I lived in JNU for two days with my Muslim friend. His brother and cousin are also student at JNU and they also live here in the hostel. They told me a really crazy story. They said that when they were in Aligarh Muslim University a few years back, once all the students were called together to listen to a lecture which was going to be delivered by a mullah (a religious leader of Islam). They did not know what this mullah was supposed to talk about but what they heard in his lecture made them really angry. The lecture was supposed to be about Islam but in fact it was against America.

The mullah talked about the India-origin astronaut named Sunita Williams who went to space under a NASA program in the year 2006. The mullah said that when Sunita was in space and looked towards the earth, she found the whole earth dark but two places- Mecca and Medina ( two holiest cities of Islam). He said that everything looked dark to Sunita but Mekka and Madina were shining like a star. It was a miracle of Allah and it proved that Allah is the greatest one and Islam is the only true religion. After seeing this, Sunita  with other six astronauts, who were working together in space, turned highly devoted to Islam.

And after coming back to earth they converted to Islam. But the American government did not like it and they did something and now Sunita and the other six astronauts were missing. The mullah did not say anything about what happened with them but it was a clear indication that something wrong had happened with them. He meant to say that Sunita and the other people were missing only because they converted to Islam and the American government did not like it. My friend told me that the mullahs were so angry and loud when they were telling this story.

The mullah was saying that Sunita was always on Indian TV before she went to space and even after coming from space for few days. But after a few days she never appeared on the TV again. The mullahs were asking to the students where was Sunita? Was this her fault that she found Mecca and Medina most shining cities on the planet and realized the truth that Islam was the real religion and Allah is the only God and finally they converted to Islam? After hearing this students were so angry. Even my friend who is doing a PhD also believed him. My friend is not an exception but I was shocked to see such an educated person believing this kind of crazy story.

I knew that this story was bullshit so I showed him some information online. I already knew that Las Vegas was the most shining city on the planet and I told him about it. He was pretending to be against that mullah’s story after reading the Las Vegas article on Wikipedia but still it seemed like he believed that mullah’s story more. I remember that once my friend had told me that it was his dream to see the complete destruction of America sometime before he dies. I asked him why and he told me several stories of America in Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq…

I do not understand why a few religious leaders do such things. What is the problem with them. They must understand that spreading wrong information and getting involved in politics is also one the reasons why Christians have stopped going to the Churches. I don’t think religion is bad but religion becomes really bad when such religious leaders become the leaders of the religion.  A few of my Christan friends told me that churches in the West used to issue a certificate saying that the all the sins are forgiven and they charge money for it. People stop practicing religion when such things take place and when people come to know about the reality and these religious leaders must understand it.

They must know that they are not doing something good for the religion, in fact it will show a terribly negative impact in the future when people will have information and Internet is spreading fast and they should consider it as a alarm of danger for them.  People will question them and they will have no answer.