ENCOUNTER OF HINDUISM WITH ISLAM IN ISLAMIC COUNTRIES

Abstract

The term 'encounter' usually connotes a violent conflict, a physical struggle between two belligerent forces. Fortunately, in recent political history, such belligerence between two nations belonging to two different faiths is becoming less and less common, although it has by no means disappeared. There are still certain areas in the world, where thristians and Muslims, Muslims and Jews, Muslims and Hindus and even Catholics and Protestants are ranged against each other with fear and hatred. In recent years, the term 'encounter' has however been applied to spiritual contact and dialogue between two religions, cultures, ideologies and societies. Ideologies have been transmitted from one culture to another sometimes violently, though with the approach of the 21st Century, there are good signs that ideology as a political force is slowly disappearing from the world.