Author: Rahul Gautam, New Delhi
Publication: BJP Today
Date: April 16-30, 2001
Mr. Syed Shahabuddin sounds unconvincing
while condemning the Taliban action in Bamiyan as un-Islamic. I quote below
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar on the subject:
After observing that the Persian
word “but” meaning “idol” is derived from Buddha, he writes “Thus the origin
of the word indicates that in the Muslim mind idol worship had come to
be identified with the religion of Buddha. To the Muslims they were one
and the same thing. The mission to break idols thus became the mission
to destroy Buddhism. Islam destroyed Buddhism not only in India but wherever
it went. Bactria, Parthia Afghanistan, Gandhara and Chinese Turkestan ...
in al these countries Islam destroyed Buddhism”. More precisely: The Muslim
invaders sacked the Buddhist universities of Nalanda. They razed to the
ground Buddhist monasteries with which the country was studded. The monks
fled away in thousands. A very large number were killed outright by the
Muslim commanders”. D. D. Kosambi, a historian of her own Marxist school,
confirms that Nalanda was sacked “by a handful of Muslim raiders under
Mohammed bin Bakhtyar Khalji about AD 1200” and that “the tremendous complex
at Sarnath which had grown up on the site of the first Buddhist sermon
was wrecked beyond recovery, thus ending a continuous tradition of refuge
and meeting place for ascetics which went back to the centuries before
Buddha”.
Who would believe that the Taliban
does not have sympathisers outside Afghanistan?
