ISLAM AND VIOLENCE

Buddhists cannot consider Islam as a religion of compassion and peace. Those professing Islam have been the biggest enemies of Buddhists and Buddhism throughout history. There are ample historic records which describe vividly the atrocities committed against millions of Buddhists in several countries. Their criminality has not subsided in spite of their living among other religions in different countries. 

It is a well known fact that Buddhism disappeared from India under the sword of Islam. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the great Indian Buddhist leader said that there is absolutely no doubt that the fall of Buddhism in India was due to the invasions of the Musalmans or the adherents of Islam. For five centuries, from the 13th to 17th centuries, most parts of India were under Muslim rule. Over 50 million Buddhists and Hindus were massacred by Islamists in greater India (which in the past included Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afganistan). 

Islam destroyed Buddhism not only in India but wherever it went. Before the onslaught of Islam, Buddhism was the religion of almost the whole of Asia - ancient countries/regions such as Bactria, Parthia, Afghanistan, Gandhar, Chinese Turkestan, along with Tibet and Inner Mongolia were Buddhist nations that formed almost the whole of the Asian continent. Buddhism was the dominant religion of the people of this vast area of the Asian continent. Islam destroyed and eliminated Buddhism from almost all these countries.

Bactria was the country between the range of the Hindu Kush and the Amu Darya (Oxus). Its capital, Bactra (now Balkh), was located in what is now Afghanistan, and southern Tajikistan. Bactria was bounded on the east by the ancient region of Gandhara. Parthia Includes a large area to the northeast of modern Iran, and at its height covered all of Iran proper, as well as the modern countries of Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Eastern Turkey, Eastern Syria, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, the Persian Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Afganistan- Gandhar or Gandhara is a clan of people of Uttar Pradesh in India. In the very ancient times (the Mahabharata period) the present Kandahar province of Afghanistan was called Gandhar. Chinese Turkistan is a great chunk of modern China located at the extreme west of the country alongside Tibet and Inner Mongolia.

CRIME AND GRUESOME DESTRUCTION 

The Muslim or Musalman invaders totally destroyed the Buddhist Universities of Nalanda, Vikramsila, Jagaddala, Odantipur among others. (For further details read my paper in Lankaweb - titled “NALANDA: lIustrious International Buddhist University 5th century CE to 12 century CE “. At the end of 12th century, Muslim invaders demolished the university, burnt down its priceless library, and mercilessly massacred its scholars including Buddhist monks).

They razed to the ground Buddhist monasteries with which the country was studded. The monks fled away in thousands to Nepal, Tibet and other places outside India. Muslim invaders killed thousands of Buddhists outright. How the Buddhist monkhood perished by the sword of the Muslim invaders has been recorded by Muslim historians themselves.

Seen in this light the wanton and heartless destruction of the colossal Bamiyan Buddha statues by the Taliban as recent as in February 2001 does not seem out of place. Smashing the head of Brahma in Thao Maha Brahma or Phra Phrom Erawan Shrine in Bangkok was done by Muslim youth. It reflects the atavistic iconoclastic behaviour of Islam.

BANGLADESHI BUDDHISTS

Buddhists of Bangladesh have been subject to untold violence by Muslims in recent years. The Chakmas form the community of Buddhists that inhabit the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. Chakma Buddhist monks were forced to flee their traditional lands due to Islamic persecution and violence in the early 1990s. Some obtained Indian citizenships and formed the organization called Peace Campaign Group and are actively focusing on working against human rights violations systematically carried out by Muslims in Bangladesh. (For further details read my paper titled “Muslim Aggression Against Indigenous Buddhist Community In Bangladesh” - Lankaweb March 18, 2011) 

THAI BUDDHISTS

Muslims are a very small minority settler community in Southern Thailand, smaller than the Muslim settler community of Sri Lanka. Their objective is to have a separate country for Muslims in Sothern Thailand. Buddhist civilians and monks have been frequent targets of Muslim attacks in Southern Thailand in recent years. In late 2005, Muslims again started killing Buddhists in Southern Thailand. The bloodshed here could mark a resurgence of a long-simmering Muslim insurgency and, some officials fear, fertile ground for Islamic terrorists. More than 500 people were killed in 2006, in three southern Thai provinces, including attacks targeting Buddhists in possible bids to drive out non-Muslims.

Authorities are investigating possible links between these Muslim separatist groups and Islamic terrorist organizations such as Jemaah Islamiyah, which seeks a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia. It is blamed for attacks including the 2002 bombing in Bali that claimed 202 lives. Thitinan Pongsudhirak, an assistant professor of international relations at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University says "We have not yet seen escalation, "but I still think we may be headed from bad to worse." "The gruesome fashion of beheadings of Buddhists by Muslim assailants ... is not normal violence," said Pongsudhirak. "It is driven by deep animosity and hatred."

(For further details read my paper titled “Muslim Violence Against Buddhists In Thailand - Dhamsara May 12, 2012 and in People’s Watch Andhra Pradesh, March 22, 2011). 
PWAP · PEOPLS WATCH ANDHRA PRADES PWAP · PEOPLE'S WATCH ANDHRA ACTION NEEDED BY PEACE-LOVING NON-MUSLIMS

Why do Muslims battle all societies they infiltrate? Why are there no Muslim democracies? Aren’t these relevant questions for us to pose? The fact is that Muslims are notoriously militarized, more intransigent, belligerent and thus disproportionately involved in conflicts in the world. 

Action is required to contain the menace caused by uncaring and ruthless Muslim settlers living in non-Muslim countries where peaceful cohabitation and religious freedom has been a hallmark for a long period of time. Buddhists need to be vigilant and need to organize themselves against the abuse of privileges, aggression and misdemeanor by the Muslims living in Sri Lanka - our only motherland. 

NATIONAL INTEGRATION

A big problem with Islamists is that they believe that there is one ‘chosen religion’ and one ‘chosen people’. In an Islamic state, no consideration is given to people of other faiths. Non-Muslims cannot construct a temples, churches and monasteries in any of the Middle Eastern Islam countries. They cannot hold their religious functions or prayers in public in these countries.

In countries such as ours, where they are in a minority, Muslims insist on living an alienated and un-integrated life by agitating for concessions specified by their Islamic religion. Muslim minority community in India and Sri Lanka, misguided by its leaders, thinks and works only for its own narrow interests. The interest of the country is not its concern because it is not an Islamic country. They appear to be not interested in joining the national “mainstream” and work towards national unity and well-being. No Muslim gives any other religion a status of equality with Islam. Such an assumption is against the tenets of his creed. The struggle between Muslim communalism and Sinhela nationalism is a fast emerging serious problem in our country.

What is most unfortunate is that no meaningful dialog on Islam is possible with most Muslims in our country. They feel intimidated whenever we pose legitimate questions pertaining to Islam or the Quoran. We are considered as being anti-Islam when we pose such questions. Most Muslims lack the courage to respond to even the most abject injustices evident in the religion. They fail to realize that true open-mindedness consists of contemplating all premises and weighing the evidence, not of refusing to draw conclusions no matter how strong the case.

Reasoning involves deduction and induction. This is the basis of the scientific process: modeling and inferring from observations, relations and patterns.
Criticizing a minority ethnic religion may be treated as racism and bigotry, but acquiescence to Muslim intransigence and double standards, here and abroad, is the polite norm. Why are there no Muslim democracies? Why do Muslims cause disharmony and battle all societies they infiltrate? 

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane
Vancouver, CANADA