While we have extensively discussed the atrocities unleashed by Islamic jihadis upon Christians and Hindus, jihadis often perpetrate the same atrocities against Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists. Together these groups form micro-minorities on the Indian subcontinent.
Though Buddhists have a strong presence in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, they are still a minority in the subcontinent’s vast populations. So what are the odds of those who have tormented the region’s largest religious population, the Hindus, in their land, leaving the micro-minorities alone?
“You can be full of kindness and love, but you cannot sleep next to a mad dog,” said the 52-year-old Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu of Myanmar. He was referring to Muslims. We wonder, what could compel a peaceful monk to come up with such a cruel comment?
In March 2001, the Islamic jihad group the Taliban blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan. Standing tall at 38 meters and 55 meters, the twin statues were monumental wonders of ancient artistry from the sixth century. But they were destroyed, as they in all their grandeur were dismissed as “idols of the infidels” by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
Seven years later, when the Tehreek-e-Taliban overran the Swat Valley in Pakistan, the meditating statue of Buddha dating back to the seventh century became one of its first casualties.
In July 2020, a 1700-year-old Buddhist idol, discovered in Pakistan and believed to be a product of the Gandhara civilization, was destroyed. At the behest of an Islamic cleric, four construction workers took sledgehammers to the “un-Islamic” ancient relic and smashed it into pieces.
In 2013, Haider Ali, Mujibullah, Imtiyaz, and Tarique Ansari were taken in custody for planting thirteen bombs in the Bodh Gaya temple complex. This is a major Buddhist pilgrimage site in Bihar, India, and is frequented by large groups of Buddhists from all corners of the world. Though the explosives were recovered before they exploded, two monks were severely injured in the mayhem. Taking the Myanmar situation as a backstory to justify their long-contemplated violence against the Buddhists, jihadis have often targeted them in countries in which the Muslim population is dominant.
However, to think that they depend on an excuse to resort to violence would be naive. The Nalanda University of India was a revered monastery and the epicentre of learning from the fifth century to the twelfth century CE. Supported by the Buddhist emperor, it was, in its era, what Cambridge or Oxford is today. In 1193, the Turkish invader Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khilji and his army of marauders descended on the treasury of knowledge of astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and philosophy, and razed it to the ground. The residential university housed 2000 teachers and 10,000 students, thousands of whom were beheaded or burned alive. The mammoth collection of nine million manuscripts continued to burn for three months.
Instances of pillage and plunder are recorded throughout history, dating back to 712-13 CE, when the city of Bukhara, in present-day Uzbekistan, was ravaged by the Arabs. Mosques replaced Buddhist monasteries and Buddhist shrines were ground down across Central Asian territories that were attacked by the Arab general of Khorasan, Qutaybah ibn Muslim.
In recent history, the Borobudur Buddhist temple in Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia suffered major damage in 1985, after nine bombs planted by Mohammad Jawad, Abdulkadir Ali Alhabsyi, and a blind Muslim preacher, Husein Ali Al Habsyi, detonated at the site.
Another South Asian country, Bangladesh, receives huge grants from international bodies for the development of its infrastructure and living conditions. This aid has done little to educate Bangladesh’s jihadis, who are armed to attack its minorities round the clock. When it’s not the Hindus, they come for the Buddhists.
In 2012, twelve Buddhist temples and monasteries and 50 houses were ransacked by a 25,000-strong local mob. An alleged Facebook post by a Buddhist criticizing the Quran had fueled the fury. It was later found that no Buddhist had made any such Facebook post.
In 2016, a 75-year-old Buddhist monk was hacked to death and his body was recovered from a Buddhist temple in the district of Bandarban, Bangladesh. He was just one of many from the minority community who have been murdered by suspected jihadis during this time.
Buddhist monks have organized peaceful rallies demanding UN intervention because of the incessant Islamic jihad attacks on the Buddhists of Bangladesh. We are awaiting the UN’s action on the humble appeal.
We keep hearing so much about Uyghur Muslims being abused by the Chinese government. That abuse is not justified. But what we are not being told is that the Uyghurs were originally Buddhists of the Kingdom of Qocho and Turfan. They were invaded and converted at swordpoint during a “holy war” waged against the Buddhist kingdom by Chagatai Khizr Khwaja. Many of the converted descendants retain no memory of their Buddhist legacy and harbour the same attitude toward the “infidel” as any regular jihadi would. But again, isn’t it how any population that has been converted to this ideology is relentlessly exhorted to think, behave and function?
DavidR says
Not found in history books all over the World.
Singh T. Junior says
The new form of jihad taking place in India utilizes underage muslim boys to enter the temples and urinate and defecate on the holy shrines and statues of Gods. The average uneducated Indian moslem family has nine to ten children, and they go to islamic madrasa schools where the islamic clerics train them for “shit jihad” when they are not raping them. If these boys get arrested red handed, they are not tried as adult and they get away with light sentences. If the boy is beaten up by the Hindus in the temple, then all moslems around the world, specially the British BBC pakistani-types, start screaming Islamophobia from top of their lungs. Then they create go-fund-me cites for the boys and hundreds of thousands of dollars/rupees/pounds/euros pour in, which is money laundering for future jihad. A rule of thumb is to post signs on your places of worship that clearly say “moslelms are not allowed.” Many Hindu temples are posting these signs, and now moslem/communist jihadi media is crying fault saying this is islamophobia. Why would a moslem want to go to a Hindu temple in the first place if koran teaches not to worship any god but allah?
gravenimage says
Ugly stuff.
born saturday says
qoranimals!!!
Keith O says
Felt like vomiting as I read this.
The mere idea of killing a Buddhist monk is, I believe, on the same level as killing women and children.
Saddens me to think that the last thought that went through the monks mind would have been compassion for his killer.
Even Catholics, during the worst of the empires excesses didn’t do this.
R Suri says
If killing of a Buddhist monk makes u vomit, you should come to india see how Hindu priests are being killed by these jihadis. In the past it is said Orangzeb will not take breakfast unless hundreds of Hindu priests were beheaded in the mornings and their sacred thread deposited to him.
Keith O says
R Suri, Mudslimes throughout history have been real arseholes and nothing has changed.
Must confess, I have a soft spot for Buddhists from my time in South East Asia and I’m marrying one.
Have had very little contact with Hindus, but this is something I am trying to correct.
James Lincoln says
Congratulations on your upcoming marriage, Keith O!
gravenimage says
Seconded! Congratulations on your marriage!
americanpatriot says
As a matter of daily fact, the whole non-Islamic world is still ignorant of deadly ideology called Islam and its relentless pursuit of achieving global domination by all means done by Muslims. Inside Muslim majority countries, devout Muslims squeeze out non-Muslim minorities in various inhumane ways such as those mentioned in this article. For those not-yet-Muslim countries, Muslims try to sneak into non-Muslim lands in a daily basis to transform that non-Islamic country into Islamic one in the long-term. Cases in point: Bangladeshis assuming the name Rohingya always try to sneak into South-western state of Myanmar in daily basis. Malays try to settle into Southern parts of Thailand. Almost three provinces are gone there and more to follow. It is a Muslim’s holiest duty to spread Islam by all means including migration. No single Hindu or Chinese migrated into Myanmar for the sake of spreading Hinduism and communism but Islam does have this strategy outlined in Quran. The plight of non-Muslim minorities inside Muslim majority countries is always the same.
Our non-Islamic world not only ignore the plight of these people and ongoing Islamic jihad using non-violent method of migration, our leaders and majority folks also stand with these who apply Islamic tools of deception such as islamophobia, racism and hate-mongering used against any legitimate genuine criticism of Islam and Muslim atrocities. In fact, these terms are smoke-screens used to protect Islam from any critical scrutiny. Muslims never ever respect equal rights of non-Muslims in their midst, they shamelessly demand rights in non-Muslim majority countries. It is a shameless travesty we have to deal with.
Justis says
You so astutely define Islamist jihadist ideology that’s been going on for decades, radicals implement their ideology of destroying non Muslim majority countries from within by way of smoke screens you mention.
Islam is not a religion of peace, it’s a political theory of conquest that seeks domination by any means it can.
Former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali made that statement.
gravenimage says
From a 1700-Year-Old Buddha Statue to a 75-Year-Old Buddhist: A Brief Account of Islamic Aggression
……………
Yes–Islam violently targets Buddhists just as it does Jews, Hindus, and Christians.
Infidel says
It’s interesting as this story appears immediately after the one about Sri Lanka relaxing its crackdown on the hijab
Bikinis not Burkas says
Quran 8:12 is the basis of their hatred!
Infidel says
Great article by Krishna Priya. If any religion ought to be more ‘islamophobic’, it should be the Buddhists
As s/he notes, Buddhism was once at par w/ Hinduism in the subcontinent – dominant in Gandhara, Turan, large swathes of India, Burma and beyond as well as Sri Lanka. When the Ghaznavids came, they first wiped out Buddhism from Afghanistan (Jayapala and Anandapala – the last non-muslim rulers of Kabul, were Buddhist). Then there was those invasions of India, and during the Turkic conquests, Buddhists and Jains were heavily massacred. Buddhism was wiped out from India, and if it survives today, it’s only courtesy all those other countries – Tibet, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Korea and Japan. Jainism was indeed reduced to a micro-religion
Krishna Priya mentioned Bangladesh, and it’s worth noting that there, their South Eastern part of the country, known as Arakan (Rakhine in Burma), was heavily Buddhist, particularly the Chakmas. Over the decades, Bangladesh kept persecuting them so that they fled to both India and Burma. Now Bangladesh whines when the Burmese military sends Rohingya Muslims, who are none other than Bengali Muslims from Chittagong, back into Bangladesh
As far as Bukhara goes, I recall reading that the Zoroastrians had a tower of silence (where the dead were left to be consumed by vultures), which kept getting demolished by the Samanid rulers of Iran, and getting rebuilt. Finally the Samanids built a mosque over it, so that it couldn’t be rebuilt
Essentially, what Burma and Sri Lanka are doing to Muslims is what needs to be done. Burma’s solution of expelling Muslims is ideal, but failing that, Sri Lanka’s solution of banning madrassas is admirable as well. Yeah, the West may condemn them, but the governments of those countries, including the illegitimate junta in Naypyidaw, are accountable more to their people than to the UN, OIC, EU or Ilhan Omar
Andrew Blackadder says
A couple of years ago I was in Phnom Penh Cambodia, huge construction works were going on all along the main road from the Airport into the City with huge machines digging up the road in order to lay down new sewer pipes and Cyber Cables,anyways, on that main road there is a rather big mosque, Cambodia has a very small islamic community, so the Iman in this mosque went to the Government and demanded, always with the demanding, never politely just ask, that the noise from the construction machines was making it difficult for them in the mosque to hear their prayers and so it must be stopped while they pray…
The Government responded by suggesting…. ” Just close your doors”….
And that Ladies and Germs is how you deal with muslims and there loud mouthed demanding bullshit…
mgoldberg says
In my younger days, I had the opportunity to live in a buddhist community where the abbot was a rather exceptional human being. I never heard him say anything negative about other religions, except once, and only that one time. To give the short version: at one point he quietly but firmly noted that ‘Islam is a devil’s religion’. It took me years to come to grips with that because I had never heard him voice criticisms of other religions, let alone such a blanket judgement as that one. Until I think, about the time when Meir Kahane was assassinated in NYC and shot in the face by Jihadists, I didn’t really think it worth considering. A devil’s religion was thereafter not some mere absurdity but the reality which I would discover began over 1400 yrs before.
Alex Benziger.G says
UNO is must be abolished.
United Nations, what they are doing? ISIS in Syria and Iraq, Taliban in Afghanistan, Al-Queda in Pakistan and Boko Haram and Fulani militants in Nigeria did a great tribulation but the UNO is not doing anything.
Day to day the expenditure of ISIS and the other terrorist groups are lakhs of Dollars. But the amounts and the arms and ammunitions is coming from where to this terror groups. Why the UNO is not trying to find these matters and to stop its activities.
There is no human right available to the peoples in China, North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia but the UNO is not interested to interfere in this matters.
UNO is not interested in the elimination of poverty in Yemen, Nigeria, Sudan, and other countries.
UNO is interested only in the matters of Lesbian, gay, transgender and abortion.
75 years have passed from the formation of UNO, still the UNO have not been achieved the 4 main purposes of its formation. The first second and fourth purposes are about peace among nations and the third purpose is lives of poor, hunger and disease.
UNO must be keen to achieve its four main purposes. But, the UNO is going the other way. UNO is going beyond the objects. UNO is detracted and detached from its main object. The world is going against natural order.
And hence, UNO is must be abolished.
gravenimage says
Muslims have enormous influence in the UN.
Infidel says
50 of the countries are muslim countries, making them the biggest single block of the 190. Note that there is no such association of Christians or even simply Catholic countries
gravenimage says
Yep.
Bikinis not Burkas says
They are called the O.I.C.
Organization
of
Islamic
Co-operation
Geof B says
The Buddhists of Myanmar and Sri Lanka made the right response to muslum bs . Just not enough
Infidel says
Myanmar has done exactly the right thing – expel them all, and not look back. While the West sanctioned them in response, they’ve not been isolated, since both China and India want them in their sphere of influence. So Myanmar has been doing fine due to this competition for its support
Sri Lanka has so far not kicked out anybody, but short of that, they’ve done the right thing by banning madrassas. Even if they relent on the veil – which they shouldn’t, they should definitely not relent on the madrassas. Nor on the ban on burials. While the reason they gave of not wanting the Chinavirus to contaminate the water supply may be spurious in and of itself, it’s a fantastic pretext to deny muslims conquest by dargahs. Anyone who wants to be buried can be sent to Maldives, or else, they can be cremated like everyone else and their ashes dumped in the Indian Ocean
Bikinis not Burkas says
Australian Company tracks world wide TERRORISM!
https://www.economicsandpeace.org/reports/
Bet you didn’t know about these Buddhists being slaughtered by Muslims, read the report!
Thailand recorded the second highest number of deaths in the region since 2002, with over 1,900 fatalities. Terrorism deaths in Thailand increased in 2019 for the first time since 2014, rising by 23 per cent.
Governments entertaining Muslims in their countries is eventually suicidal!