com/ex/aspx...xe/article.htm

From the shadows, Bibi ka Maqbara is also facing north or south and certainly not directly west

Or look at the shadows at Tipu's tomb - http://www.zyworld.com/slam33/tip04.jpg

[ammark]

Originally Posted by Ganguly da
There is also another fact that TAJ MAHAL is facing away from Mecca, as far as I know, all muslim structure around the world faces TOWARDS mecca.

Just a clarification here:

Muslims are buried in a north-south direction, and their faces are slightly moved to their right so that it faces the Kabah (Mecca).

Maybe this is one reason why the Taj Mahal is North South Oriented with its gates.

[al Furqaan]

Originally Posted by ammark
Just a clarification here:

Muslims are buried in a north-south direction, and their faces are slightly moved to their right so that it faces the Kabah (Mecca).

Maybe this is one reason why the Taj Mahal is North South Oriented with its gates.

right. forgot about that.

maybe author is not as clever as i had previously assumed.

[Electrequiem]

Originally Posted by ammark
Just a clarification here:

Muslims are buried in a north-south direction, and their faces are slightly moved to their right so that it faces the Kabah (Mecca).

Maybe this is one reason why the Taj Mahal is North South Oriented with its gates.

Brought up an awesome point there, Ammar.

I don't understand why can't these nutjobs just accept that the Taj Mahal was made by a Muslim, and embrace their country's Islamic past. India was just bestowed with a great honor ... enjoy it!

[Tintin]

Originally Posted by Electrequiem
Brought up an awesome point there, Ammar.

I don't understand why can't these nutjobs just accept that the Taj Mahal was made by a Muslim, and embrace their country's Islamic past. India was just bestowed with a great honor ... enjoy it!

Next, you will ask us to accept that the earth is round and not hollow

[Slysaint]

Originally Posted by Tintin
Next, you will ask us to accept that the earth is round and not hollow

moronic post, irrelevant to the topic at hand

[Mahir]

Originally Posted by ammark
Muslims are buried in a north-south direction, and their faces are slightly moved to their right so that it faces the Kabah (Mecca).

Arent their faces moved to their left if they're buried at a place that is on the west of Mecca (i.e. being buried in Canada) ? Or are they buried in the South-North direction then ? ...just that I needed a clarification...

Good point you bring up there, nonetheless.

[Slysaint]

Originally Posted by Ganguly da
A major part of Indian history has been edited and re-edited to satisfy political ideologies, especially for Congress which ruled majority of the time since India became independent. This article has lots of meritable points and analysis. And I know for fact, Shahjahan was not a peaceful romeo emperor as he is portrayed, a lot of fabrication and false history has been added to beautify a lot of mughal history for some reason.

I have also wondered why those 22 rooms has been locked away from visitors and never was allowed to be researched like the pyramids....

There is also another fact that TAJ MAHAL is facing away from Mecca, as far as I know, all muslim structure around the world faces TOWARDS mecca.

where the heck did you learn that all muslim structures face mecca? seriously if you wish to be a bigot, google many islam bashing sites where myths are repackaged as truths, just like it was during nazi era about the jews. taj mahal was built by muslim, that is without question and not just that, india as it stands now was 1st united by the muslims aka mughals, before british completed it. if muslims were killers, why are hindus still around? every part of india was controlled by muslims. that alone shows what you all try to potray as looting etc are shamelessly rewirting history.

[Tintin]

Cool down.

where the heck did you learn that all muslim structures face mecca?

He was just quoting it from the link.

[Ganguly da]

Originally Posted by Slysaint
where the heck did you learn that all muslim structures face mecca? seriously if you wish to be a bigot, google many islam bashing sites where myths are repackaged as truths, just like it was during nazi era about the jews. taj mahal was built by muslim, that is without question and not just that, india as it stands now was 1st united by the muslims aka mughals, before british completed it. if muslims were killers, why are hindus still around? every part of india was controlled by muslims. that alone shows what you all try to potray as looting etc are shamelessly rewirting history.

next time do some googling before posting mindless crap. If you don't know about INdian history, don't post historical opinions based on what you think happened.

fyi: Hindus are still around, coz not everyone bowed down to Mughals.... once again hit some books before hitting the reply button.

[ialbd]

yea didnt read the entire thing, but I think I should, conspiracy theories are always entertaining......

[Zunaid]

Folks. Chill.

One of our youngsters appear to have unearthed one of those articles from the infamous and noted loon Jai Maharaj aka Stevens who used troll the usenet newsgroups in the 80s and 90s. He probably has the dishonor of being in more kill files than anyone alive or dead.

He was also in my own kill file from my early 90s SCB days.

I would not put any credence to anything that emanates from him or his site.

Here is some more info (just do a google search):

Jay Stevens / Jai Maharaj

Jay Stevens, who always posts as "Jai Maharaj", has long harassed Hawaii-based newsgroups and posters for no particularly good reason. ... www.killfile.org/dungeon/why/jai.html - 7k - Cached - Similar pages

About "Jai Maharaj"

The Frequently Asked Questions about Jay "Jai Maharaj" Stevens maintained by: ..... The rest of us have decided that Jay Stevens/Jai Maharaj is: ...
www.geocities.com/drjosemariachi/jay_faq.html - 54k - Cached - Similar pages

[ammark]

Interestingly I remembered this article from Daily Star, 17 April 2004 that I'd posted on a South Asian Political Forum @ U of T

Originally Posted by The Daily Star, 17 April 2004
Naipaul's Rage Against Islam: A Reassessment
Khademul Islam

In January of this year I was in Delhi and decided to go see Jama Masjid. It was a most disagreeable experience. The long path leading to the masjid proper is filthy, reeking of urine and excreta, with garbage floating in the stagnant shallow waterway. Not even the humblest of mosques in Bangladesh presents its visitors with that kind of a sight. The mosque structure itself, the gate, that magnificent courtyard, look stained and neglected.The dome of the Sikh temple in the distance, on the other hand, sparkled. I learnt that part of the reason is its location in old Delhi, with its press of humanity and peeling walls. Another is Imam Bukhari, who now apparently is senile and irresponsible. And the third reason is the BJP's Hindutva allies (the Hindu Vishwa Parishad, the RSS, the Shiv Sena), who view Muslim monuments in India, especially mosques, with unreserved hostility and do not encourage state expenditure on their upkeep.

A few days later I went to see Fatehpur Sikri, Akbar's imperial court from 1571-85. Expanses of brilliant light and air gorgeously framed by red sandstone and roofed with a turquoise sky. Noticing more excavations going on outside the complex's boundary wall I drifted over there to watch. The contractor in charge of the labourers digging the earth pointed out the ancient hakimkhana, the extended kitchen, the tiers of terraces and connecting passageways now emerging. He was from Gujrat, with grey-brown eyes. Suddenly he said, 'You know, it is a lie that Akbar built all this. He may have built that mosque,' here he flipped a hand in the direction of Buland Darwaza, 'but the rest was built by the local thakurs.'

Perhaps because I spoke Urdu without a Bengali accent, he had taken me for an Indian..

'What do you mean?'

'Akbar didn't build this,' he insisted, this time pointing in the direction of Jodh Bai's palace, 'the thakurs did. We have been finding proof they lived over there.' He pointed at a spot about a quarter mile off, at what looked like small walls beyond a dirt road, speckled with green bushes. Though he had spoken in Hindi he had used the English word 'proof.'

'But the history books say it was Akbar,' I protested.

'English language history,' he spat out. 'Do you know that history books in Indian languages tell a very different story? All Akbar did was fight and destroy.'

'But the ruins of Akbar's Ibadat Khana is inside. He wanted the people to follow his Din-I-Ilahi.'

During this little exchange he had been looking down at the excavation pit, at the toy town of Fatehpur Sikri cradled in the sunlit valley below. Now something in my voice made him turn and look into my face. We stared at each other for a few moments, facing off, and I could see those grey-brown eyes re-assessing me.

'Din-I-Ilahi,' he finally said, softly, sarcastically.

I walked away. What the hell was this, I thought. Who was this guy spinning this recidivist, communalized history at the Fatehpur Sikri complex? Surely he didn't mean it. Surely all this magnificence was as much his as it was mine! But it was not, because Fatehpur Sikri no longer was Indian glory to him; it was instead a hateful symbol of Islamic-Mughal glory, proof of Hindu servitude, something against which plots had to be hatched. To this man, nothing could be pan-Indian anymore, it had to be either Muslim or Hindu. And if it was 'Muslim,' it had to be erased or changed.

Suddenly the January air felt far more chill. It was the word 'proof' that had done it, a poisonous, loaded word in the context of historical digs in India. I was reminded of the Indian historian Irfan Habib’s words to The Indian Express:

"Once the destruction of the Babri Masjid had taken place, it began to be justified by the Sangh Parivar on various grounds, including that they possessed 'evidence'. Before one studies this 'evidence', it is important to note that the securing of such evidence by the act of destruction was very much in the mind of the BJP and Sangh Parivar, much before the final act of vandalism. There was, till then, no acceptable proof that the Babri Masjid had been built at the site of a Hindu temple. They then turned to archeology and to Professor B.B. Lal, who had dug near the Babri Masjid. In 1990, in an article in the RSS mouthpiece Manthan, Lal said some 'pillar bases' he had found had supported pillars of the extension of the original temple that the Babri Masjid had been built on. It was a sheer piece of speculation."

Welcome to BJP's 'shining India,' I thought, to the India of Advani's rath yathra.

Another shock awaited me when I came back to Dhaka. A few short weeks later, V.S. Naipaul along with his wife Nadira--well, I guess I should say 'Lady Nadira' since he's 'Sir Vidya’-- invited by the BJP's cultural cell, went to their offices and declared himself "happy" at having been "appropriated" by the party. Naipaul has long been one of the most savage of critics of Islam, of Islamic fundamentalism (he has always lumped the two together, perhaps intentionally, with the consequent result that the failure of intellect in the latter is pinned on the former), of Islam's role in India, but I had always given him latitude for two reasons. One was the right of free speech, a right that cannot but remain inviolable. And the other was his prose, those lovely, sometimes exquisite, lines of English prose that he wrote. Especially the unsurpassable fiction of his earlier years, books such as Miguel Street, A House for Mr. Biswas, Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion. Naipaul is a Nobel Prize winner, a heavyweight figure, a writer who is read widely and seriously, somebody whose books are a fixture on Western college campuses, somebody I myself had read avidly, and here he was lending his name, his authority and his prestige to some of the most reactionary and rabid elements of the Indian polity. It felt like a betrayal of sorts now, his endorsement not just the BJP but its extreme, Hindu chauvinist right wing. Something beyond the pale.

But perhaps I should not have been taken by surprise. Many writers and critics had been warning me about Naipaul, and perhaps it was only my fault that I had not listened to them. Edward Said wrote that by the 1980s, European colonial history began to be re-appraised, that it began to be thought that, given the appalling economic and political conditions after independence in the ex-colonies, it had not been all that bad. And a figure crucial to this re-assessment, which subsequently resulted in Western intellectuals and academics being apologists for a resurgent American neo-imperialism, was none other than our very own Vidiadhar Surjaprasad Naipaul. "In the 1960s” Said noted, “V.S. Naipaul began, disquietingly, to systematise the revisionist view of empire. A disciple and wilful misreader of Conrad, he gave Third Worldism, as it came to be known in France and elsewhere, a bad name." And within this half-civilized Third World universe, the central malignant cancer, according to Naipaul, was Islam. Or in Said’s words, "In his opinion it was principally Islam that plumbed the truly ghastly depths to which the 'liberated' peoples of Africa and Asia would sink."

Naipaul travelled to the Islamic countries, to countries with substantial Muslim populations, talked with people, copiously recorded their views, then fashioned his inimitable prose around them. And out of it emerged a gruesome picture of Islamic societies where only fanaticism ruled, where it seemed that only barbarity, debauchery and an absence of intellect (always an important point with Naipaul, fanaticism linked to the absence of the thinking mind) reigned. Just as books began to reach a global audience came the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, and for the first time Europeans actually saw became raging mobs, Kalashnikovs, book burnings, fatwas, the Taliban, women not allowed to go to school, women mutilated, women not allowed to write, medieval dogma, mullahs, robot-like chanting of 'Allah Allah.' Never the truth, which is that Islamic anger people previously hidden in the shadows, migrants from Islamic countries, pour out on to their streets, their nice, clean, civilized streets, and burn books and threaten translators and editors. Soon there was no going back. Islam against the West has complex roots. Then came September 11. It was a sequence which silenced Western liberals and leftists, normally naturally sympathetic to other cultures. It is a silence which has given free rein to the American attempt to bomb the Islamic world into submission, which otherwise would have met with far more home-grown opposition than is seen today. And one of those figures who made respectable this resurgence of old colonial attitudes of contempt and barbarity towards poor, nonwhite peoples is Naipaul. Himself a brown man, grandson of migrant, indentured Indian labourer in the Caribbean.

It is an attitude and belief that Naipaul brought to his writings on India, to its Muslims, to the history of Islam in India. The Muslims of India, he wrote in his book Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among The Converted Peoples, like those in Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Iran, were a "converted" people who have become "part of the Arab story." They have rejected their own histories, turned away from nearly everything that is theirs, are afflicted with "neurosis and nihilism," i.e. rage, that favourite Naipaulian term for Islam. Since Islam practiced the "most uncompromising kind of imperialism" by stripping people of their past, their sacred places and their native attachments, it was readily seen as a conquering force "looting the temples of Hindustan and imposing the faith on the infidel." What Naipaul wrote years ago gels perfectly with the party line of the Hindu rightwing revisionists, with its saffron-robed screams in the humid night. It is a distortion of history to claim that religion alone was responsible for the new political order in India a thousand years back, rather than economic greed and quest for political hegemony. By the same logic one would then have to say that British rule in India was a result of the imperialist nature of Christianity. And in contrast to Islam the destroyer in Naipaul’s books, British colonialism is essentially benign. Why? Because "the British period...was a time of Hindu regeneration. The Hindus, especially in Bengal, welcomed the New Learning of Europe and the institutions the British brought." To which one can only say that there were also many Bengali Hindu anticolonial fighters who would have gladly knocked off Naipaul’s head for that particular statement!

Reviewing the book in 1998 Ian Buruma wrote that while "there was truth to these views" -- for example, Muslims faking Arab bloodlines or looking to Arabia as their spiritual homeland-- yet the book was undeniably coloured by "a Hindu rage" and by Naipaul's own "set of preoccupations." And what were those preoccupations? Those engendered by being "a Hindu in Trinidad" for whom "the sacred soil, the spiritual center, the ancestral land lies elsewhere." That "elsewhere" (which Naipaul movingly wrote were "our sacred world--the sanctities that had been handed down to us as children by our families, the sacred places of our childhood, sacred because we had seen them as children and had filled them with wonder," where “had been aboriginal people once who had been killed or made to die away") we know today to be a fantasy of some lost, organic, holistic Hindu world. A fantasy which is destructive in today's milieu and context, since it means the erasure and removal of everything in India which is non-Hindu.

fundamentalist Naipaul's views on Islamic societies used to be defended as a relevant critique of the failure of democracy in those countries, as ultimately not so much a rage against Islam as much as against all fundamentalism, of the way zealotry stopped people from seeing things clearly. Not any more. That view should go the way of dinosaurs. With Naipaul clearly aligning himself with zealots and fundamentalists of a not very different stripe, he himself has ripped apart that line of defence. Christopher Hitchens wrote last year in The Atlantic that Naipaul has "spoken warmly of the emergence of a thoroughgoing sectarian and ancestralist politics, which essentially regards the Muslim citizens of India as interlopers," that he has "been insufficiently criticized in the West for his role as an apologist for the Hindu nationalist movement in India." That now, "I frankly do not trust Naipaul, even as an eyewitness."

It is a judgement that I think ultimately will prevail.

Khademul Islam is literary editor, The Daily Star

Retrieved from Daily Star archive server. http://svr87.edns1.com/~starnet/2004/04/17/d40417210182.htm

[Ganguly da]

Thanks Ammark for the clarification....

@ Hatebreed: Why do you always make it a hindu-muslim conflict? ....Just coz this article was written by someone with one sided ideology doesn't mean you have to reflect back by saying the writer is a hindu and he can't stand the fact that Taj Mahal is built by a Muslim?

How bout just verifying the real history regardless of religion? if you bring religion here, then I can also say, that ya Taj mahal is a highlight of "muslim" mughal period but there are also many many dark periods of "muslim" mughal rule that will make many muslim un-proud of their mughal history, however I'm not gonna do that. PLus how come the workers who built it doesn't get the credit and the emperor does? It's like saying America has sophisticated network of railroads without mentioning the hard labor put forth by the Chinese. Plus Shahjahan didn't create this himself, he wasn't Van Gogh or Shakespeare.

I always question all theories regardless of the religious tag..... it doesn't matter to me whether this was built by a muslim emperor or a hindu.... it's a matter of pride for Indians as it created a new image in front of old westerners who knew us as simply snake charmers or elephant dwellers.

[ammark]

Originally Posted by Ganguly da
I always question all theories regardless of the religious tag..... it doesn't matter to me whether this was built by a muslim emperor or a hindu.... it's a matter of pride for Indians as it created a new image in front of old westerners who knew us as simply snake charmers or elephant dwellers.

Amen Dada. Its a part of my history as a bengali and south asian too, and a matter of great pride for us all.

[Hatebreed]

Originally Posted by Ganguly da
Thanks Ammark for the clarification....

@ Hatebreed: Why do you always make it a hindu-muslim conflict? ....Just coz this article was written by someone with one sided ideology doesn't mean you have to reflect back by saying the writer is a hindu and he can't stand the fact that Taj Mahal is built by a Muslim?

[] Where in my post did I mention Hindus? Give me more examples of where I "always" make it anything hindu-Muslim" conflict? The nutjob is calling Taj Mahal a temple, not I. Of course I will have my opinion on religious connection, because the nutjob has made his opinion of Islam clear from the very first paragraph. So read and criticise your nutjob writer first [].

How bout just verifying the real history regardless of religion? if you bring religion here, then I can also say, that ya Taj mahal is a highlight of "muslim" mughal period but there are also many many dark periods of "muslim" mughal rule that will make many muslim un-proud of their mughal history, however I'm not gonna do that. PLus how come the workers who built it doesn't get the credit and the emperor does? It's like saying America has sophisticated network of railroads without mentioning the hard labor put forth by the Chinese. Plus Shahjahan didn't create this himself, he wasn't Van Gogh or Shakespeare.

I always question all theories regardless of the religious tag..... it doesn't matter to me whether this was built by a muslim emperor or a hindu.... it's a matter of pride for Indians as it created a new image in front of old westerners who knew us as simply snake charmers or elephant dwellers.

Van Gogh or Shakespeare didn't build frickin buildings! [] The Great Wall of China wasn't made by happy workers either. Neither were the pyramids. That's why they are wonders of world's civilisations.

I made no reference to Indians or Hindus in my post, so keep that sentiment to yourself.

[ialbd]

Hatbreed, Ganguly_da calm down bros. This sort of thread used to be so informative with constructive debates before...... now I think twice before posting.....