Buddhist Monk – Muslim Dialogue & Peaceful Coexistence BY FATEN SABRI
There was a rare visit from three monks from a Buddhist temple in Thailand. A diplomatic delegation accompanied them from the Thai embassy—the monks dressed up in similar to the Muslim pilgrimage clothes, but orange. At the beginning of the visit, the delegation instructed us that the monks do not shake hands with women. Also, when it came to taking the memorial photo with me inside the mosque as a tour supervisor, I was supposed to kneel with the embassy staff. At the same time, the monks remain standing. They consider the monks in a higher position than everyone else.
I said to them:
About shaking hands, I do not shake hands with men, but as for the photo, I will only be standing since I only kneel to the Creator. If you don’t like that, I will come out of the picture. So they agreed. They took the photo for us. I was standing beside the monks at a distance while the embassy crew sat on the ground.
One of the monks, who was the most fluent in English, asked me:
What are your religion’s teachings?
I told him:
The teachings of our religion are similar to those of your religion, but we follow them fully, and you shortened them.
He said:
How is that?
I told him:
The commandments that you have regarding respect for human rights, including non-killing and respecting neighbors’ rights and kindness to the poor, are found in the teachings of every religion on earth, including Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity, and they are also in Islam.
However, the difference between Islam and other religions is that other religions marginalized and ignored the first commandment yet kept the rest.
He asked:
What is the first commandment?
I told him:
The belief in One God (the Creator), to whom all resort in adversity.
He asked:
Do you mean Gautama Buddha?
I told him:
No. I mean the Only Truth and Power in the sky, the Creator of Buddha himself and all human beings, to Whom all seek refuge when they exhaust all means to save them from crises.
I then said:
When an intense fear of thunder happens, doesn’t the Buddhist resort to the Power in the sky to seek protection?
He said:
Yes. But what is the evidence that this was among the commandments that we follow?
I told him:
The evidence is that you practice it unintentionally. Buddha taught you the religion of Islam by admitting that death is inevitable and giving you a description of the eternal life in which there is neither death nor pain, which is what you call “Nirvana.”
One of the famous scholars, Arthur Lily, says: “The following words were carved in stone: (What Buddha’s disciples thought about God, the soul, and the future of man) ‘We recognize and believe in God, who is a being worthy for this (faith).'”
He said:
But Buddha is a god.
I asked him:
Does God say about Himself, I am not the first Buddha, and I will not be the last Buddha?
Gautama Buddha did not demand any of his followers to worship him as a god or worship anything or any other person. Also, “Gautama” used the word “Buddha” in the context of the word “prophet,” meaning a person who is enlightened by a divine revelation.
Buddha said:
Everyone should believe in the next Prophet (Maitreya).
The word “Maitreya” or “Meta” in the Bali language and related terms used in Burmese, Chinese, Tibetan, and Japanese have the same meaning.
It is the same word “Rahmat” in Arabic, which means “Mercy”, where God Almighty referred in the Noble Qur’an to the Prophet Muhammad as a mercy to the worlds.
And We have not sent you, [O Muhammad], except as a mercy to the worlds. (Al-Anbau:107)
He said:
Wondrous! Do you assert that Buddha was a messenger of God who predicted the coming of your Prophet?
I told him:
We can never be sure; God never mentioned the name of Buddha in the Qur’an, but we see that there are striking similarities between religions; this does not exclude that its source is one, which is the Creator, and they differed due to human distortions.
The Qur’an repeatedly affirmed that the Creator sent messengers and prophets to all nations to recall the worship of One Creator and mentioned the names of some, and others did not.
The Creator says:
And We certainly sent into every nation a messenger, [saying], ‘Worship God and avoid Taghut (Satan and every leader of misguidance)’And among them were those whom God guided, and among them were those upon whom error was [deservedly] decreed. So, proceed through the earth and observe how was the end of the deniers. (Al-Nahl:36)
He asked:
Is there evidence of Muhammad’s prophecy in the books of Hinduism too?
I told him:
Yes. Narashansa, or the praised person (Muhammad), is a Karma: Prince of Peace or Expatriate, and he is safe, even among a group of sixty thousand and ninety enemies. He rides the camel, and his chariot touches the sky.
Narashansa, “The man of praise,” refers to the Prophet Muhammad. The actual meaning of the Arabic word “Muhammad” is: “the praiseworthy man.” It is not known exactly how many enemies the Prophet Muhammad had at that time, but it has been proven that there were thousands.
When the Prophet Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Yathrib, he went on a camel.
I also said:
There are many others.
God said:
Say, [O Muhammad], “O mankind, indeed I am the Messenger of God to you all, [from Him] to whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth. There is no deity except Him; He gives life and causes death.” So believe in God and His Messenger, the unlettered Prophet, who believes in God and His words, and follow him that you may be guided. (Al-A’raf:158)
The visit ended, and they requested copies of the Qur’an’s translations in the Thai language, and they thanked us very much.
Last word:
By looking closely at peoples’ beliefs, we discover that most nations that have religious heritage and various religious symbols still believe in the existence of a Creator of the universe, who they resort to in times of adversity. We find that humans are innate to search for absolute justice and the inevitability of a day of Judgment for human beings to be held accountable for their actions.
Every child is born sinless. Everyone can call upon their Creator without any intermediary. If the child is left alone without parents or any teachings, he will grow up worshiping the Creator alone. At the age of puberty, he will be responsible for his actions. He chooses to remain monotheist, worship his Creator alone, or change his natural religion and take a wrong path by praying to God through an intermediary (Jesus, Mary, Buddha, Idols, Muhammad… etc.).
The Creator said:
Say: “O people of the Scripture: Come to a word that is just between us and you, that we worship none but Allah the same, and that we associate no partners with Him, and that none of us shall take others as lords besides Allah.” Then, if they turn away, say: “Bear witness that we are Muslims” (Al-Imran:64)
I remember a lovely comment from an elderly German when I explained to him the definition of Islam. He said to me: This is a new religion that I have not heard of before. It is logical and can unite humanity. I live among Muslims, but I have never understood Islam in this way.
I said: This is the old, new, and eternal world religion from the time of Adam; peace be upon him till the last day for humans on this earth.
This Religion is:
Believing in God (the Creator), He has no partner or son. The Creator is neither male nor female. The use of the pronoun “He” is because of the language inability to have articles and pronouns to refer to the Creator.
He does not incarnate in any of His creations or any idol. It is illogical to accept the creator of the matter to be in the form of the matter; the maker of the phone is not a phone. In the same way the Creator of the human is not a human.
The Creator created Prophet Jesus without a father, as He created Prophet Adam without a father or mother, as He creates but begets not.
Humans need to directly connect with the Creator, not through any idol, priest, saint, grave, Prophet, or family member of any Prophet.
All human beings must also believe in all the prophets from Adam to Muhammad, including Moses and Jesus Christ. May the blessings of God be upon them all.
Humans must believe in the Day of Judgment, where human beings will be held accountable for their actions.
If all people applied this religion, humanity would have united.
Muslim respects Non-Muslims freedom of choice. The Muslim does not oppress the non – Muslim or steal him and does not diminish his right. Still, he does not recognize his incorrect faith as a true religion, because the true religion is one, and the Creator is one.
If some Muslims today fail to follow the teachings of their great religion and do not correctly take knowledge, this is due to their human weakness.
The Muslims’ failure to convey the correct message of Islam, their lousy treatment with non-Muslims, or their scientific backwardness after they were the pioneers of material science and its founders, does not change the fact that the religion of Muslims is correct.
Note:
The reference of God to Himself as WE or US in many verses of the Qur’an denotes Grandeur and Power in Arabic. In the English language this is known as the royal WE, where a plural pronoun is used to refer to a single person holding a high office, such as a monarch. For the avoidance of doubt, the Qur’an has consistently reminded us of the SINGULAR pronoun in reference to God, when called upon by His servants.
The Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Middle East use the word “Allah” to refer to God, which refers to The Only True God.
The word Allah was mentioned in the earlier version of the Old Testament 89 times. (Refer to Genesis 2:4, Book of Daniel 6:20 Hebrew and Arabic Bible).The word ‘Allah’ appears in the original Sanskrit text. (Reg Veda – Book 2 hymn 1, Verse 11).
The Qur’an is the last sacred book sent by God, but not the only book, as Muslims believe in all the earlier revelations of God (the scriptures of Abraham, the book of David, the Torah, the Gospel,etc.). Muslims believe that the original message in all the sacred books is Pure Monotheism (unifying God in worship). Unlike the Divine scriptures that preceded, the Qur’an has not been kept in the hands of any particular group or clergymen of allMuslims which would lead to the misinterpretation or alteration of it. On the contrary, the Qur’an has always been within the reach of Muslims who recite it in their daily prayers, and they refer to it for all their concerns. Muslims read and recite the same Qur’anic text that was read and recited during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions. Not a single letter has been added or removed from the Qur’an. The language of the Qur’an, the prophecies which came true, the accuracy in historical accounts, the mathematical inimitability and scientific accuracy, all prove that the Qur’an could not have been produced by a man who lived in Arabia in the 7th century and who could not read or write. God the Almighty challenged the Arabs and the non-Arabs to bring forth a book similar to the one He revealed, even though the Arabs at that time were masters of eloquence and rhetoric, they were unable to meet the challenge, and they realized that the Qur’an could not be from any other than God, the Lord of the universe.
References:
A Global Religion
Faten Sabri
Gospel of Buddha by Carus pg.217 and 218 (from Ceylon sources).
Quote from the book “India in Primitive Christianity”, p. 85.
“Arshagyanam”(Page282).
Prophecy on The Coming of Prophet Muhammad in Other Scriptures – Zakir Naik
