Answer
Short Answer:
- The Kaʿbah, originally built by Prophet Ibrahim (peace be upon him) and his son, Ismail (peace be upon him) had become in the course of centuries a center dedicated to a multiplicity of gods or idols worshipped by the people who had settled in the region. Each tribe brought its own idols or fetishes into the Ka’abah and turned it into a heathen pantheon housing some 360 idols of stone or wood.
- There is no evidence whatsoever to prove that the Makkan polytheists worshipped the Hindu god, Shiva. But that does not matter; it is enough that the Makkans before Islam were polytheists and idolaters.
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Salam Sister,
Thank you for your question and for contacting Ask About Islam.
The Religion of the Arabs before Islam
By Pre-Islamic Arabs generally, the reference is to the tribal populations of central and northern Arabia. Archeological exploration of this region has been very sparse; but modern excavations have discovered several ancient sites.
The Kaʿbah, originally built by Prophet Ibrahim (peace be upon him) and his son, Ismail (peace be upon him) had become in the course of centuries a center dedicated to a multiplicity of gods or idols worshipped by the people who had settled in the region. Each tribe brought its own idols or fetishes into the Ka’abah and turned it into a heathen pantheon housing some 360 idols of stone or wood.
Thus the Arab Bedouins were following pagan idolatry until the arrival of Islam that purged their minds from the abomination of polytheism.
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), on his re-entry into Makkah in the 8th year of the Hijrah, cleansed the Ka’abah of all those idols and restored the House of Allah to its pristine purity.
Hinduism and Hindutva
Today’s Hindus are avowedly polytheists and idolaters; though their gurus and pundits present to the modern world a sort of a philosophical system, which they have formulated out of a number of religious texts and mythological traditions.
In India, during the British rule, we find the slow and steady growth of a militant form of political Hinduism developing along the lines of Hitler’s Nazism, identified as Hindutva, which is quite distinct from the Religion of Hinduism.
The Hindutva forces have been gathering all their resources and were working relentlessly toward realizing their ultimate aim of forming a Hindu Rashtra in India.
After India got independence from the British rule, the Hindutva forces were clearly sidelined by the secularist Indian National Congress Party headed by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.
But now the BJP which is the political incarnation of the Hindutva (which has adopted a strategy of hiding behind a number of organizations) has come to power and they are today bent on converting the secular republic that is India into a Hindu Rashtra.
The Hindutva forces had found some affinity with the Nazi Party of Germany under Hitler. As the Nazis had marked the Jews as the enemies of Germany, the Hindutva forces identified Muslims as the enemies of the Hindu nation.
To sell this idea to the Hindus of India they have developed a narrative of hatred with a view to tarnishing Islam and Muslims. To this end their writers have been re-writing history in their favor, making absurd claims.
The Hindu Mahasabha, for instance, published a calendar in March 2018, in which they showed Ka’abah as “Macceshwar Mahadev Temple”[i]. They allege that Prophet Muhammad invaded the original “Shiva Temple” at Makkah, destroyed the idols inside and converted the Hindu temple into a Muslim place of worship.
Makkan polytheists never worshipped Hindu gods
There is no evidence whatsoever to prove that the Makkan polytheists worshipped the Hindu god, Shiva. But that does not matter; it is enough that the Makkans before Islam were polytheists and idolaters, which scenario comes in handy with the nefarious designs of the Hindutva forces.
They speak of similarities between some of the rites practiced by Arabs and those by the Hindus while ignoring the differing principles which these practices symbolize. The superficial similarities are taken into consideration while the essential differences are ignored.
Thus the Hindutva fanatics go on to embellish their anti-Muslim narrative and rhetoric by shouting about “roots” and connections between the Bedouins of Arabia and the Hindus of India, defying all norms of objective research or scientific investigation.
Polytheism, as practiced in the ancient world and Neopaganism prevalent in some parts of the modern world, may have some similarities; and the proponents of Hindutva are sometimes seen to be reaching out to the Neopagans seeking “roots”.
And Allah knows best.
I hope this helps.
Salam and please keep in touch.
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