Gandhi and Islam

Gandhi viewed Islam through his own spirituality ignoring how the parishioners of Islam actually saw it. For them religion and politics are inseparable. To Gandhi this was not bad since he also believed that religion and politics should not be separable and religion is needed to make politics ethical. He himself was a devout Hindu and declared his allegiance to Hinduism as an essential component of national struggle. But his Hinduism was of a different brand than the Islam practiced by orthodox Muslims. About Hindu sacred texts Gandhi said, "My belief in the Hindu scriptures does not require me to accept every word and every verse as divinely inspired... I decline to be bound by any interpretation, however learned it may be, if it is repugnant to reason or moral sense. ... Every word of the printed works passing muster as `Shastras' is not, in my opinion, a revelation ... The interpretation of accepted texts has undergone evolution and is capable of indefinite evolution, even as the human intellect and heart are ....  Nothing in the shastras which is manifestly contrary to universal truths and morals can stand...  Nothing in the shastras which is capable of being reasoned can stand if it is in conflict with reason." Such evolutionary Hinduism is a part of Hindu tradition.  But no devout Muslim can accept this as true of the Koran or even the Hadith. For them their revealed texts are eternal and immutable; the commandments are not to be rationally scrutinized but simply accepted. Though there is a limited space for interpretation, there is no space for questioning or rejecting the doctrines even if they conflict with reason and morality. That was the essential difference between the way Gandhi practiced his religion and the orthodox Muslims practice theirs.