I agree with you when you say Muslims are the most moderate people here.

Let me share something I wrote few months back.

Twelve reasons why I love and respect Sri Lankan Muslims.

1. Muslims are easily ADAPTABLE to difficult situations. (There is a story about a group of villagers traveling in a canoe. There was some turbulence in the middle of the river and the canoe was turned upside down. The first to get into the upturned canoe was a Muslim and his comment was `peralunu pita` or the upturned side was better!)

2. Muslims are INBORN BUSINESSMEN. They practice business as an art. They never look down upon people doing business as some other communities do. They know the value of business.

3. Muslims CARE FOR THE POOR within their community. This cannot be seen to that extent in many other communities.

4. Muslims PRACTICE EQUALITY. May not be fully, but within practically possible limits. When you pass a Mosque during the lunch hour on a Friday, you cannot differentiate rich and poor from the congregation. During Ramadan rich and poor fast alike.

5. Muslims have shown a remarkable CAPACITY TO INTEGRATE WITH OTHER COMMUNITIES without losing their identity. (eg. In Sri Lanka Muslims in the South and the Central regions speak Sinhalese while Muslims in the East speak Tamil. Many know both, but some speak only one language. However, all of them still remain as Muslims.)

6. Instead of complaining Muslims try to USE WHATEVER THE AVAILABLE OPPORTUNITIES to their best. When they find one avenue is blocked for some reasons, without wasting their time fighting they find another avenue.

7. Muslims have maintained a perfectly neutral position with regard to the ethnic issue. Have never taken any side and MAINTAINED THEIR GOODWILL WITH BOTH SINHALESE AND TAMILS.

8. Majority of the Muslims LIVE BY PRINCIPLES. It is a difficult question whether the principles they have make any sense. (For instance, at least for me, there is no logical reason why should one impose on Halal food.) However, I respect their way of life based on certain set of principles, which are not frequently changed for convenience.

9. When the Bamian Buddhist statues were destroyed by the Muslim fundamentalists in Afghanistan our Muslim brothers in Sri Lanka STOOD WITH THE BUDDHISTS and condemned that act.

10. Large number of Sri Lankan Muslim sisters (and brothers too) work hard in Middle East to BRING FOREIGN EXCHANGE TO OUR COUNTRY. We value their contribution to the Sri Lankan economy. We also appreciate the fact that one key reason Middle East countries provide us such a large number of job opportunities might be the sizable Muslim population in our country.

11. Muslims have NEVER TAKEN ARMS and remain within the democratic framework, in spite of the fact that they can easily do that by building links with the fundamentalist Muslim organizations elsewhere.

12. Last but not the least Muslims have ENRICHED THE SRI LANKAN CULTURE in so many ways. They join hand with all of the rest of the communities to build a United and Secular Lanka. Before I forget, one way they have enriched our culture is by introducing their food. Come on, who can ever say no to Watalappan?

(PS: I started planning to give ten reasons, but it ended up with twelve!)

Something i noticed bout buddhist & Muslims in sri lanka,About 90% of the muslims live according to their religion,
90% of the buddhist doesn’t even give a shit about their religion……………..(just think when did u last visited a temple, asl the same question from a random;y choosen muslim)

90% of the buddhist doesn’t even give a shit about their religion.

This a blessing in disguise. Imagine what if this 90% too supported JHU.

No thanks. 10% religious fanatics are more than enough for us.

firstly the video above is really annoying. especially coz of the fact that it uses a religion as reason for everthing.. islamist terrosist, islamist women opressed etc.. the thing i dont understand is how the word Islamist was formed. coz ppl who follow Islam are called Muslims and not Islamists, or poeople who follow the Islamic belief/faith. and yet again, haveing read the quran over a dozen times i still dont recall any place where it encourages terrorism. most would quote a line or two from the quran and say “hey.. it says you should slaughter non muslims with your swords!” and shit like that.. and they misunderstand the whole thing.. for godsake the Quran is a complete Book! read it fully and you’ll understand.. just imagine yourslef having never read Lord of the Rings, and turn to a random page and pick a line where it says the Nazguls are flying over, you’d be like “wtf is this?”.. that’s coz you havent read the book and havent understood the whole concept about Middle earth and the characters in it. so basically you’ll realise when you read it IN context that Islam allows a muslim to raise his sword to a non muslim ONLY if there is a direct threat to make islam vanish from the face of earth.. (and this was kinda possible 1400 years back during the times of Prophet Muhammed.. coz Muslims were kinda out numbered). times have changed now.. there is a large population of muslims all around the world and it’s a very hard task to just make Islam go extinct. Jihad or the Holy War could be set only if there was such a threat. unfortunately some stupid muslims dont know what they do and just use the word Jihad for every stupid wars they create and pull religion into it.

check this link out http://hindutva.org/quran.html this basically sledges Islam in all possible means with just a few quotes from the Quran.
here’s one the site quotes – 2. Allah is an enemy to unbelievers. ( The Cow: 15 )
and here’s the quote from a quarn translation i found online with a simple google search with a few verses before and after so you understand better
002.011 When it is said to them: “Make not mischief on the earth,” they say: “Why, we only want to make peace!”

002.018 Deaf, dumb, and blind, they will not return (to the path).

by reading this i hope you understand to some extent that Allah (god) reffers to the ppl who claim to be muslims and not follow it porperly in these verses. but instead the writer in the articel in the link above says that the 15th verse states that “allah is enemies to unbelievers”!!

trying to justify the rest will talk half of my day.. anyway.. just do your research before coming into any conclusions..

i must agree that most muslims here in SL are very neutral with pretty much everything. and this is how i guess every one should be.. or how every muslim in the world.. I must agree that the arabs are more of the arrogant, and being a muslim i dont like them much. you’d notice how they treat people especially at airport transits at abu dhabi, kwait, qatar etc.. they treat ppl.. especially asian ppl like shit.. and these arabs forget what Allah (god) says in the Quran “arabs are not greater than rest of mankind, and the rest of mankind are not greater than arabs”

and i must also mention that most Bhuddists in this country are pretty neutral as well.. i mean.. they are cool.. pretty much with everything. i think the reason most buddhists dont give a shit about their religion is coz buddhism doenst enforce ppl to do things like in islam. Muslims for instance have to pray 5 times a day which is compulsory. but most buddhists i know adapt well with muslims.. but there were times i’ve witnessed times when sometimes they’ve been a bit too harsh on muslims. i’ve been in a buddihist school for almost 11 years and 80% of my friends are buddhists.. and i’ve managed to move with them in harmony. but there are these few instances which pisses the general muslim population (though we dont make a big issue out of it). here are a few reasons..

1. “Azan” is a calling made to all muslims 5 times a day to go to mosqe and pray. and this is often done using loud speakers.. and this “calling” isnt even a minute long.. may be 2 minutes at some mosques. and only is done 5 times a day. and this thing they ‘recite’ is NOT a recording, but a thing that they say out each and everytime. in most countries of the world this thing is allowed. but recently in sri lanka there were enforcements to reduce the volume of the speakers. well i’d say that’s fair enough, coz it might be annoying to the neighbors who are not muslims. but why is this enforced only to Mosques. just a 100 yards away is a temple with loud speakers hung up right down the road, and from morning 6 am they play these recorded “gaatha’s” (some times they recite it) which lasts for hours and hours. and again this repeats in the evening. i’d say its fair enough to have a few speakers closer to the temple.. but why have it all the way down the road? and why arnt anything enforced on these things?

2. popping up statues. before i say anything else i must say i respect the statue of lord buddha, firstly coz its a worldy accepted religious icon, and it’s an exceptional piece of art. but you’d be surprised to notice how many statues pop up in every street corner. first it starts with a mini version on a wooden stand. a few months later you’d see a larger statue with an upgraded wooden plank. after a while the wooden plank gets upgraded to concrete.. and later the statue gets some windows around. after a while a much bigger statue will be replaced with some lights attached (electricity drawn probably from the streets). and eventually this place becomes a place of worship where they put a cassate player attached to a loud speaker. what am i talking about? – check out the punchi borella junction, ananda college junction, borella junction to name a few.
another classic thing that happend was in demtagoda when some muslims were going to convert this islamic school into a mosque in mallikarama road. just after they demolished the school to build a mosque some one brought a small statue of lord buddha and kept it in front of the mosque. and when the mosque was fully built they replaced with a larger statue. and now after about 1 and half years when i went there i was serprised to find a life size statue in front of the mosque in a glass cage with all elaborative lights and all.. i mean come on! just less than 20 meters away there’s already a MASSIVE temple.. (the mallikarama temple).. and i dont understand why they would want a statue in FRONT of the mosque… how ever no muslim so far has tried to make an issue out of it.. and i’m not too.. all i want to know is why would they want to do this? to piss us off? what did we do to them?

anyway i’m glad that we all live in harmony. hope this lasts for ever..