Before & after the Taliban destroyed the Buddha statues in Afghanistan there were a number of articles on whether Islam permitted destruction of idols. India’s leading current affairs magazine India Today had carried an article on the destruction. Amidst conflicting interpretations of Islam and the Koran I remember an interesting letter in the magazine from an Indian Muslim. While I do not remember his name the gist of what he said was, ‘I wonder why everyone is making such a hue & cry of the destruction of Buddha statues. When Prophet Mohammed entered the Kaba he destroyed 360 idols’. I read the same thing in the book, History & Culture of Indian People published by the Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan. It read “after the military conquest of Mecca by the Prophet, he entered the sanctuary and smashed its many idols said to have numbered three hundred and sixty exclaiming “ Truth hath come and falsehood hath vanished.”

Idols, Gods & Goddesses in Arabia! I was foxed till I read volume 2 of a book by Sitaram Goelji titled ‘Hindu Temples What Happened to Them’. Chapter eleven is titled Religion of Pagan Arabia. The Chambers 20th Century Dictionary defines a pagan as “a heathen, who is not a Christian, Jew or a Muslim”.

I have reproduced parts of chapter eleven verbatim. (Courtesy & copyright Voice of India). The piece has three chapters, one gives you names of Gods and function in a table form, two gives complete details and three is conclusion.