I have seen many road side magicians, amazing ones but atleast they tell you, its nothing but trick. People always love it. The very first time when a guy memorized some 1000 numbers in front of my eyes, I was the first one to whistle. Yes, It attracts like hell. It gives you an instant hero. This attracted me to the so called self professed comparative religion champ "Dr. Zakir Naik" as well. And yeah he proved my suspicion bang on. I was again being attracted to some cheap magic show; waiting to be mesmerized by spiritual jugglery of words with massive memorizing skills I wished something to cheer for. He does it well by looking authentic with his neat dressing, educated in his language skills and of course out there to prove a point (superiority of his religion)how good he is. The sad part is unlike road side magicians, now we witness someone who is not different but less honest. A new generation Islamic avengalist who has started believing that his magic are miracles.
Religion is an easy ground, where you can come up with your verbal acrobatics (superior logic in front of fools) and make more than willing masses to believe what you want them to. Out there are millions waiting for a messiah to touch there lives. You can win huge number of fanatic followers without saying anything new, and keep quoting time after time till eternity from myriad of sources and interpreting them the way it suits your purpose(its best when you can do it Zakir way by referring to page numbers, verses, suras etc). If you are blessed with a massive memory, you would look more authentic like Zakir Naik. Once you have all these basics in place, you can become insant hit, an evangelist,a messiah, or even bigger than prophet (peace be upon him) himself (by quoting, he is dead; not to be followed). On top of that the icing on the cake would be an audience like Indian Muslims (poor lot actually: foreigners in their own country, with a past to cheer and present to hate).
Some years back, he cheated Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (the feminine soft spoken Art of living guy) by inviting him to share a common platform in Bangalore on the basis of Hindu-Muslim bhai bhai theme. Poor guy was looking so lonely, hurt and subjected to all kinds of pressure tactics. Helplessly he chose to stay quiet in front of big cheering audience (yeah that can happen only in India).Very soon the real intensions started becoming clear. A good man like him was torn to pieces becoming a major kill for Dr. Zakir Naik to let him project his own superior Islamic logic (funny ha?), by using time tested technique of 'shock and awe' (he hates US but yeah good things should be learnt from enemies; must be quoted on some page number in Quran). The beauty was, he stayed belligerent and still patronizing to comfort the better of the two (spiritually speaking). I wonder if Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had ever been received by such an unfriendly host in his entire life. The Muslim dominated audience was left spell bound believing finally they won their most crucial battle achieving intellectual superiority over world renowned Hindu philosophical mind (while Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is more known for his art of living courses). Unfortunately, a book which SSRS wrote for the purpose of bringing the two faiths closer became the tool for Dr. Naik to show his superiority in terms of absolute understanding of Arabic and Prussian. The so called stage of spirituality finally turned out to be battle of linguists (surely to be lost by a real spiritualist).
Then he brings an absolute fake Adi Shankaracharya on to stage, and this time Naik doesn't engage in the debate, purely because this fake Godman is praising quran the way he wants. Actually Dr. Naik appears to be little emotional. Congress Party should give this fake Godman a ticket, and I bet he will win them all the muslim votes. I had never seen anything like this before. One wonders, why he hasn't yet himself embraced Islam. May be the answer is only a fake knows, how to handle another one (yeah double bluff). I hope someone will pass this piece of valuable information to Miya Mulayam. This fake Shankaracharya deserves a ticket.
Dr. Naik accuses Arun Shourie ( A noted journalist and politician) of referring to verses from Quran out of context while he himself does it ruthlessly, when it comes to scriptures of other religions infront of his more than eager fellow brothers and sisters. He does it masterfully by selectively quoting Vedas to prove God is one and uses the prophecies from some obscure Purana which predicted the advent of Prophet Mohammad. He quotes from Manusmriti (the most controversial book of Hinduism)to ridicule the Hinduism. Similarly he ridicules Christianity by proving through Bible (or some other source I am not sure) that Jesus was never crucified. It is actually an amazing way to spread message of peace recently rediscovered by Dr. Naik. For ages the Christian Missionaries tried their bit in vain. The art seemed to be lost in the mainstream for a while. Thank you Dr. Naik for reviving it in India.
Funny as it can be, the religion has managed to produce another Joker with brilliant oratory skills with large fan following.
I am no body to judge anyone by what he believes in, but surely I judge a person with what his intensions are and so can you, by being a little neutral and more aware. And again judgement alone doesnt stop anyone from doing anything, it requires some action.
P.S. I came across a nice link from Dr Radhasyam Brahmachari with similar opinion. Read it as well. I will keep exposing liars and may the truth prevail.
http://www.news.faithfreedom.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1853