Even as the BAPS Hindu temple nears completion in Abu Dhabi, UAE, the Islamic nation seems far from recognizing even the existence of non-Abrahamic faiths.

A UAE based organization called Abrahamic Family House openly talks about multiplicity of faiths exclusively in terms of Abrahamic faiths, as if non-Abrahamic faiths have no right to exist. It’s alright to have a group as a meeting point of people of Abrahamic faiths per say, but to portray this as representing multiplicity and diversity of faiths is highly problematic.

One cannot restrict multiplicity of faiths to three Abrahamic religions, that is Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. What about other religious minorities who live in the UAE including Hindus and Sikhs. Wouldn’t they feel threatened and intimidated if an Islamic nation talks about interfaith dialogue only in terms of Abrahamic religions? Or is it that people belonging to non-Abrahamic faiths are kaafirs and heathen, and thus not worthy of inclusion?

The” About us” section of the Abrahamic Family House website proudly proclaims, “The Abrahamic Family House is dedicated to the pursuit of peaceful coexistence for generations to come. Our space serves to bridge our common humanity through the exchange of knowledge, ongoing dialogue, and the practice of faith”. After reading this, it seems like the text implies that peaceful coexistence is only meant for people following Abrahamic faiths. People following non-Abrahamic religions like Hindu Dharma simply don’t serve this much touted peaceful coexistence.

What follows next is even more problematic. The section then talks about the origin of Abrahamic faiths in UAE, talking about how Islam has apparently always welcomed other faiths like Judaism and Christianity. The section chalks out the religious history of UAE purely in terms of the spread of Abrahamic faiths, thus making it amply clear to non-Abrahamic minorities like Hindus that their religion is somewhat of a lesser being, and they are fortunate that they get some minimum rights to practice it.

Imagine having such a website in Bharat where one includes only non-Abrahamic religions like Hindu Dharma, Sikhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism and deliberately exclude Christianity and Islam while talking about mutual tolerance and diversity, what a ruckus the woke lobby would raise. But it seems it’s perfectly cool to exclude non-Abrahamic faiths who have undergone centuries of abuse and oppression at the hands of Abrahamic practitioners, while talking about religious plurality.

The Abrahamic Family House declares in its mission and vision statement, “Our vision is for people to come together in peace, diverse in our faiths, yet common in our humanity. Our mission is to bridge our common humanity through the exchange of knowledge, dialogue, and the practice of faith”. It’s not a crime to have an organization connecting people of Abrahamic faiths but to pretend that the common humanity of this world only follows Abrahamic faiths reeks of propaganda and distortion.

The website of this organization is full of pretentious jargon trying to push the perception down the throat of readers that the stand for inter-religious tolerance, but inter-religious tolerance cannot be at the expense of exclusion of some of the oldest of faiths and belief systems.

Best-selling author and a pioneer in the research on civilizations Rajiv Malhotra drew the attention of netizens to this organization through a post on X a couple of days back.

“ABRAHAMIC faiths only? This much touted movement calling for “coexistence” excludes those outside the Abrahamic faiths explicitly? We are not “people of the book” and hence kafirs of the worst kind according to them. This deserves to be called out. Pls RT”, he states in his X post.

There exists systematic discrimination against non-Abrahamic faiths within the existing global framework. The UN’s latest Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy passed in 2021 exclusively recognizes religious phobia against Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The UN then has conveniently closed its eyes to the historical persecution of Hindus and Sikhs. This issue has been raised by Bharat at various forums of the UN many times, but the organization still fails to condemn the violence and atrocities committed routinely against people of non-Abrahamic faiths including Hindus. If the UN itself has an Abrahamic bias, what better can one expect from a UAE based faith organization.

Much of the academic Hinduphobia stems from the forceful application of lens and paradigms of Abrahamic faiths to studying native cultures. Abrahamic faiths see everything in terms of black and white, good, and evil. Native cultures, on the other hand, with their complex web of symbolism, evade this simplistic classification. That’s partly why western intellectuals and academicians routinely distort Hindu Dharma, forcefully fitting texts like Ramayana and Mahabharata into the mold of western literary theory, feminist theory, etc. Hindu Gods and Goddesses are exoticized and their attributes over-simplified to appeal to Abrahamic sensibilities.

The rigid distinction between believer and non-believer also comes from Abrahamic faiths. That is why the relentless zeal to either convert or persecute those who can’t be converted. Hindu Dharma, because of its open-endedness and the magnanimity of our scriptures, has always been at the receiving end of Abrahamic aggression. And the trend continues.

Most of all native cultures across the world have been wiped out by Abrahamic faiths. Hindu Dharma is perhaps the only native culture that still thrives and survives on such a massive scale. The onus is on us to call out this blatant “Abrahamization” of the world at the cost of exclusion of native faiths and cultures.

Link to the website of Abrahamic Family House: https://www.abrahamicfamilyhouse.ae