Genuine H-M synthesis vs Artificial H-M synthesis

1. it is unclear what was the religion of Shirdi Sai Baba. Some say he was a hindu orphan who had been raised by a muslim couple. 

2. Shirdi Sai Baba's most frequently used phrase was 'Allah Malik' which means God is the Master. It is significant though that he should choose to use the arabic word for God in his conversations/discourses. 

3. Shirdi Sai Baba spoke of God, he spoke of the individual's surrender to God, he did away with rituals. He was inclined towards austerity and simplicity and not pomp or gaudiness.

4. The closest companion of Shirdi Sai Baba was someone who lived with him for the last decades of his life and who was definitely a muslim. Not just that this closest companion was a Haji meaning he had performed the Haj.

5. Shirdi Sai Baba comes across as a Sufi saint. Sufism is the mystical sect in Islam which talks of a mystical union with God and which expresses tolerance and empathy for all faiths and religions.

6. I was shocked therefore first when i went to Shirdi and saw the gaudiness, the tawdry commercialization in the vicinity of the Shirdi Sai Baba temple. I am calling it a temple even though there is a tomb of Shirdi Sai Baba in this place, just as there is a tomb of his closest companion.

7. what seems to have happened is that Shirdi Sai Baba had many Hindu disciples and the Hindus took over after his death and converted him from a sufi saint to a hindu saint or maybe i should say Hindu God. Images of Vishnu, the Sun God, and other Hindu deities are present all around Shirdi Sai Baba's tomb. Hindu Bhajans are performed.

8. I went to the local Sai Baba temple recently. I was shocked to see various idols and paintings of various hindu deities, hindu bhajans and aarati being performed and the ambience made the place indistinguishable from a Hindu temple. (The tombs of Shirdi Sai Baba and of his close companion who was a muslim makes it difficult to make the original Shirdi complex look like a  temple.)

9. In essence, what i was seeing was an example of Hinduism absorbing Sufism into its fold in a way similar to how Buddhism was absorbed. Needless to say i do not approve or endorse this method of converting a sufi saint into a hindu saint or hindu god posthumously. 

10. Sufism is genuine synthesis because sufi saints would sing in praise of Allah but also sing in praise of Hindu Gods. Their followers encompassed both Hindus and Muslims and even today in sufi shrines across India both Hindus and Muslims go to worship at these places.

11. The conversion of a sufi saint into a Hindu God is not synthesis; it is rather the killing of sufism by Hinduism just like Buddhism was killed all across India ('with a fraternal embrace').