:salam2:
Previous reference: Part G: http://www.paklinks.com/gs/religion-and-scripture/594659-one-god-one-creed-part-2-early-book-of-the-indo-aryans.html
Later Books Of The Indo-Aryans
The **Upanishads **are a particular kind of religious literature that developed in India in later times. They contain very mysterious **Brahma **knowledge. But one who has comprehended the Islamic philosophy has no difficulty in understanding the Brahma knowledge of the Upanishads, except that he has to learn the language. The Upanishads run to hundreds of works; and a new Upanishads also came into being during the Mughal emperor Akbar’s time. Its name as Allopanishad. This work, named after ‘Allah’, may not be acceptable to Hindus, but there many other authentic Upanishads that are acceptable to them; thirteen of them are considered more authentic than the rest. Shankaracharya has written interpretations for most of them. They are called the Isha Vasya, the Chandogya, the Brihadaranyaka, the Aitareya, the Mandukya, the Kaus-hitaki, the Maitri and the Sweataswatara.
The Upanishads do not discount life in the material world or make man just a spiritual being. Manny Kshatirya Kings were masters of Upanishadic Philosophy (Prawahana Jaiwali, Ajatashatru, **Janaka **and Aswapati, for instance). It is then self-evident that such a mastery of the Upanishads as has been put to use by kings dose not dissuade people from a material life. Moreover, the Upanishads themselves exhort people to wish for longevity in this world. The Ishaupanishad says: *1
*“Wish to live a hundred karma-bound years in this life.” *
So indeed is the Islamic principle of life. A wise saying goes: “Work for your life here as if you would be alive for ever, and for your salvation in the other world as though you would die the next day”. The Prophet of Islam says, “That man is the best who lives long, doing good”. *2 Thus saysing, the Prophet has but presented the Ishawasya advice in a different style.
Let us now consider the monotheistic vision in the Upanishads. They refer to the The One God such names as’. ‘Brahma’, ‘Paramatma’, and ‘Parabrahma’. The word ‘Brahma’ comprehends all the qualities of the One God as conceived by Islam. “There is nothing like Him” [Quran 42:11]. This is how the Qur’an speaks to us of the One God. That is, the divine essence is something that does not lend itself to the perception of man’s external or other senses. This is precisely what the Upanishads gives us to understand *3.
“Sight or similar sense, or word, or mind, cannot reach to that Brahma. We do not know what it is like. We do not know how to describe It either. Brahma is different from the known and the unknown. This is how we have heard from the Acharyas who interpreted It to us.”
Abu Baker Siddiq (may God be pleased with him (describe the inscrutability of divine essence in these words: “To know that one does not know Him is knowledge proper” *4".
The **Kena Upanishad **presents the same idea thus *5: “He knows who knows he cannot know Brahma. He knows not who thinks he knows Brahma. Brahma is the which those know not who think they do, and which those know who think they do not.”
The Kena further tells the people worship nothing other than Brahma, and that all which the people worship as Brahma are not It. *6: "Know that Brahma is the spirit which is invisible to the eye but gives them sight. Certainly those which [people] take for Brahma and worship as such are not Brahma.
That is, the ignorant worship many things which they imagine as Brahma. None of these is Brahma. Brahma cannot be apprehended by sight or by other sense; Brahma defies them all. But yet the Pwer that enables the sense to reach other things is Brahma. This idea, quite unquestionably, is acceptable to Islam. *7
Now wonder some Sufi scholars who understood the Upanishadic concept of God showed excessive enthusiasm in propagating it. Mohammed Daaraashiko (1615-1659 A.D.) the eldest son of Shah Jehan and an eminent sage in the Qaadiriya Sufi order, was one of those. Daaraashiko got some fifty Upanishads translated into the Persian tongue. It was through these translations that the Western world first happened to come into contact with the Upanishad Philosophy. Max Muller, the famous Vedic Scholar, relates the fact in his Sacred Books of the East. He says that in 1775 A.D., the French resident M. Gentle obtained a manuscript of copy of Upanishad translations prepared by Daaraashiko, from the palace of Fuad Doula, ruler of Persia, and gave it to Anguitle Duvran, the famous scholar traveler. Bernier took it over to France where Duvran translated the Upanishads into French and Latin. The rendering was published in two parts in 1801 and 1802, respectively. The name he have it was *Oupnekhat. 8.
References:
***1 - Ishawasyapanishad, Mantra 2.
2 - Prophet Muhammad’s PBUH saying, quoted by Abu-'Isa Tirmizi in his Saheeh and recorded by Imam Nawawi in his Riyadus-Saaliheen, Bab-ul Mujaahada: See P.68
3 - Kena Upanishad, Khanda 2, Mantras 3,4.
4 - Ihya Uloon ad-Deen, by Imam Gazzali, Vol.4, P.362
5 - Kena Upanishad, Khand 2, Mantra 3.
6 - Ibid, Kh. 1, Ma 7.
7 - The Qur’an says: “Eyes comprehend him not, but He comprehends the eyes.” [Chapter 6, verse 103].
8 - Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 1, Introduction.