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Indian Ethnicity and Religious Heritage
light in the hut; people began to laugh at her folly and asked her to search inside the hut. "Oh", wise Rabia retorted, "I thought that the real search should be out side the hut because I see everyone making the search of Reality outside one's own Self". Rabia, a great Sufi in her own right, was here speaking the language of Gita which asks us to seek peace
and happiness in search of one's own soul.
Such was also the attitude of another great
Sufi saint AL HALLAJ MANSUR who flourished in 922 A.D. and who like the Indian Rishis of old, declared "Anal Hakk" i.e. "I am Brahman (God)." Jains, who do not believe in any out side agency such as God, do believe that every soul is capable of achieving Godhood by his own efforts. AL HALLAJ MANSUR seems to be of the same opinion, bu since his assertion was against the traditional views, he was tortured most cruelly, incarcerated for number of years, and finally brutally murdered. One who pleaded his cause met with the same fate.
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