We know that superstitions means irrational attitude of mind towards the unknown. It is belief in things foe which there is no national foundation. In fact, it is nothing but belief in supernatural things like signs and portents, ghosts and spirits, charms and magic. It is really an unreasonable reverence for unworthy objects. It is founded on fear. It is the religion of feeble minds.
Illiteracy and ignorance are the mother of superstitions and fear their father. Not a leaf falls, not a wind blows, not a flower blooms without reason. But even today we have unusual reverence for certain things because modern men know more of nature than primitive men. As a result, men don't believe today in what their forefathers believed. At the dawn of civilization when men were at the mercy of nature and were afraid of lightning and thunder, earthquake and flood, they came to believe that there was a God behind each of them. So they tried to please these goods and avoid their worth by prayers and by making sacrifices of different things. It was in this way that superstition had its origin in the remote past. Such superstitions used to prevail in ancient Egypt and Babylon, in ancient Greece and Room, in ancient India and China and in fact in every country in ancient world.
Still men are not absolutely free from superstitions despite rapid progress of science and education. Indeed popular superstitions are founded more or less in evey country. There is a general tendency in men to follow the beaten track to believe in what their forefathers believed. The number 13 is still regarded as inauspicious in western countries. There thirteen men never sit together either to dine or to transact any important business. Belief in ghosts and spirits is also a universal belief and so is faith in astrology and palmistry. The loss of the wedding ring is looked upon even in Russia as highly ominous.
There are lots of popular superstitions in our country. Many feel rejected with fear for failure, if they meet a washerman when they start to go out on business. If such a man is called from behind or hears the sound of sneezing he postpones his journey. The shrieking of an owl and the whining of a dog at night or the loud crowing of a jackdaw at midday fills many with uncanny fear of coming ills. If a man or woman suffers from hysterical fits, he or she is supposed to have been possessed by some evil spirit. Many students of our country refrain from takings bananas or eggs for meal during the days of examination for fear of getting plucked.
Superstitions exercise a tremendous influence on our mind. Whatever be their nature and form, they are always bad and should by no means be encouraged. For they weaken our mind, destroy our courage and kill our spirit of taking risks and initiative. They make us fatalistic and narrow minded. They thus hinder our progress and perpetuate ignorance.
Superstitions are creatures of darkness. With the spread of light and knowledge they run for their lives and vanish. But they have a tendency to die hard. The only effective antidote to superstitions is the development of firm conviction that nothing in this world happens by chance, but that everything happens in obedience to certain fixed laws. One must have an unwavering faith that our destiny is in the hand of Allah and that our good fortune depends not on chance but on our work.
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