176 Dharmic Islam And Christianity Part: 3
Vijay got up refreshed this morning after a day of rest, but he was doubtful about why the news about the cave discovery within the empire had not been heard. Doubtful, he summoned Ravichandra and asked, "Uncle Ravi, did the construction of Highway 75 not begin?"
"It did, Your Majesty. It's just that it has been delayed because apparently, they found a huge rock layer just a few feet below the ground in the planned route, hampering their progress. It is said that they will take a detour and rejoin the planned road again."
Vijay's heart turned cold because the whole point of him choosing the cave was that a highway was about to be constructed, and there was a high chance that someone would discover it. But now, if the highway is detoured even a little from where it is planned, it is practically impossible, especially to discover the cave in a dense forest. Vijay had to do something; he did not want to find prisoners again. But to be safe, he asked, "Where did the deviation take place, and where did the road realign again?"
Ravichandra Rao did not understand why his majesty was asking these questions, but he still replied, "Your Majesty, the road deviated 5 km from the Lokesh Palya town, and it got realigned just before the Bandipur forest."
Vijay let out a sigh of relief as he did not have to change anything; the Bandipur forest was where the cave was located.
The day passed in a blink of an eye.
Bandipur Forest.
The construction group finally reached near the cave. It was a gravel road that was being laid down, but as the road passed through the forest, it was more difficult to clear out the trees and the flora in the way. Naga Verma, a middle-aged man, was the team construction leader. If we take a God's eye view of the place they are working on, a burnt patch of forest is visible just a few feet beside the construction site. Unfortunately, from Naga Verma's perspective, trees blocked his vision. Just when Vijay's plan was about to be foiled, nature decided to help out as it started to downpour. Naga Verma's son, Partha Verma, who ran out first, stumbled onto the burnt patch of land in the forest.
"Father!"
Naga Verma was startled by his son's panicked call. He moved quickly to the place where his son's voice came from, alert and fearful, thinking something had happened to him. When he found his son, he was shocked to discover a burnt patch of land in the middle of the forest. Black soot covered the ground like a dark lake in the midst of greenery. By the looks of it, it had not been many days since the fire had been lit, as small grass shoots could just be seen coming out of the ground. Soon, the construction team also joined in, equally surprised.
"Father, that looks like a cave. Let's go and stay till the rain stops."
Everyone's attention was caught by Partha as they looked in the direction he was pointing. Naga Verma, under normal circumstances, would not have considered entering an unknown cave. However, the current situation is different. With a lot of people along with him and the added factor of the downpour, he decided to take a look.
"But, Your Majesty, will the people accept it?"
"Don't worry, I have my own way."
Ravichandra nodded and left. Vijay then recruited about 10 people who were raised in the royal family, asking them to read the new version of the Holy Book of Islam. After gaining sufficient understanding, Vijay encouraged them to embrace Dharmic Islam as their faith and become imams of the new Islamic ideology. All of them readily agreed with the order of his majesty, the emperor, and their master. Some of them also found the new version of the book intriguing. Vijay then instructed them to mingle among the Muslims in the empire, gaining popularity by preaching this new Islamic narrative. Later, Vijay would help them reach top positions in the religious hierarchy to ensure the fostering of the Dharmic Islam narrative.
People from all the surrounding areas flocked to the cave to touch the book that the almighty Prophet Mohammed had written; rumours also started to circulate with the help of a certain someone. As Muslims heard about the new story, some felt enlightened, while others were doubtful. Doubts about the book being a ploy by someone began to circulate among the Muslim community in the empire. Undeterred, Vijay replaced the Holy Book of Islam in all the masjids. The people who embraced the new Dharmic Islam ideology were appointed as imams in the masjids. Shallow believers of Islam, who had converted due to heavy taxes and pressure from the Mughal Empire, found solace in the new Islamic ideology. This version of Islam did not prevent them from going to temples or force them to convert their relatives and neighbours with whom they had grown up.
So, new missionaries were formed with covert help from the government to quickly convert the old Muslims to new Muslims. The dress code was also different from the old Muslims; the Dharmic Muslims wore a saffron Taqiyah with a white overall. But the old Muslims who were sceptical did not believe in the new Holy Book of Islam or even that Muhammad wrote it; so the story of Muhammad's disciple was analyzed again and again, unfortunately finding no fault. At times, fights also broke out between the two distinct camps, leading to an all-out civil war within the community.
Vijay also pushed this issue to the government and let them not care about this, but secretly, Vijay sent in his people to lessen the number of the old Muslims in the empire. As a result of frequent clashes between the old Muslims and the Dharmic Muslims, thousands of casualties occurred. The 10 people Vijay selected were also showing signs of leadership as they showcased their superior intelligence and decision-making capabilities compared to others. With ideas and inspiration stemming from the past Earth's timeline, they were able to defeat anyone in a religious argument from the old Muslim side when it came to debates, which happened occasionally when there was no war.
From start to finish, Vijay acted like all of this had nothing to do with him, but in reality, he played a role from the very beginning.
This adjustment of Islam went on for almost two months since the cave was discovered. When the majority of Muslims in the Empire became dharmic, Vijay also happily gave their masjids back to their control on the condition that the mosque would only be allowed for the dharmic Muslims. Also, he happily announced, "Just as evil can never succeed against justice, the false believers of Mohammad can never blaspheme his name for their greed and evil ambition to rule the world. I now hereby announce that I will fund 10 large masjids for the Real Islamic believers, the real Muslims."
The people were very happy. The lives of the Dharmic Muslims became easier as they did not have to worry about when someone would question them about their beliefs in this Hindu-majority Empire. Now that their beliefs were not antagonistic at their core but somewhat similar, they did not have to maintain an antagonistic relationship with the brothers and sisters of the Empire. People also started to get close to them as they found out that these new Muslims who wore saffron hats were much more amicable than the previous Muslims.
Just as Vijay suspected, in the future, during the polarized state of the world in the 19th century (technology improved because of Vijay) of this timeline, attempts were made to prove that Dharmic Islam was false. It was alleged to be a ruse used by the Great Indian Emperor to damage and wipe out Islam from his land. Carbon dating was employed for the first time on the copper inscription. Surprisingly, the inscription seemed to be made at least seven centuries before Vijay was born. When this information was revealed, the world was shocked because the inscription was found to be even older than what they had believed, turning out to be older than the birth of Jesus Christ and Prophet Muhammad, which strengthened the Dharmic view that Islam and Christianity were tampered with.
While there were still some arguments that the Indian Emperor could have planted the inscriptions, there was no definitive evidence. There was not even a single talk about the reform of Islam in Vijay's rule. There was also a vast majority of Dharmic Muslim believers and their Hindu supporters who did not accept the Abrahamic ideology of Islam, so finally, the case was overthrown.
However, it was later picked up thousands of years into the future. At this time, Vijay did get caught, but no one cared. The need for a divine being had long passed the human need. In conclusion, Vijay was credited with the reform of Islam, which avoided a lot of bloodshed in the Southern hemisphere of the world.