Understanding the minds and motivations of the Jihadist bombers

'I have been made victorious with terror!'

UPDATE HALLOWEEN 2017.
ANOTHER ATTACK, THIS TIME VEHICULAR JIHAD RATHER THAN A BOMBING,  WITH A TRUCK AIMED AT A SCHOOL BUS, BUT THE SAME ARGUMENTS APPLY...


I wrote this original analysis of terrorism as a contagious mental illness  four years ago.   The situation has continued to deteriorate since then, with the attacks becoming ever more frequent, and the latest one specifically targeting children, leaving little girls killed, maimed, mutilated and disfigured for life, with faces ripped apart by shrapnel deliberately added to the bomb for that purpose.  Ever since the Beslan attack, the jihadists have been particularly keen to murder and maim infidel children. with more attacks planned for the future.   (For an explanation of the jihadist attitude to child murder/abuse/rape read this)

 

Saffie Roussos, youngest victim of Jihadist human sacrifice

The well-intentioned but dangerous delusion of the 'Religion of Peace'
It is dangerous and deluded wishful thinking, no matter how well-intentioned,  to claim that every major world religion, including Jihadism,  advocates peace, love and compassion at the heart of its teachings, and that all violent manifestations are a corruption of the original faith. 

- It is wishful thinking, because we 'kuffars', as they call us, are vainly wishing that all the jihadists, and their supporters and enablers, are mistaken about the true nature of their faith. 

- It is deluded, because half-an-hour's investigation of the teachings of Jihadism, the character of its founder, and the history of its expansion, will demonstrate that the jihadists are correct. The ideology is indeed powered by hatred, intolerance, ignorance and aggression  Jihadism is an arrogant, expansionist, totalitarian and supremacist faith, commanded to world domination. It always has been and always will be.

- And it is dangerous wishful thinking, similar to the well-intentioned 1930's propaganda that the Nazis wanted 'Peace in our time', which lulled the civilised world into complacency, and allowed the forces of evil to gather strength. Hitler could have been stopped much earlier, and with far less bloodshed, if the appeasers had not deluded themselves, and most of the gullible public, about the true nature of his ideology.  

Malware of the Mind
Perhaps if we were to reclassify jihadism from being a religion, to being a contagious form of insanity, we might find better ways of dealing with it.  Maybe if we regarded jihadism as a public health problem, we could use some of the epidemiological approaches to eradicating it that have been so successful against other contagious scourges of humanity, such as smallpox and polio. 

Using the public health analogy, we could employ immunization. We could deliberately spread the metameme (a meme about memes) to give immunity to more pernicious supremacist memes by stimulating critical thinking in would-be jihadists, much like the harmless cowpox virus can block out the lethal smallpox virus by stimulating the immune system.

The mental infection of jihadism is transmitted by a collection of memes (mind-viruses), which when they come together in an organized, mutually-reinforcing system such as religious supremacism are known as a memeplex.  A malignant memeplex takes over the normal mental processes of its host, just like a virus takes over the normal biochemical processes of the body to ensure its own reproduction and spread, even if it means destroying its host in the process.

As Nobel-prize winning author V.S. Naipaul pointed out, hatred of kuffars is the pivot of supremacist existence, and this is the central meme around which all the other components of the jihadist memeplex revolve.   The hatred is so psychopathically intense that the host will destroy himself in order to further the purposes of the memes.  

Jihadism, like Nazism, is what political scientists classify as an 'otherising' ideology. Both Nazism and Jihadism derive their energy from dividing the world into them versus us. For Nazism this conflict is Untermenschen versus Ubermenschen, for Jihadism it is Kuffars versus Ummah. Despite the differences in terminology, the results are very much the same.  This divisiveness leads to the classical liberal dilemma of tolerance of the intolerant, or how do you avoid otherising people who insist on otherising you from themselves?

This isn't to say that all supremacists (and especially heretics such as Ahmadiyyas and Sufis) automatically hate us. It's just that 'Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them' is the pivotal commandment of the Koran, with the phrase 'wherever you find them' presumably including children's concerts.   The jihadist hostility towards kuffars is obsessive, about one third of the Koran consists of fulminations against unbelievers!

So the devout supremacist will always have this genocidal commandment ticking away at the back of his mind, ready to explode into Sudden Jihad Syndrome as soon as he becomes mentally unstable.   

For mentally unstable people who have been brought up in Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or Hindu cultures, the internalized commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' may have a restraining influence.    But for the mentally disturbed supremacist, the commandment 'Thou shalt kill!' has the opposite effect. 

This seething hatred of all infidels, whether men, women or children, provides much of the motivation and justification for the jihadist rape gangs and pedophile networks who harass women and girls in Europe's cities. As with the caliphate, the relevant verses in the Koran and hadiths are quoted to justify their sadisticly depraved and perverted lusts, but that's another story.

From the Buddhist point of view, jihadists such as the Manchester bombers deserve compassion just as much as their victims, for their lives are also being ruined by this contagious viral memeplex of self-reinforcing delusions. A rabid dog suffers from the rabies virus just as much as the people he bites. 

And perhaps Buddhism might offer some hope of treatment for potential jihadists. It may be possible to use Buddhist meditation techniques to cut through delusions and weed out malignant memes even after they have become established ( more here)

And finally, another intellectual weapon against the ideology of jihadism is the theory of evolution itself (from which memetics and the metameme derive).  Jihadism is incompatible with evolution. If evolution is true then the Koran is false, and consequently all its incitements to violence are revealed as nothing but the rantings and ravings of a psychopath, rather than the commandments of God.   

Of course evolution is no threat to Buddhism, though Darwinism does raise some interesting questions about what experiences our body censors from our mind. 

See also Malignant memes, memeplexes and the metameme.
and   TERRORISM AND BUDDHISM 

 

Were Omar Mateen and the Boston Bombers mentally ill?

Were the Boston Bombers contagiously insane?

UPDATE  
On 12-Jun-2016, Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, a devout Muslim who had been offended by the sight of men kissing, carried out the most vicious Islamic attack since 9/11, when he got into The Pulse gay club in Orlando and massacred 50 customers.

As Omar Mateen spent his formative years in the West, it again raises the question originally asked after the Boston attacks, whether exposure to the metameme during their education could have prevented him and other believers going into jihad mode.  

Original article:

Preventing terrorism
Were the London and Edmonton Beheaders and Boston Bombers mentally ill?  And could the metameme have prevented their collective delusion from becoming homicidal?

'Mind viruses' (otherwise known as malignant memes and memeplexes) are contagious delusions, which harness the three poisons of the mind to spread like infectious diseases.  Jihadism is such a meme, which is 'as dangerous in a man as rabies in a dog', to quote Winston Churchill. 

The study of memes, memeplexes and their mechanisms of infection is known as memetics.
 

The metameme
One interesting question is whether the meme theory is itself a meme ('The Metameme') and whether its spread could block and give immunity to more pernicious memes, much like the harmless cowpox virus can block out the lethal smallpox virus.  Once you know how memes work, you may be less susceptible to becoming infected. 

In other words, the diagnosis is also the treatment!


Fox news describes how these lethal memes spread:

"Emerson's Investigative Project on Terrorism reviewed videos posted on the YouTube channels of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev...

...Based on the content of the videos, which feature Bin Laden, calls to kill Americans, Jews, Christians and exhortations to establish a world-wide caliphate, it is clear that these message are not directed just at Chechens. "They are directed primarily against all non-Muslims and are very similar to the Al Qaeda videos we've seen in years past." 

The two brothers clearly want "to express a message that they totally sympathize with the jihadist cause. These were jihadists, they were not just Chechen separatists."

"...strike off their heads..." Quran 8:12

The Quran is the meme that provides the justification for these beheadings and bomb attacks
 
Quran (8:12) - "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them"  

Okay, bombs may not be such a precise means of mutilation as a meat cleaver; they tend to remove limbs and other body parts rather randomly, especially when packed with nails.  But the general idea is there, and the Boston bombers followed the spirit, if not the precise letter of the Quran, like the London beheaders.

The Quran demonstrates the self-reference and circularity typical of many memes. The Quran says it's the word of God, and believers know what it says is true because it's God's word!   Therefore its incitement to rape, murder, extort and pillage the kuffars must be obeyed without question.

Of course any logical analysis shows the Quran's truth claims to be a hoax, but logical analysis, and indeed any forms of rationalism, are strongly discouraged by Jihadists. In addition, divinely sanctioned rape, murder, extortion and pillage provide a very useful excuse for the criminal activities so evident among Jihadists in kuffar countries. No wonder Jihadism is spreading so rapidly in jails: it's a criminals' charter.  Just as typhus was the Victorian 'jail fever', jihadism is the modern prison epidemic.

Nicholas Salvador made mentally ill by Islam

Robert Spencer has further details on meme propagation outside jails:

"I referred during this interview to four separate studies that all found that 80% of U.S. mosques were teaching jihad, Islamic supremacism, and hatred and contempt for Jews and Christians. There are no countervailing studies that challenge these results... 
... And in the summer of 2011 came another study showing that only 19% of mosques in U.S. don’t teach jihad violence and/or Islamic supremacism."

Could knowledge of memetics prevent terrorism?

Richard Dawkins - meme theorist

''We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism - something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators."  - Richard Dawkins

Going viral with the antivirus
Could the metameme 'go viral'? If young men from vulnerable cultural and family backgrounds were better informed about memes and memeplexes, perhaps they could resist this jihadist indoctrination and  recognize these malignant memes for the pernicious parasitic processes that they are, before they took over their minds and turned them into robotic killers.  

We'll never be able stop 'violent radicalization' until Mohammedans agree to remove the numerous incitements to violence from the Quran.   But they can't do that because the entire Quran is the literal Word of God, valid for all time.  Mohammedans know that it's the word of God because it says so, and what God says must be true.

The only way out of this pernicious circular logic is to realise that the Quran is a self-perpetuating scam. An understanding of the psychological dynamics of memes could hopefully produce an 'Emperor's new clothes moment' among the afflicted.  This requires a type of mindfulness meditation on the arising and interconnectness of the delusions that comprise the jihadist memeplex, in order to break their self-reinforcing vicious circle.


As dangerous in a man as rabies in a dog.
From the Buddhist point of view, jihadists such as the beheaders and bombers deserve compassion just as much as their victims, for their lives are also being ruined by this contagious mental illness of self-reinforcing delusions. A rabid dog suffers from the hydrophobia virus just as much as the people he bites.

Jihadists deserve compassion like their victims

And perhaps Buddhism might offer some hope of treatment for jihadists. It may be possible to use Buddhist meditation techniques to cut through delusions and weed out malignant memes even after they have become established...  More here

Update 27-May-2013  Boris describes Islamism as a virus that must be immunised against.

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Buddhism Subject Index

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Murdering Buddhists - New Year's interfaith outreach from The Religion of Peace™

 From Jihadwatch

Room for improvement with spelling, but it's the thought that counts.

 And yes, they really do mean it!

See   No future for Buddhism in an Islamized World

Jihadists plotting more attacks on Buddhists

Attacks planned on Tibetan Buddhists in India


By Gaurav Bisht, Hindustan Times     

"Alarmed by revelations of Indian Mujahedeen founder Yasin Bhatkal, the Himachal Police has written to the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) seeking details of interrogation records regarding suspected threat to Tibetan spiritual leaders Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhist settlements.

The state police move came following reports that Dharamsala, the exile home of Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama, was on the radar of Bhatkal.

The intelligence agencies suspected that Indian Mujahedeen group’s operations head Yasin Bhatkal had planned to recce Dharamsala after serial blast that rocked Buddhist pilgrim’s site in Gaya in July this year. There are reports that Bhatkal had sent two of his close aides to Dharamsala for recce as it was the potential target of the Indian Mujahedeen to take revenge against Buddhists for committing atrocities on Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

“There are varied and unconfirmed reports about Bhatkal’s plan to visit Dharamsala. We have written to NIA seeking more details about Bhatkal’s plans,” deputy inspector general of police, intelligence and security, Abhishekh Trivedi told the Hindustan Times.

“So far, we don’t have any specific input about Bhatkal’s plans to visit Dharamsala,” he added.

It was in July last week after the blasts in Bodh Gaya that the NIA had alerted the Himachal Pradesh police about possible attacks on Buddhist population and monasteries across the state by the Islamic militant group Indian Mujahedeen...."  Full article  



Meanwhile, security at Bodh Gaya is stepped up following Jihadist bomb blasts

From The Press Trust of India  

"Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, on Friday, assured Buddhist leaders that strict security measures have been taken to prevent a repeat of the July serial blasts at Bodh Gaya. "The serial bomb blasts in the holy shrine and in Bodh Gaya on July 7 left us aghast. Nobody had ever imagined that somebody will attack a place known for giving a message of peace to the world," Kumar told a congregation of over 200 Buddhists from 39 countries at the Budha Smriti Park here. "That was a warning. We took the incident very seriously and have taken security measures so that such things do not happen in future," Kumar said at the conclave being attended by Buddhists from US, Russia, Australia, UK, Japan, Thailand, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan and Germany.

Read more 



...and Jihadist Mullahs incite their followers to destroy the ancient Buddhist heritage of Pakistan

From the Express Tribune by Fazal Khaliq

"...Dr Shah Nazar Khan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s director of archaeology, says locals are primarily to blame for the decay. Sadly, apart from the defacing, some locals even throw garbage on the art.
“It is high time to educate people about the historical and cultural importance, so that locals can also take part in the preservation efforts,” says Dr Khan. “The statues should be removed and shifted to a museum, if possible, and all these sites fully documented.”
Faizur Rehman, curator in the Swat museum, believes that more effort than just maintenance. “The government should purchase all the lands of the rock carvings and hire 24-hour guards.” Rehman states firmly. “This is the only way to protect and preserve the heritage.”   Full article



See   No future for Buddhism in an Islamized World

Existential Fears of Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Myanmar fueled by Organization of Islamic Cooperation

By Shenali D Waduge at Lankaweb  

"A specter is haunting Sri Lanka. The specter of the country being overrun by Muslims. That something so unpleasant might happen in Sri Lanka virtually unopposed and unresisted by those who have been elected to power exclusively by the urban and rural Buddhist vote explains to a great extent the despair and sense of betrayal of Buddhism and the national interest by the powers that be which in turn is manifesting in the forms of suspicion and distancing between the two communities i.e. Buddhist and Islamic, in this country.

Thanks to Muslim obduracy and incursions into traditional Buddhist space through increasing construction of Mosques in sacred Buddhist citadels such as Anuradhapura, Dambulla, Mihintale, Mahiyangana and in numbers totally disproportionate to the actual numbers of believers in Islam, use of loudspeakers at Mosques in every nook and corner of the country blaring shrieking sounds in Arabic five times a day totally oblivious to the violation of the fundamental right to silence of every citizen, and the nuisance and disturbance it is causing to the vast majority of the people who wish to live in peace amidst a quiet and serene environment, brutal killing of cattle and other animals and display of slaughtered animal carcasses on main and side roads, irrespective of the disgust it is causing to the majority of the public weaned on principles of non-killing and compassion towards animals, animal sacrifice a practice repugnant to Buddhists and condemned by the Buddha,opposition to the continuation of the historic identity of Sri Lanka as a Buddhist country, and promotion of the alien Arabic culture through unacceptable dress codes, food habits, arrogant behaviour and flaunting of wealth by members of this minority group in pre-dominant and traditional Buddhist areas of the country, have awakened the sleeping Sinhala Buddhists to the threat posed to their very survival in the country both in the short and the long term.

This fear is also spreading right across Buddhist Asia in varying degrees..."     Read it all 

Buddhists worried by Organization of Islamic Cooperation imperialism in Burma

Update:

Fear of OIC supremacist imperialism grows in Burma (Myanmar)

The OIC is a sinister Islamic Supremacist Organization dedicated to imposing Islam on the entire world.  "One has only to examine the flag and the logo of the OIC to realize its ambition. A crescent moon encompasses the entire globe. The earth rests on a sea of green, the color of Islam, with the Kaa’ba in the center of the globe."  

The petrodollar-funded OIC was originally called the  Organisation of Islamic Conference, but has recently renamed itself the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

Not only is the OIC dedicated to the subversion and overthrow of Western civilization, it is also undermining other civilizations as well. The OIC's recent activities in Burma are giving increasing cause for concern.





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Buddhism Subject Index

Australian Muslim leader calls for murder of Buddhists

From Atlas Shrugs 

Muslim cleric in Australia: "Oh Allah, count the Buddhists and the Hindus one by one. Oh Allah, count them and kill them to the very last one."

Hate speech and genocide
Islam divides people into two antagonistic groups - Muslims (collectively known as the Ummah) versus Kaffirs (aka Kufr, Kuffars, Infidels or non-believers).

Kaffirs are subdivided further - Jews and Christians who accept the supremacy of Islam are known as Dhimmis, and are allowed to live as second-class citizens, provided they pay the extortionate Jizya (infidel tax) to their Muslim masters. The state of being a submissive Dhimmi is known as Dhimmitude.

Buddhists, Pagans and members of all other 'non-Abrahamic' religions, together with secularists, and those Jews and Christians who do not accept Muslim domination, are regarded as Harbis - targets of war. 

Islam is at permanent war with Harbis, even if the Harbis don't actually do anything to annoy Muslims. The Harbis' mere existence is itself an act of war. A Harbi has no rights, not even the right to live.


Dar al-Harb and Dar al-Islam
Areas under Muslim control are known as Dar al-Islam. Areas under Harbi control are known as Dar al-Harb - the domain of war. The Koran commands Muslims to wage perpetual war (Jihad) against Dar al-Harb until the entire world is Dar al-Islam. These attacks are ordained by Allah and are non-negotiable in the long term, though the practice of taqiyya (holy deception) allows temporary deceptive peace agreements (’hudna’) to be made if the forces of Islam are too weak to attack the Harbis successfully.
(In fact Buddhists are desrcibed as 'Mushrik' - idolaters - a Muslim term of abuse which places mushrikun even lower than 'najis kafirs'.)


Buddhists as Harbis
Buddhists have always been favorite targets because:

(1) The Koran (Surah 9, ayah 5) commands that polytheists and idolaters should be murdered wherever they are found. Buddhist statues and icons provided the perfect excuse for a bloodbath. Modern Muslims continue to believe that since Buddhists are not monotheists they must be forced to convert to Islam or be killed.


(2) Being pacifists, Buddhists were unable to defend themselves.
 
Islamic theology has a long history of uncompromising hostility towards Buddhism, and includes doctrines which have 'sanctified' the slaughter of  Buddhist sangha and destroyed Buddhist civilizations throughout Asia. More here,




See   No future for Buddhism in an Islamized World

Jihadists Bomb Bodh Gaya Buddhist Sacred Site and Temple

 

Terrorists have bombed Bodh Gaya, the sacred site where Buddha achieved enlightenment.

GAYA: Terror struck the temple town of Bodh Gaya in Bihar, as nine serial explosions rocked the Mahabodhi Temple complex on Sunday morning.

Two tourists, including a monk from Myanmar, have been injured in the blasts. The injured are being treated at the Anugrah Narain Magadh Medical College hospital.

Union home secretary Anil Goswami confirmed that the Bodh Gaya blasts were a terror attack.

Bihar Police suspect the involvement of Indian Mujahideen in the temple blasts.

According to Gaya Police, the blasts took place in quick succession between 5.30am and 6am in the temple complex and near the Mahabodhi tree. One blast was reported from a bus stand.

One of the blasts took place just under the enlightenment tree causing partial damage to the Buddha footprints in the shrine premises.

Four blasts took place inside the shrine premises, while another three blasts took place in the Tregar monastery premises. The Tregar monastery belongs to the Karmapa, the second most important spiritual leader.

One blast each took place at the great Buddha statue and a bus parked on the Sujata bypass.

Arvind Singh, a member of Mahabodhi Temple Management Commitee said two other bombs, one near the 80 feet statue and one at bus stand have been defused.

Zonal IG Sushil Khopade confirmed eight blasts.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar reached Bodh Gaya to take stock of the situation. He took a round of the Mahabodhi Temple complex and held a meeting with the officials.

BJP activists led by former minister Prem Kumar greeted Nitish Kumar with 'go back' slogans outside the temple main gate.

JD(U) workers present there raised pro-Nitish slogans and countered the protesting BJP workers.

Cops have sealed the entry routes to the shrine. A NIA team is expected to arrive shortly for the probe.

"A team of NIA officers is coming to Bodh Gaya from Kolkata," DIG special branch Parasnath said.

The DIG said, "The sanctum sanctorum of the Mahabodhi Temple is intact. The temple premises have been sanitised."

The secretary of the Bodh Gaya committee Dorji said, "There were four blasts inside the temple premises. Fortunately, there was no damage to the Bodhi Tree or the main temple structure."

"In the first blast which took place near the Bodhi tree, a table was blown up because of which two persons were injured. The second blast, I think, was inside the enclosure where books were kept. The furniture was damaged but there was no damage to the monuments or statues," he said.

Asked about the nature of explosives used, S K Bharadwaj, ADG (Law and Order) said they were low intensity time bombs.

He said, "We got information about six-seven months back that there may be a terror attack on the Mahabodhi temple. After that we had beefed up secuirty and deployed extra forces".

Bodh Gaya Buddhist temple, around 10 km from Gaya and 100 km from capital Patna, is world famous. Lord Buddha had attained enlightenment here under the Mahabodhi tree in the temple premises.

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama makes frequent trips to Bodh Gaya and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa had visited it six months back. A total of 52 countries have established their monasteries here.  http://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/bodh-gaya-serial-blasts-im-militants-had-told-delhi-police-abou-24714.html 

Update

"An Indian Mujahideen militant Syed Maqbool had told Delhi Police Special cell way back in October  last year that they planned to target the Mahabodhi temple and other major Buddhist shrines. Syed Maqbool belongs to Maharashtra's Nanded district and is a close associate of underground IM leadr Yasin Bhatkal.
Maqbool had told Delhi Police that Bhatkal had a plan to target Buddhist shrines in India to extract revenge for the killings of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

Delhi Police special cell had then given detailed info about the Bodh Gaya plan to Home Ministry, which in turn, had passed it on to Bihar police.

A team from Gaya police had then visited Delhi and discussed about this info. The district magistrate of Gaya, who is the president of Bodh Gaya temple management committee, had then promised to instal cctv cameras at the shrine and in neighbouring localities.

Home Ministry today asked Bihar police why no concrete action to safeguard the major Buddhist shrine was not taken despite issuing three alerts within a month.     http://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/bodh-gaya-serial-blasts-im-militants-had-told-delhi-police-abou-24714.html      



See   No future for Buddhism in an Islamized World

Nalanda: Can India Revive An Ancient Buddhist University A Thousand Years After Its Destruction?

Nalanda Ruins (Wiki)

From International Business Times                      

By Palash Ghosh

"India’s Nalanda University is accepting students – almost a millennium after it was destroyed by Muslim invaders. Renowned during the first millennium of the Christian period as one of the world’s top centers of learning well before Oxford, Cambridge and Bologna universities were even established, Nalanda, in the northeastern Indian state of Bihar, is seeking a miraculous second life, partially due to the efforts of Nobel Prize-winning Indian economist Amartya Sen, and other educators and statesmen.

The new Nalanda International University wants to attract top students and faculty from around the world in an attempt to restore the glories and grandeur of the “old” Nalanda, a Buddhist institution that drew scholars from across Asia and even as far away as Greece, prior to its destruction by Afghan Muslim invaders in 1193. According to legends, the school’s library was so vast that it took three days to burn [see #20 'Jahiliyya'].

In a message on the new school’s website, Sen noted that when the oldest university in Europe, the University of Bologna in Italy, was established in 1088, Nalanda had already been in existence for six centuries. At its peak, Nalanda had some 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers. It may have been the first educational institution to have its own residential dormitories.

Xuanzang, a seventh century Chinese monk, wrote extensively about Nalanda, including a description of its nine-story library. "Xuanzang was looking to study with the people who knew the [Buddhist] texts best. Nalanda was already reaching the heights of its power and prestige. It was known in Korea and Japan - its reputation had spread through the Asian trade routes," said Mishi Saran, an Indian author now based in Shanghai.

"When Xuanzang was at Nalanda, it was a vibrant place, packed with scholars, with seminars, teaching and debate. It was a kind of Buddhist ‘Ivy League’ institution -- all the deepest ideas about Buddhism were explored and dissected at Nalanda...”   Read the rest here



I just hope they've got good security. Having destroyed it once, the terrorists aren't going to be happy to see it rebuilt, and it's likely to be an iconic target.   Terrorists are already expected to attack Buddhism's holiest site at Bodh Gaya.   Maybe the university ought to hire those martial arts monks from Bodu Bala Sena and the 969 Movement as security guards.



See   No future for Buddhism in an Islamized World

Buddhism Banned in Kuwait - 'not sanctioned in the Qur'an'

From Assyrian International News Agency        

"Religious Intolerance is on the Rise in Kuwait
KUWAIT CITY -- Many of America's biggest security threats emanate from its nominal allies, such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Without them neither the Taliban nor al Qaeda would have been nearly so strong.

These countries also are hostile to religious minorities. Other malefactors include Iraq, where the government is a creation of U.S. invasion, and Afghanistan, where the government survives only with allied military support.

Religious intolerance is on the rise even in Kuwait, perhaps America's best friend in the Arab world.

Buddha - not sanctioned in the Qur'an

Until now Christians have worshipped freely in the Persian Gulf state. However, growing threats to religious minorities reflect public attitudes which could undermine the heretofore close U.S.-Kuwait relationship.

Saudi Arabia long has promoted the worst forms of religious intolerance. Spiritual liberty simply doesn't exist. The country is essentially a totalitarian state. The government claims the right to decide the most fundamental questions involving every individual's conscience.

The State Department's latest report on religious freedom observed: "The laws and policies restrict religious freedom, and in practice, the government generally enforced these restrictions. Freedom of religion is neither recognized nor protected under the law and is severely restricted in practice." At best non-Sunni Muslims can hope to be left alone when they worship privately. The group Open Doors placed Saudi Arabia on its "World Watch List," noting simply that "religious freedom does not exist in this heartland of Islam where citizens are only allowed to adhere to one religion."

Dharma - not sanctioned in the Qur'an

Earlier this year the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom tagged the kingdom as a "country of particular concern." The Commission found that "systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom continued despite improvements." A decade after 9/11, "the Saudi government has failed to implement a number of promised reforms related to promoting freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief. The Saudi government persists in banning all forms of public religious expression other than that of the government's own interpretation of one school of Sunni Islam."

Although Saudi Arabia is the most important Gulf State, it is uniquely intolerant. Most of its neighbors, like Kuwait, allow greater diversity of thought and action. That relative liberality does not go down well in Saudi Arabia.

The Wahhabist Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah Al-Asheikh oversees every Sunni Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia. He recently stated that it is "necessary to destroy all the churches of the region."

Sangha - not sanctioned in the Qur'an

This judgment came in response to a question from a Kuwaiti delegation of the Wahhabist "Revival of Islamic Heritage Society." Al-Asheikh cited the Hadith, an oral commentary on Mohammad's life, which includes the Prophet's injunction that "There are not to be two religions in the [Arabian] Peninsula." Al-Asheikh's opinion has not been publicized in Saudi Arabia, but his pronouncement already is law there. No Christian churches exist to be torn down.

Sanctioned in the Qur'an

This is not the case in the rest of the Persian Gulf. "Christian churches, Hindu temples and Buddhist shrines are found in Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, and Yemen," noted Irfan al-Alawi of the Gatestone Institute. In Kuwait there were three churches -- Catholic, Coptic, and Evangelical -- within two blocks of the hotel at which stayed. A few years back I interviewed ministers at all three.

Sanctioned in the Qur'an

In general their relations with the government were very good. The late Jerry Zandstra, then the senior minister at the National Evangelical Church, told me, "We've never had any serious interference at all." The government recently granted a permit to the Catholic Church to construct a new facility. Bishop Camillo Ballin, head of the Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Arabia, noted that he had "never experienced enmity" while acting in Kuwait.

Sanctioned in the Qur'an

Of course, not all is perfect. The State Department reported occasional problems and explained: "The constitution protects freedom of belief, although other laws and policies restrict the free practice of religion." Most important, religions "not sanctioned in the Qur'an," such as Buddhism and Hinduism, "could not build places of worship or other religious facilities," reported State, though worship in private homes was allowed..."

...Well that's really liberal and tolerant of them. At least they don't send the religious thought-police round to your house to stick electrodes  on your head to check whether you've been meditating...

Thought Police checking for Qur'anically unsanctioned meditation?

...yet.


See also:  There will be no future for Buddhism in an Islamized World

Destruction of Buddhism in India, Bactria, Parthia, Afghanistan, Gandhara and Chinese Turkestan

Before and after

Click for larger image

'BUDDHA' = 'IDOL'

“..There can be no doubt that the fall of Buddhism in India was due to the invasions of the Musalmans…Islam came out as the enemy of the ‘But’.

The word ‘But,’ as everybody knows, is an Arabic word and means an idol. Not many people, however, know that the derivation of the word ‘But’ is the Arabic corruption of Buddha. Thus the origin of the word indicates that in the Jihadist mind, idol worship had come to be identified with the Religion of the Buddha.

To the Jihadists, they were one and the same thing. The mission to break the idols thus became the mission to destroy Buddhism.

  Jihadism destroyed Buddhism not only in India but wherever it went. Before Jihadism came into being, Buddhism was the religion of Bactria, Parthia, Afghanistan, Gandhar and Chinese Turkestan, as it was of the whole of Asia….”

More here 


Hostility to Buddhist 'idolatry' continues to the present
"When we consider Buddhism's appearance, its scriptures, general beliefs, style of worship in the light of the Qur'an, we begin to see that its basic philosophy is founded on very deviant doctrines. Indeed, its worship contains strange practices leading its devotees to worship idols of stone and clay. As a belief, Buddhism is contrary to logic and intelligence. Countries where it has been adopted have mixed it with their own idolatrous ideas, traditions and local customs, joining it with myths and deviant ideas until it has evolved into a totally godless philosophy." More here and here

Additional Buddhist refutations of Accusations of idolatry



Destruction of University of Nalanda
"After the second battle of Tarain in 1192 when the forces of Jihad were victorius there was nothing to keep them from invading the so-called Middle Land where Nalanda was located. In 1193 Mohammad Bakhtyar and his armies swept across the Gangetic Plain destroying all Buddhistic temples and institution he found and killing all Buddhist monks who fell into his hands. Nalanda was almost completely plundered, but a few monks who had managed to survive the onslaught returned and attempted to revive the institution. A second attack followed and this time Nalanda was destroyed for good. The abandoned ruins of the once great monastery slowly crumbled into dust, only to be restored, at least in part, in the twentieth century."

More on the destruction of Nalanda  HERE


Buddhism will be swept away entirely and crushed utterly
"I feel, through my direct experiences of it, that Jihadism has not changed its ways in the least. In fact it has become more aggressive now than at any time since its period of greatest expansion in the 900s to the 1200s. “Modern” Jihadism seeks to return humanity to those very same times – a revival of the dark ages of slaughter, mayhem, and pillage – all in the name of Allah.

We Buddhists must realize that we, and our cherished practices, would be swept away entirely and crushed utterly, should terrorism ever gain ascendancy in this world in which we live. Jihadism is the only belief that propagates itself thus – by the sword.

And it is very patient." - From War Against Buddhism:

Supremacism destroys all weaker cultures
No fanfare and little notice marked the 10th anniversary earlier this year of the destruction of the 1,500-year-old Bamiyan Buddhas.  These 6th-century stately statues carved into sandstone cliffs in central Afghanistan included one of the tallest standing Buddhas in the world.  On March 12, 2001, the 180- and 121-foot Buddhas crumpled under dynamite set off by the Taliban -- the militia group ruling Afghanistan from 1996 through late 2001.  Mullah Omar, the leader of the Al Qaeda-supported movement, deemed the statutes idolatrous graven images insulting to jihadism and ordered their destruction.  Other Buddhist images, including statues and relief carvings as well as ancient Sikh gurdwaras and Hindu temples, were also destroyed by the supremacist terrorists belonging to the Taliban Movement.

This kind of cultural destruction has been part and parcel of jihadism since its inception.  According to Dr. Bill Warner, founder of the Center for the Study of Political Jihad, "Political Jihad has annihilated every culture it has invaded or immigrated to by destroying the host culture."    -  Tenth anniversary of the destruction of the Bamiyan

Rape, Pillage,  Destruction and Enslavement

"India has a deep, long cultural history.  Hinduism began there around 1,500 BC and Buddhism around the 6th century BC.   This culture had evolved impressive intellectual, religious and artistic pursuits. Pre and post the early days of Jihadism, Indian scholars took their works in science, maths (zero, algebra, geometry, the decimal system, so-called ‘Arabic’ numbers are actually Hindu ones!), medicine, philosophy etc to the courts of others (including Jihadists eg Baghdad).

Others came to study in India’s established universities.  Indian children (boys and girls) were educated in the relatively widespread education system in a wide variety of subjects eg science, medicine and philosophy.  India’s  art and architecture was magnificent.  They were a prosperous people.  Then came terrorism – slaughter, slavery, rape, violence, pillage; destruction of religious sites, art and architecture; poverty, exploitation, humiliation, famine, forced conversion, decline in intellectual pursuits, social destruction and a worsening of social ills.  To Jihadism, anything that is not Jihadist is from a time of ignorance –Jahiliyya- and must be destroyed (or appropriated!).  The onslaught created the Roma (gypsies), destroyed ‘Hindu’ Afghanistan and formed Pakistan (Kashmir) and Bangladesh .

The cost of the terrorist invasions is massive in lives, wealth and culture.   Estimates suggest that  60-80 MILLION died at the hands of jihadist invaders and rulers between 1000 and 1525 alone (ie over 500 years-the population FELL).  (Lal cited in Khan p 216)  Impossible you think?   In the war of Independence of Bangladesh, 1971, the Pakistani army killed 1.5-3 million people  in just 9 MONTHS. (Khan p 216).  The world looked the other way—but don’t we always when it’s jihadists committing the violence!" http://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/islam-and-slavery-india



UPDATE what we have forgotten

Refutation of taqiyya about the destruction of Buddhism in India


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The Samsaric (Worldly) Gods

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