Religious Impact

With the coming of Muslims and their religion, Hindu religion was facing a great
danger of conversion. The low caste people of the Indian society found the caste
system, marriage practices and daily life difficult, and by this reason they started
converting into Islam religion. After sometime Hindu religious thinker had also
adopted the liberal policy and attitudes the religious thinking and by this way
Bhakti cult emerged in India. The great impact on the Indian society was when
Islam came and gave a great shock to the Hindu religion. The Islam had shattered
Brahman supremacy and destroyed the royal patronage that Hinduism had been
enjoying.

Islam influenced the Hindu society in two ways. Firstly, the missionary zeal of
Islam which aimed at conversion of the maximum number of Hindus to Islam gave
rise to conservatism. The Hindu leaders thought that they could save their religion
and culture only by adopting more orthodox outlook.

Greater emphasis was laid on rigid religious life as per Smritis. Strict rules were
laid down regarding diet, marriage, and general conduct. Secondly, some of the
democratic principles of Islam found their way into the Hindu society.

Similarities between Hindu and Islamic Traditions:

According to Islam, one after death either enters Paradise (Jannah) or Hell
(Jahannam), depending on their deeds. However unlike Muslims, Hindus believe in
cycle of reincarnation.[13] However, the concept of higher and lower realms of
existence can be found in Hinduism, though the realms are temporary places[14]

Both are obliged to fight the Demons (Shaitan/Asura), who are in constantly war
against human and the Divine.[15]. Asuras are part of Hindu mythology along with
Devas, Yakshas and Rakshasas. Asuras feature in one of many cosmological
theories in Hinduism.[16][17] Asuras are sometimes considered nature spirits.
They battle constantly with the devas.[18]

Although the polytheistic practises of Hinduism are condemned by Islams strict

monotheism, similarities can still be found at the concept of the Divine and the
world. Both belief in the existence of an entirety supreme power, either called
Brahman or Allah. Brahman is a metaphysical concept which is the single binding
unity behind diversity in all that exists in the universe,[19][20] while Allah is the
Arabic word for God in Abrahamic religions. Assimilated in local lore, the Islamic
concept of God became comparable to the notion of the ultimate reality expressing
itself through different names as the creator, the maintainer and the destroyer.[21]
The Sufi concept of Waḥdat al-Wujūd is close to the world view asserted in the
Advaita Vedanta.[22] Some Islamic scholars belief that the worlds created by God
will perish and created a new resembling the Hindu notion of an endless procress
of generation and decay.[23][24]

Pilgrimage is found in both religions, Hajj to Mecca in Islam, while Kumbh Mela
and Tirtha Yatra in Hinduism.[25] Muslims performs 7 rounds around Kaaba
during Hajj which is called Tawaf.[26] Hindus also perform one or more rounds
around the center (Garbhagriya) of a temple (one to twenty-one[27]),[28][29][30]
which is called as Parikrama (known in Sanskrit as pradakśiṇā). Both of them are
commonly called circumambulation.[31][32]

By some members of the Ahmadiya Muslim Community, Hindu Avatar Kalki is

believed to be the Islamic Prophet Muhammad; some of the Muslim scholars and a
few of the Hindu scholars[33][34] also argued that kalki is mentioned indicating
Muhammad in some Hindu scriptures.[34][35] However, most of the Hindu
scholars widely discarded it as a false theory, claiming that Kalki is supposed to
arrive at the end of Kali Yuga, not in the beginning.

The idea of Fana has been compared to Samadhi.[36]