Tag: history

Islam, Power and Change: My Reading of a Pattern History Repeats


Over the last few years, I have been noticing a pattern that feels bigger than daily news headlines. It is not just about Saudi Arabia allowing concerts, or the UAE opening casinos, or Europe suddenly becoming more vocal against Islam. When I step back and look at history, it feels like something deeper is happening.

This is not about Islam collapsing.
It looks more like Islam is changing its role in society, the way other major religions have done before.

A pattern I see repeating in history

Whenever a religion becomes dominant for a long time, history shows a clear pattern.

First, the religion grows with confidence. It gives people law, identity, morality and order. Early Islam did this extremely well, just like early Christianity.

Then the religion merges with power. It becomes part of the state, law, education and daily life. Clerics gain authority, rules become strict, and belief is no longer only personal.

After that comes overreach. Religion starts controlling too much — what people wear, how they live, how the economy works, what pleasures are allowed. At this stage, religion slowly shifts from being a strength to being a limitation, especially for rulers and elites.

Finally comes the most important moment: the elites start stepping away from religious control.

This is the stage I believe Islam has entered now.

Why Saudi Arabia matters the most

Saudi Arabia is not just another Muslim country. It controls Mecca and Medina, which gives it symbolic authority over the entire Muslim world.

When Saudi Arabia weakens religious police, reduces clerical power, and focuses on tourism, entertainment and investment, it sends a very clear message:

Islam will no longer run the state directly.

This reminds me strongly of what happened in Europe when kings reduced the political power of the Church. Christianity did not disappear after that, but it stopped controlling public life.

That shift changed Christianity forever.

The UAE shows the future direction

The UAE is showing an even clearer model.

Islam exists there, but mostly as:

  • personal belief
  • culture
  • identity

The state itself is focused on business, money, global talent and stability. Religion is not enforced, it is managed.

This creates two very different reactions among Muslims:

  • One group quietly adapts and practices religion in private
  • Another group becomes more rigid and aggressive because it feels religion is losing space

History shows this kind of split always happens during transition periods.

About Islamophobia in Europe

I don’t see rising Islamophobia as the main cause of Islam’s problems. I see it as a reaction.

Societies become tolerant when they feel secure, and hostile when they feel insecure. Europe today is facing economic stress, migration pressure and identity confusion. In such times, societies harden.

This has happened many times before:

  • Jews in Christian Europe
  • Catholics in Protestant countries
  • Buddhists during unstable Chinese dynasties

Islamophobia is not shaping Islam’s future. It is responding to a changing balance between religion, identity and power.

What I think will actually change

Religions don’t disappear. They transform.

What I believe Islam is slowly losing:

  • Control over law and state
  • Clerical authority over daily life
  • Moral policing by governments

What I believe will remain strong:

  • Personal faith
  • Rituals and traditions
  • Cultural and ethical identity
  • Family and community practices

Islam will not stay one single shape. Like Christianity, it will fragment into many forms — cultural Muslims, spiritual Muslims, political Islamists, secular Muslims and quiet traditional believers.

This fragmentation feels uncomfortable and even dangerous in the short term. But history suggests it usually leads to long-term balance.

So, is Islam falling?

I don’t think so.

I think Islam is moving out of its imperial phase, where it controlled power and law, and entering a post-hegemonic phase, where belief becomes more personal and less enforced.

Christianity went through this after the Renaissance. It lost power, but it survived.

What Islam may lose is dominance.
What it may gain is sincerity.

History shows that religions survive not by force, but by adapting to a changing world. Islam now seems to be standing at that exact turning point.

And history, as always, has seen this story before.

Why Caste Divide?


Caste system was evolution as per time and conditions!!!

  • I heard Mudaliars were converts from Jainism.
  • Kallars were soldiers of Pandya Kings. After the fall of the Pandya dynasty, their soldiers got forcefully migrated into the forest(Somewhere, around today’s Theni district). With no education and civilisation. Eventually, they had to rob for survival. Which ultimately became their caste.
  • Similarly, Pandya Kings Lineage was, forced migrated to another side. Finally, they became Pallars. Today they are classified as SC.

Kallars & Pallars should be a less than 600-year-old caste assuming the fall of the Pandya Dynasty around 1400.

Once we got colonised, Britishers amplified the caste divide, by destroying the history and used it for the benefit of religious conversion.

Caste system was once created to benefit the ecosystem. Caste System was built around skills, and that formed a lineage and carried over generations. But, it has become irrelevant now as;

  • Today we have moved away.
  • Today we are living in an era which criticises nepotism.
  • Today a goldsmith son is a Software Engineer and a priest son is a banker.

I don’t see a point in an identity which we no longer practice. For example, Chettiars were an influential community in Tamil Nadu, and they were money lenders or merchants. I’m sure many of the Chettiars have built a career in Software, Movie, Politics, Medicine etc. which is out of their community business(குல தொழில்).

I don’t see a point in having an identity which we are no longer a part of it.

It is time we move forward and break the divides around caste and religion. Let’s fight against appeasement politics, let’s kill nepotism, let’s get the common civil code.

Let’s practice what we preach.

Significance of March 10 – For Cricket Fans


There are several significant dates in Indian cricket history. Take June 25 for instance. A later generation would easily remember it as the day that India won the World Cup in England in 1983, while deeper followers of the game will identify it as the date India began her international journey at Lord’s in 1932.

August 24 is another historic date which Indian cricket fans will recall with relish – the day India finally won a Test and a series in England for the first time by winning the match at the Oval in 1971. It should also be easy to remember February 10 – the day India won her first Test match at Chepauk in 1952.

March 10 has to be one of the most significant dates in Indian cricket, for on this day 14 years apart two great triumphs were notched up. In 1971, India scored their maiden Test victory over West Indies and that was enough to give them the series played in the Caribbean. In 1985, India beat back successive challenges from Pakistan, England, Australia and New Zealand and won the World Championship of Cricket one day tournament in Melbourne with another victory over Pakistan in the title clash. Both triumphs were also notable because they were unexpected. When the Indians toured the Caribbean islands in 1971 they were rated as no-hopers.

In 23 Tests between the two countries dating back to 1948, India had never taken even the first innings lead. They had lost 12 matches and drawn eleven. And yet in the first Test at Kingston India not only took the first innings lead but also enforced the follow on before West Indies managed to save the Test.

However, the home team could not escape defeat in the second Test at Port of Spain. India dominated the match literally from the first ball when Abid Ali bowled Roy Fredericks and finally on March 10, registered a seven-wicket victory with a day to spare – their first victory over the West Indies in 25 Tests. Interestingly, the Test also marked the debut of Gavaskar.

Fourteen years later, Gavaskar was at the helm when the Indians took off for Australia. The Test series and the one-day series against England at home had just been lost and the atmosphere was anything but congenial. India were the reigning World Cup champions alright but since that memorable June day in 1983, their record had taken a beating. They had been outclassed 0-5 by the West Indies in 1983-84 and also went down to Australia at the start of the following season.

The WCC was going to be particularly tough assignment for all the seven Test playing nations were taking part. India were placed in group A along with Australia, England and Pakistan, while group B comprised New Zealand, West Indies and Sri Lanka.

On current form, India were rated rank outsiders and given little chance of making the semifinals. But once the tournament began there was a transformation. The diffidence of the England series was a thing of the past and the Indians played confidently, even aggressively.

One amazing win followed another as the bowlers picked up the wickets at regular intervals and the batsmen got the runs at a brisk pace. Pakistan were beaten, then England and then Australia and India had made it to the semifinals. With another emphatic win over New Zealand, India unexpectedly made it to the title clash against Pakistan who had shocked West Indies in the other semifinal.

By now, however, the Indians were playing like a well oiled  machine that was purring along. They were simply unstoppable and an eight-wicket victory over Imran Khan and his men was the perfect manner in which to end a tournament where they had a dream run.

The picture of the Indian team taking a victory lap at the MCG in the Audi car that was presented to Man of the Series Ravi Shastri remains one of the most memorable in Indian cricket history.

And, in a poll conducted a few years ago, the WCC triumph was rated even higher than the World Cup victory.

For one thing the opposition was stronger and the victories were all emphatic in nature. Also, this was an all-win record whereas during the World Cup campaign two years before the Indians won six matches but lost two.

The 25th anniversary of the WCC triumph is as good a time as any to recall a very significant date in Indian cricket. Oh yes, March 10, whether 1971 or 1985, is one of the dates remembered with relish by Indian cricket fans.

Why is there deuce in tennis?


Ancient civilizations in Rome, Greece and Egypt have made claim to the sport’s origins, but what we recognize today as tennis is widely accepted to have begun in France. Where else but in the land of romance would athletic measure be articulated in the terms “love” and “deuce” (as in, it takes two)?

During the Middle Ages, French monks hit balls with their hands over a rope stretched across the cloistered quadrangles of their monasteries. What they called jeu de paume (palm game) evolved into “tennis” courtesy of the serving player, who initiated action by shouting “Tenez!” — roughly, “Take it!”

In the game’s incrementally peculiar scoring, the first point is 15 (or 5, if the players went to prep school), the next is 30, the third, 40, then game over, provided the winning margin is two points. Players can be tied at 15 and at 30, but not beyond; 40-all is deemed “deuce” because it is a “deux du jeu” — two points away from winning the game.

The next point remains estranged from the numerical and in league with the verbal, with the winning player deemed to have the “advantage.” If he wins the next point, he wins the game. If the opponent wins, it’s back to deuce.

As in baseball, the clock is not a factor in tennis, so the deuce dance can become a marathon. Among professionals, the longest known singles game appears to have occurred at the 1975 Great Britain Championships in Surrey, England. Competitors Anthony Fawcett of then-Rhodesia and Keith Glass of Britain played 37 deuces among 80 total points in a game that lasted 31 minutes. Tenez! Encore. Et encore. Et encore . . .

— Ellen Alperstein