As the World celebrates International Yoga Day on Tuesday, Islamists all over the social media are miffed with this ancient Hindu practice taking centre stage. With arguments like ‘Yoga is Shirk’, and ‘Yoga is not Islamic’, Islamists on Twitter have taken it upon themselves to urge Muslims not to follow this practice.
Major pushback against Yoga could be seen in the Maldives when India’s High Commission’s Cultural Centre organised International Yoga Day Celebrations in the Island nation. Apart from disrupting the actual event, Islamists from the country could be seen on Twitter flagging the event as ‘anti-Muslim’. Agitated with ‘Muslims’ being invited to the event (where everyone irrespective of their religion was invited) a Twitter user said that Yoga is Shirk and that the event is being held to humiliate Islam.
Yoga was called ‘Shirk’ – a concept in Islam that considers any form of idolatry or practice from a polytheistic religion a sin. Another Twitter user reminded his Muslim compatriots that a ‘Fatwa’ has already been issued against Yoga some two hundred years back.
On Tuesday, Islamists in the Maldives tried to disrupt the Yoga day event organised by the Indian High Commission. When the extremist act was condemned on social media, the very act of doing Yoga was called ‘extremist’ in response by some.
Another Twitter user published clippings from a documentary to highlight the Hindu roots of Yoga and Pranayams, and worried about Muslims doing Yoga. “Watch these clips, from a documentary about the history of yoga! it’s frightening how much it is spread among Muslims,” the alarmed user tweeted.
⚠️⚠️Thread!
— NashaAli (@F_NashaAli) June 20, 2022
Watch these clips, from a documentary about history of yoga! Is it’s frightening how much it is spread among Muslims.
O’ Muslims learn what’s yoga and stay away from that shirk!
1/12
Yoga is praised in Mahabharata, a sacred book of Hindus pic.twitter.com/xJVWMNrlKI
Several Tweets from the account asked Muslims to learn what yoga really is and to stay away from this shirk. Later in the thread, the user pointed out that Yoga has been praised in the Mahabharata and Lord Shiva always sits in a Yogic pose. Several clips of Hindu gurus including Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev have been posted on Twitter to prove how Yoga, given its Hindu roots is against Islam and Allah.
Allah is above the Throne. Not everywhere. In Hundhusim Yoga is a concept of Unification with God ,Which goes against the teaching of Islam . Oh Muslims dont participate in these polythiestic rituals. the way to Allah is only through his guidance NOT through a Yogi. pic.twitter.com/nCGKf8Q0Td
— Nisham Anwar (@NishamAnwar) June 16, 2022
“Allah is above the Throne. Not everywhere. In Hinduism Yoga is a concept of Unification with God, Which goes against the teaching of Islam,” a Twitter user wrote while posting a video clip of Sadhguru.
Meanwhile, the world celebrates the International Day of Yoga on June 21 every year. The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution in 2015 to celebrate the day dedicated to the ancient Hindu practice to achieve physical, mental and spiritual peace.
