Understanding “The Others”: Buddhist-Islamic Dialogue for Peace with Particular Reference to ‘Moderation’ (original) (raw)
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Mere Reconciliation is not enough for solving the conflict in the world especially in the Deep South of Thailand between Thai Buddhists and Thai Muslims, because reconciliation aims at doing a compromise, which has its limitation only on some particular purposes, whereas the harmony has more scope than the reconciliation. We can say that the religiously pluralistic harmony of Buddhists and Muslims in the southern part of Thailand is the necessary condition for the ever lasting peace, for it is based on the mutual respect for the diversity of pluralistic harmony between two religions. Nonattachment is the essential condition of harmony in Buddhism, while justice based on forgiveness is in Islam. Non-attachment and forgiveness as the essence of sustainable harmony can be conducted through the method of inter-religious dialogue of life, action, religious doctrine, and religious experience. To solve the problem in the Deep South of Thailand, both Thai Buddhists and Thai Muslims, who have been living there in the three provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, for many decades, will have to build their trust through their religious doctrine of harmony based on nonviolence, forgiveness and justice, etc. Besides, harmony between people of the two nations, Thailand and Malaysia, should be planted through mutual collaboration in different social and political projects to help solve the conflicts in the Deep South of Thailand. If the Buddhists both from inside and outside the three provinces as well as the Thai Muslims inside and outside the South could practice the principle of harmony as such, sustainable peace will be definitely guaranteed not only to Thailand but to the world at large.
Buddhist-Muslim Dialogue. Observations and Suggestions from a Christian Perspective
The Muslim World, 2010
W hile Muslim-Buddhist encounter is in fact quite old, 1 Muslim-Buddhist dialogue seems to be rather young. We do not really know which kind of perhaps serious and penetrating dialogues might have taken place during the rapidly progressing expansion of early Islam towards the East. There are signs and indices that Muslims, in particular Sufis, were at times under Buddhist influence to which they apparently replied positively. But as far as I am aware, there are no records of any dialogue in which both partners would have tried to understand each other as they understood themselves and let that kind of understanding have an impact on their own religious views. Instead there are several cases displaying an application of false-or at least highly problematic-categories on the religious other with partly fateful consequences resulting from that. One of the early Sufis, Ibrāhīm ibn Adham (d. c. 790 CE?), lived in Balkh ("Bactra"), which had been the capital of Buddhist Bactria before its conquest by the Muslims. The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang who visited Balkh in the 7 th century CE provided a lively image of its flourishing Buddhist culture. 2 Not just Ibrāhīm ibn Adham's lifestyle of voluntary poverty and chastity but also the tradition that he had left his father's palace and chosen the life of an ascetic could very well reflect Buddhist influence. 3 Other indications of possible Buddhist influence on Sufis have been pointed out, 4 but we don't have any direct evidence of an interest of Sufis in Buddhist teachings or practice that would parallel, for example, the relatively strong Muslim interest in Yoga. 5 A number of medieval Muslim authors as al-Kermāni, al-Nadīm, Istakhrī and, most famously, al-Bīrūnī (10/11 CE) did touch upon Buddhism in their writings, yet what they relate is nowhere near to being accurate. This is to some extent different with al-Shahrastānī (c. 1076-1153 CE) who sketches a comparatively detailed picture of Buddhist teachings and points out a certain nearness between Buddhist and Sufi ideas. However, this hardly had any impact on what was apparently the main Muslim view of Buddhism, namely, that it suffers "from the twin evils of idolatry, through its use of richly decorated visual statues and paintings; and of atheism, through not having a theistic God at the centre of their religious system." 6 As "idolatry" Buddhism was identified with that Buddhist-Muslim Dialogue. Observations and Suggestions from a Christian Perspective