Path: shell.portal.com!shell.portal.com!not-for-mail From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva) Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.religion.buddhism,talk.religion.buddhism,alt.sufi,alt.islam.sufi,alt.religion.islam,talk.religion.misc,talk.religion.newage Subject: Gale: Buddhism and Islam Date: 22 Apr 1996 05:48:23 -0700 Organization: Portal Communications (shell) Lines: 73 Sender: tyagi@shell.portal.com Message-ID: <4lfv6n$jhr@jobe.shell.portal.com> Reply-To: gale@SineWave.com (Gale) NNTP-Posting-Host: jobe.shell.portal.com Reference: Xref: shell.portal.com alt.magick.tyagi:7745 alt.religion.buddhism:280 talk.religion.buddhism:19721 alt.sufi:1062 alt.religion.islam:26651 talk.religion.misc:214869 talk.religion.newage:50589 [from Tariqas Elist (sufism): Gale ; repost permission recvd] The topic on the relationship between Islam and Buddhism shows far more tension than harmony, which makes me question the validity of associating the Quranic zulkifl with Buddha  and especially amongst the sunna theological commentators -- unless it is some esoteric symbolism that seems to have not been known to the early Muslims. Otherwise why would there have been such a systematic destruction of Buddhist monasteries and libraries. As early as the mid 8th century, the Korean Buddhist Ou Kong writes about purposely avoiding the Muslim-occupied parts of Afghanistan, because of the danger it imposed to Buddhists, as he made his way to India. And the 9th century Kalachakra Tantra (one of the most important for the later Tibetan schools, ie. Gelugpa) prophesizes: about "Madhumati" as a false impostor who would destroy much of Buddhism  of course something similar happened when Mahmud of Ghazna destroyed the main Buddhist learning centers of India, especially Nalanda, in the 12th century. The Tibetan version of armageddon in some of the Shambala myths, or in the Khotanese versions with the coming of Maitreya, pitches the battle between Buddhism and Islam. (this info I remember while researching at the Tibetan Archives in Dharamsala in the 80s, although I do not remember the title of the exact source). As Islam pushed into Central Asia, many of the Muslim rulers saw themselves as fighting a holy war to destroy Buddhism, and this destruction was quite systematic. Even some Sufis, such as Fahr aldin Razi went as far as to deny Hinduism as a part of the prophetic tradition, whereas other Muslim traditions, eg, al-Biruni, and others, included Hindus in this line as a result of identifying Ibrahim with the Arabic barahima for brahmans. At the positive side of the picture, the most frequent Arabic titles for Buddha are al-budd (in Persian: but) and budasf or budisfiya, the latter referring to bodhisattva. Shahrastani in the 10th century actually writes that Buddhism is "very near to the teachings of the Sufis" and identified it as a "search for Truth" Shahrastani goes on to say that Buddha is al-Hadir. And a 19th Persian text on Tibet refers to the statues of Buddha as al-Hadir; the Naqsbandiyya in Central Asia, who were instrumental for bringing Islam to this Buddhist region, also made this identification. (if anyone on Tariqas can help me with understanding this word al-Hadir, I would appreciate it; my understanding is that it deals with "multiple personality" and thus Enoch, Hermes, Elias, Jeremiah, etc. are al-Hadir; this transliteration may also be different because my source for this is from a French text through the Vaticans Pontificio Instituto di Studi Arabi e dIslamisticii). Another Sufi, Ala al-Dawla al-Simnani represented the Buddhists on their behalf to the royal Iranian court. An interesting piece of historical trivia is that the famous Central Asian Buddhist cave temples at Toyug, near Turfan, became a seat for Qalandar dervishes who considered the caves as the abode of the "seven sleepers". And in the Tarim basin during the 14th century, the local Buddhist monastery and a Sufi tekke co-existed side-by-side. We should be reminded that by these centuries, Buddhism in Central Asia and the China basin was almost exclusively in its tantric form of vast iconography  the northern school of the Chan-HuaYen relationship already having succumbed for the most part to the more popular southern school at the end of the Tang. Other interesting tidbits: When the jesuit missionary expeditions  Matteo Ricci, Bento de Gois, Francis Xavier -- were making their way to Tibet in the middle ages, they associated with Muslim merchants in India for receiving travel instructions and info on the culture. What they received was the Indian Muslim perception that Tibetan Buddhism was a form of Christianity (either spoken of as authentic or degenerate, but usually the latter). The Portugese Jesuit, Antonio de Andrade, actually thought the Tibetans were a lost Christan group that became mixed with the indigenous religions when he encountered them. Finally, I have to admit that in all my research in this area, the term zulkifl has never appeared. And I have never seen any word associated with India or a region thereof even similar to it. Budd and budasf are consistent terms for Buddha in Muslim literature, identifying Buddha or the community he founded in the Quran is something quite different. Blessings to all, Nur Jemal Gale [please cc responses to: gale@SineWave.com]