Why Is Hinduism Such As Universalizing Religions

Jenni Lloyd

Mr. Sipher

World Geography 1B

4/10/15

Islam and Hinduism each have a great many followers, but they are very different religions. While Islam is a universalizing religion, Hinduism is an ethnic religion. Hinduism, by far the largest ethnic religion, has three hundred million followers, while Islam, the second largest universalizing religion, has over one billion followers. However, universalizing religions and ethnic religions differ in a lot more areas than just number of followers. A few of these areas are origins, diffusion, and organization of space. Like most ethnic religions, the origins of Hinduism are unknown. Hindus believe that there is one God who is so unreachable that the only way to know him is through many gods,

Islam has diffused to much of the world, especially Southwest Asia and North Africa. It spread to these areas largely through hierarchical diffusion because of the military conquests of the first Muslim state. Islam diffused to other areas through relocation diffusion, when Muslims migrated to other countries. Hinduism, like most ethnic religions, has not diffused very far. Hinduism does not seek out converts as actively as Islam and other universalizing religions do. One reason for this may be the Hindu belief that every soul is reincarnated over and over again, based on Karma, until they achieve nirvana (oneness with God). Hindus may believe that if a person is not a Hindu in their present life, they may be in the next. There’s no rush to tell people a “higher truth”. Instead, Hindus believe in letting each soul figure out its own path to Nirvana. For this reason, Hinduism does not seek out converts or try to appeal to all people and cultures. They don’t feel a need to. Muslims, however, believe that they know the only true path to God (in Arabic, Allah), and they don’t believe in reincarnation. They feel that each soul only has one chance at knowing God, and that chance is through Islam, so they fervently seek out

Islamic places of worship, called mosques, are often very ornate, literally towering over surrounding structures. By contrast, one of the most holy places in Hinduism is the Ganges river, which is believed to come from the hair of Siva (Shiva), the destroyer of evil and sorrow who lives on Mount Kailash (the source of the Ganges river). One reason for this may be the age of Hinduism. This ethnic religion seems to have been created before recorded history, and so any of the original shrines would be quite limited in terms of architecture. It made more sense to the first Hindus to use pre-existing, natural places as holy shrines. As with other ethnic religions, Hinduism is closely related to the physical landscape of India, its place of origin. Because of this, the rivers and mountains of India are likely to be considered sacred to Hinduism. Hindu sacred festivals often correlate to the passing of seasons and other natural occurrences in India, while Islamic sacred festivals tend to correlate to historical events in the life of its