Post-Tension Relationship between Buddhists and Muslims in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Sri Lanka is a multi religious, multi cultural, multi lingual and multi ethnic country and Buddhists are the predominant ethnic group, constitutes 70.19%  of total population and the Muslims are second largest minority in this country. There are enormous records in the history to prove well the cordial relationship, longer than 1200 years, between the Buddhists and the Muslims since historical times onward. However, in recent past years, particularly, during the aftermath of civil war (1983-2009) it could be observable a tension on the relationship between these two societies. This is because of campaigns undertaken by a few Buddhist nationalist groups with the purpose of making a division between the respective societies. So these groups have been carrying protests against the Muslims’ social, cultural and religious aspects such as issuing Halal certification, slaughtering animals for meals, worship places and prayer services and so on. Also, they have disseminated the misinterpretations about the Muslims and their religion-Islam with derogatory speeches among the Buddhist public. Based on the above backdrop, this paper attempts to find the post-tension Buddhists’ relationship with the Muslims through the Buddhists’ point of view with a measure social interaction. According to the result, there is not remarkable fluctuation on the relationship line between the Buddhists and the Muslims, and the Buddhists did not concern the number of social, cultural and religious practices of the Muslims as the barriers of maintaining a better interaction among them. However, almost all of the Buddhists have pointed out here that the animal slaughtering is a mere problematic factor from the Muslims side in maintaining a better interaction with them due to having prohibition according to Buddhism philosophy.

Keywords: Post-tension, relationship, Buddhists, Muslims, Sri Lanka.