Today two powerful Abrahamic religions, Islam and Christianity are clashing over who owns the Hagia Sophia site. One side says the Hagia Sophia is a church. Another side says it is a mosque. But the reality is that the Hagia Sophia is built on the foundations of a pagan temple.

Where are those pagans who originally worshiped at the spot where Hagia Sophia stands today? What became of their civilisation & their culture?

For centuries large parts of the world have been falling to these Abrahamic religions. One by one, the inheritors of the world’s great ancient civilisations: the Greeks, the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians, the Romans, the Persians-Zoroastrians, all fell under the swoop of these 2 Abrahamic religions – both espousing the “my god is the only true god” message, and regularly killing in his name those who believe in another god and even those people who say that they do not believe in any god.

These 2 religions also seem to have signed a truce with Communism, which mimics the structure of these religions by replacing “one true god” with “one true state.”

This is where we have to realize something. We Hindus are the last standing major pagan culture in the world. We are the only bronze age civilisation still standing today. And it is because of our “Hindu” way of life…

We are a polytheistic religion, (belief in many gods – 33 types of them). Despite that, you don’t have to visit a temple to be a Hindu. You don’t even need to believe in god to be a Hindu. We worship many gods, our land, our animals & birds, the forces & bounties of nature, our ancestors and several humans as well (Guru Nanak, Sai Baba, etc etc). Our beliefs and practices are diverse and colorful. We build temples for Ram, but we have temples for Raavan too. We have many many many Goddesses, perhaps more than Gods even. There are temples where Lord Ayyappa is worshiped as eternally celibate & where certain women are not allowed in. There are also temples where Lord Ayyappa is worshiped as a householder, with not one but two wives. And there are also temples which celebrate a Goddess & her menstruation, where men are not allowed to enter. There are some temples which create a separation between the deity & the visitor and then there are others where those praying can touch & even hug the deity. There are staunchly vegetarian Hindus and there are staunchly non-vegetarian Hindus. We are plural. Hinduism is NOT meant to be looked at through the glass of foreign Abrahamic monotheistic religions.

Those seeking to recast the world into an Abrahamic faith, see us as people who should not exist. Our loosely organised religion (one which even assimilates athiests into it) infinitely adaptive to local and personal beliefs, free from moral absolutes, is an anathema to them. Something their Abrahamic-religion-influenced mind cannot understand.

They want that our civilisation & culture should be destroyed and made to surrender to one of the brands of the Abrahamic religions. This Christian-Islamic expanshionist project has already swallowed up Pakistan and Bangladesh. The tiniest remnants of Hindu culture have been scrubbed from there. Those that speak of the Ganga-Jamuna tehzeeb thriving in India should also ask the question – why has it not thrived in Pakistan & Bangladesh?

It is important that we continue to be steadfastly resistant to these attempts. We should continue to steadfastly plural, steadfastly progressive and continue to engage in deep study to gain understanding of this great civilisation & great culture that we have, thankfully, been born into!!!

P.S. A lot of the content taken from this blogpost – https://dynastycrooks.wordpress.com/2020/08/07/hagia-sophia-aimplb-and-why-secularism-is-a-scam/amp/?__twitter_impression=true