I used to wonder if the Dalai Lama was deliberately trying to pretend that the real Islam was all those nice things — peaceful, tolerant — he claimed, in the hope that if enough Muslims heard this repeated by enough Infidels, it would change their behavior; Muslims pleased to hear themselves described as such would then begin to behave so as to fit the description. Well, it didn’t happen, and Muslim violence, including terrorism, against non-Muslims has only increased pari passu with the descriptions of Islam in the West as peaceful and tolerant. There is nothing that the Dalai Lama, or Pope Francis, can say that will change Muslim beliefs and behavior. But their pronouncements do real damage to those in the West who are confused about Islam, have a need to know about it (their lives may depend on it), trust them as spiritual leaders, and accept on faith their wildly misleading characterizations of Islam.
The Dalai Lama has not given any evidence of having read the Qur’an and Hadith, for he has failed to grasp the essence of Islam as a text-centered faith. If he has not read those texts, that bespeaks one kind of unintelligence. If he has read those texts, but still failed to comprehend their meaning, and instead has taken at face value the assurances of taqiyya-masters as to what Islam teaches, then he demonstrates another kind of unintelligence. If he thinks it makes sense to ignore 1,400 years of Islamic history, that is still a third kind of unintelligence.
To sum up: the Dalai Lama continues to assert that Islam is a peaceful and tolerant faith, and that therefore, there is no such thing as a “Muslim terrorist,” because anyone who engages in terrorism cannot be a true Muslim.
In order to arrive at this bizarre view, the Dalai Lama has had to ignore a great deal, including:
1. 1,400 years of Islamic history, and of the Jihads waged in many different lands and against many different peoples, that took Islam from being the faith of a few dozen people in dusty 7th-century Mecca to becoming the faith of 1.6 billion people across the globe. In India alone, 70-80 million Hindus were killed in Jihads.
2. The more than 109 verses in the Qur’an that command Believers to wage violent Jihad against the Infidels. Among them are these: “And kill them [the Infidels] wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah is worse than killing” (2:191); “They wish that you reject Faith, as they have rejected (Faith), and thus that you all become equal. So take not Auliya’ (protectors or friends) from them, till they emigrate in the Way of Allah. But if they turn back (from Islam), take (hold) of them and kill them wherever you find them, and take neither Auliya’ (protectors or friends) nor helpers from them” (4:89); “Then when the Sacred Months have passed, then kill the Mushrikun wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush.” (9:5). There are more than 100 other verses similar in their violence. How did the Dalai Lama manage to miss them all?
3. Verses in the Qur’an that call specifically for “striking terror” in the hearts of the enemy, such as “Your Lord inspired the angels: I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks, and smite over all their fingers and toes…” (3:151) or that call for extreme violence, as “So, when you meet those who disbelieve, smite at their necks till when you have killed and wounded many of them, then bind a bond firmly.” (47:4)
4. Many passages in the Hadith, in which we learn that Muhammad took part in 27 military campaigns, helped in decapitating 600-900 prisoners of the Banu Qurayza, ordered the torture and killing of Kinana of Khaybar, and learned with satisfaction of the killing of several people who mocked him.
5. Muhammad declaring in the Hadith that “war is deceit.”
6. Muhammad declaring in one of his most famous Hadith that “I have been made victorious through terror.”
These are only a few of the passages that the Dalai Lama seemingly is unfamiliar with. Did he know of them before? What does he make of them now? And if he did know of them, why did he think it was right for him to ignore them? If he leaves out so much of significance that is found in the Islamic texts, why should anyone trust his version — sanitized beyond belief — of Islam? And how can he remain so ignorant of the history even of his own faith, Buddhism, and how it fared when the Muslims arrived and conquered India?
The Dalai Lama (Version Two):
The Dalai Lama has consistently been telling us that we have nothing to fear from the authentic, peaceful Islam. Yet at a conference in Malmö, Sweden this September, he struck a more somber and worried note. He took a much harder line on immigration. He declared that immigrants should receive appropriate training and then be sent back to their companies of origin instead of remaining in Europe. The exiled spiritual leader of Tibet said that while Europe can help refugees, “Europe belongs to the Europeans,” and migrants should rebuild their homelands.
Malmö, Sweden, where he made his comments, has struggled with an increase in rape and violent crimes correlating to an increase in refugees from Syria and other predominantly Muslim countries. The Dalai Lama argued that European countries were “morally responsible” for assisting “a refugee really facing danger against their life,” but that refugees should ultimately go back and rebuild their home countries.
“Receive them, help them, educate them … but ultimately they should develop their own country,” the Dalai Lama said, according to AFP.
“I think Europe belongs to the Europeans,” he added, saying “they ultimately should rebuild their own country.”…
“From a moral point of view, too, I think that the refugees should only be admitted temporarily.”
The Dalai Lama has clearly become much more aware of the demographic changes sweeping Europe, and he doesn’t like what he sees. He will not come out and criticize Islam, but he certainly does not want Muslim migrants remaining in Europe. He thinks that only bona fide refugees, those who are facing “danger against their life,” should be admitted. The 80-90% who are economic migrants, seeking to receive benefits — the more the better — from Europe’s generous welfare states, should not in the Dalai Lama’s new view be admitted at all, but should be promptly returned to their home countries. Not only that, but even the real refugees — those who have legitimate fears for their lives — “should only be admitted temporarily.” They might be sent back to their countries of origin, once the life-threatening violence has decreased, or possibly sent to other countries akin to their own, where the violence is less life-threatening. If “refugees” cannot return, say, to Libya, because of continued warfare, there are a dozen other Muslim Arab countries that might be a much better fit — with people identical to these “refugees” in language, customs, religion — than Sweden or Germany or France.
What explains this new attitude on immigration by the Dalai Lama? Though the word “Muslim” is not used, it must be understood as implicit in all that he says, for the migrants to Europe who have caused such trouble these last few years have overwhelmingly been Muslims. At a certain point, the Dalai Lama, tiring even of his own pollyannish pieties about Islam, looked around Europe, took note of the fact that nowhere were Muslim migrants integrating into their host societies successfully, saw the aggressive demands they made on the peoples among whom they have been allowed to settle, heard the demands they make on their host societies (everything from calling for single-sex pools and burqas, and time taken off for prayers in the middle of a work or school day, to changes in the school curricula to accommodate Muslim sensibilities), was made aware of the horrific rise in violent crime — rapes, murders — committed by these migrants, observed their hostile attitudes and behavior toward their hosts (as non-Muslims, according to the Qur’an they are “the most vile of creatures”), learned of their sky-high rates of unemployment that bespeak an unwillingness to work (and why should they work, with all the benefits lavished upon them by a generous welfare state?) — some or all of this has finally penetrated and become part of the Dalai Lama’s new understanding. He has finally grasped what this enormous Muslim migration has done, and is doing, to Europe. He has understood that the large-scale presence of Muslims in Europe has created a situation that is far more unpleasant, expensive, and physically dangerous for the non-Muslim indigenes, and for other, non-Muslim, migrants, too, than would be the case without that large-scale Muslim presence. Or, to put it more simply, what explains this new and improved version of the Dalai Lama is simple: he has finally been mugged by reality.
jewdog says
Maybe the one-sided condemnations of Buddhist Myanmar, a country with a long history of conflict with Muslims, troubled him. East Asians in general seem to be far less sanguine about Islam than westerners, often being very harsh in their actions, but far more realistic in their understanding. Maybe that’s why Harvard doesn’t want too many of them.
eduardo odraude says
Harvard has been discriminating against East Asians by requiring them to have higher test scores to get into Harvard. East Asians would be a much larger percentage of Harvard than the East Asian percentage of the population as a whole, because East Asians have an intensely competitive and industrious culture of continual study and test-taking and so they get very high SAT and advanced placement scores. Harvard thinks that rather than reward that incredibly hard-studying culture, Harvard should lower the bar for other cultures that at the present stage of history do not study and work nearly as hard as East Asians. The cowardly PC assumption of the Harvard administration seems to be that if a “race” does better or worse, that must be based on discrimination and therefore it should be corrected by handicapping racial groups that currently do well and advantaging racial groups that currently do less well.
Affirmative action, if it is going to exist at all, should help individuals coming from disadvantaged economic backgrounds. Affirmative action should not be given or denied based on a person’s race. Race-based affirmative action is destructive. It ultimately hardens racial boundaries rather than aiding in racial interaction and integration.
James Lincoln says
The Justice Department is actually siding against Harvard in the racial discrimination lawsuit filed by Students for Fair Admissions.
Andy says
The Dalai Lama vs. Pope Francis on Immigration!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s2FRvmcHGQ
eduardo odraude says
James Lincoln,
So I’ve heard. Seems like a good thing, too.
gravenimage says
True, Eduardo. More destruction of meritocracy.
eduardo odraude says
Yes, discrimination on the basis of race and destruction of meritocracy, all wrapped into one noxious mess.
I can see giving a foot up to anyone of any race who starts out in life from an economically disadvantaged background. I think it’s a terrible idea to make race the basis of getting a foot up. That makes race way too important and thus exacerbates the very problem people seeking interracial unity are trying to solve.
eduardo odraude says
People are willing up to a point and for a time to tolerate a statistical increase in risk of crime. What is completely intolerable is that Islam brings not just crime, but a totalitarian program that encourages crime against non-Muslims. Islam tends to destroy or severely limit civil and political rights and freedoms and brings with it a drive toward Islamic theocracy, including the subjugation of non-Muslims under a discriminatory regime where they do not have equal rights with Muslims. That sort of regime is rooted in the life of Muhammad and in the core Islamic texts, Qur’an, Hadith, Sira. Before that discriminatory Islamic regime becomes actual law, it exists as an ethos inculcated into many Muslims from childhood, children educated by teachers immersed in the Islamic texts. So even in Muslim-majority societies where Islamic law is not formally in place, the half-conscious ethos underlying Islamic law subjugates non-Muslims to a second class status as far as the police, the courts, and the Muslim majority is concerned. Pakistan seems to be an example of this. Mobs and police there too often enforce a frightful discrimination against non-Muslims. And Muslims who discriminate can find ample justification in the Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira.
eduardo odraude says
While the Dalai Lama in the past was not adequately informed about Islam, and perhaps remains misguided about it, he has for a long time been pretty clear on the difference between totalitarianism and liberal democracy. He learned that difference not least due to his experience of China’s totalitarian boot on the neck of Tibet.
I suspect that behind his call for refugees ultimately to leave Europe is a growing recognition on his part that Islam is totalitarian. I’ll be curious to see how this shakes out in Mr. Fitzgerald’s future observations on the Dalai Lama.
Diann J Scott says
Thank you for supporting His Holiness. I agree that he’s often been misguided and basis much of his knowledge on the Chinese occupation that caused his exile to India in 1959.
I just wrote a REPLY above, defending his position and telling there’s a big difference between an Indian Muslim and Saudi Muslim.
Unfortunately, many in the MSM communities lump all Muslims into one basket and not taking their “cultural” differences into consideration. That’s the sad part of what the Jihadist have done to program the world into believing their sick ideology!
Long live HHDL – the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet – my very own compassionate root guru!
gravenimage says
Diann J Scott wrote:
I just wrote a REPLY above, defending his position and telling there’s a big difference between an Indian Muslim and Saudi Muslim.
Unfortunately, many in the MSM communities lump all Muslims into one basket and not taking their “cultural” differences into consideration. That’s the sad part of what the Jihadist have done to program the world into believing their sick ideology!
………………….
Diann–with all respect–do Indian and Saudi Muslims have different Qur’ans? Do they have different prophets? No, they do not.
Muslim support for Jihad and Shari’ah are high in most places. Even in the US–often touted as having ‘moderate’ Muslims–over half of them want to impose brutal Shari’ah law.
Islam is *not* ‘moderate’ in India, as you appear to believe–there is high support for Shari’ah courts, and Muslims there often wage violent Jihad against Hindus and Christians, and there is a violent ongoing Jihad in Kashmir and Jammu.
And Jihad is not an ideology separate from Islam itself. The Qur’an preaches Jihad, as do the Hadith–and the “Prophet” Muhammed was himself a vicious Jihadist, and he is considered the perfect model for Muslims.
eduardo odraude says
Where Diann is correct is in saying that there are different kinds of Muslims. I might disagree with her though on the most important way in which different kinds of Muslims differ. As far as I can see, the most important difference is that some Muslims are devout, and others are not. In other words, it’s not that there are different Islams. It’s that some Muslims follow Muhammad closely, others pay little attention to the core Islamic texts. We know from David Wood and Robert Spencer that many Muslims know very little about the teachings of their own central holy books. Four-fifths of the world’s Muslims do not speak Arabic, much less the archaic Arabic of the Qur’an, and yet every Muslim is supposed to pray the Qur’an in the Arabic. And the remaining fifth of Muslims who do speak Arabic may find the archaic Arabic of their Qur’an recitations often opaque. Not to mention the fact that even if one can read archaic Arabic or simply gets a translation into one’s own language, many things spoken of in the Qur’an are incomprehensible without the hadith. As Spencer has often noted, what you read in the Qur’an is often a bit like what you hear if you suddenly walk into a conversation between two people you’ve never met and where you have no background as to what they are talking about so you often have very little idea of the meaning of what they are saying. Much in the Qur’an you cannot understand without the Hadith (reports of what Muhammad did and said), the Tafsir (scholarly interpretation of the Qur’an and other Islamic texts), and the Sira (earliest Muslim biographies of Muhammad). (All of that is available for free online, of course. If you want to see Robert Spencer’s tafsir of every chapter of the Qur’an, you can access it from one of the links here at Jihad Watch. And here is an online Qur’an where every chapter is linked to tafsir by Spencer and tafsir by Ibn Kathir, one of the most popular Qur’an interpreters of all time.
http://chronquran.blogspot.com/
But my main point is that even if there are different kinds of Islam, they don’t differ in their most important characteristic: All or virtually all of the alleged varieties put the Qur’an and Muhammad at the center and therefore represent an aggressive, expansionist, totalitarian program. In that particular respect there are not different kinds of Islam. It’s just that some Muslim populations are more devout than others. Devoutness in Islam varies directly, I suspect, with totalitarianism. The more devout the Muslim, the more totalitarian in his views he or she is likely to be. But there is another factor. Distance from the Middle East, the core of Islam, tends to some extent to water down Islam and subtly, perhaps unstably, mix it with the host culture. Also, if a nation was not converted to Islam by the sword — I guess the main examples are Indonesia and Malaysia? — then the pre-existing culture will have a somewhat pacific effect on how Islam is adopted. (The pre-existing culture is almost always more pacific than the culture of Islam.)
gravenimage says
Eduardo, you are certainly correct that some Muslims are more devout than others. But there is nowhere where Islam is free of the doctrines of Jihad and Shari’ah.
eduardo odraude says
gravenimage,
To be clear, my 12:45 am comment was not directed at you. I realize you already know much of what I say in that comment. It was more a message to Diann or to anyone who finds it of interest…
eduardo odraude says
gravenimage, you said to me “there is nowhere where Islam is free of the doctrines of Jihad and Shari’ah.”
Where did I say otherwise?
gravenimage says
Of course, Eduardo.
Joe arancio says
HHDL lives very close to the Paki border,an easy target for assassination. He is also a guest in India, and cant stir up trouble with the huge muslim population there.
All the Buddist staues in India were defaced during the muslim invasion.He knows the history of islam quite well
RT says
Buddhism and Christianity
by G.K. Chesterton
A distinguished military gentleman recently wrote to the newspaper to announce that a Chinese Buddhist is shortly to visit England, with the firm intention of finally abolishing war. He – I mean the military gentleman – explained that Buddhism is a word that means Enlightenment, and that only Enlightenment can abolish War. This seems in itself a simple process of reason and reform. But I should not be moved to criticise anything so excellent in intention, if the writer had not dragged in the dreary old trick of comparing the enlightened condition of Buddhists with the benighted condition of Christians. It is true that, like most men in this modern confusion of mind, he needlessly muddles himself by using the same word in two senses and on both sides, and setting Christianity against itself. Buddhism is Christianity, and Buddhism is better than Christianity, and Christianity will never be itself until it is enlightened enough to become something different. But this mere logomachy does not alter the essentials of the opinion, which most of us have seen in one form or another for a great many years past. The key of the situation is that the military critic says that “Christians have failed” to abolish War; and that this is due to the lamentable fact that Christians are not enlightened; or, in other words, to the curious fact that Christians are not Buddhists.
Now, to begin with, a normal European need hardly have any narrow contempt for Asiatics in order to feel mildly resentful and even rebellious under this sort of thing. If the Chinese gentleman is coming with an infallible talisman to stop all fighting in England, might it not be suggested to him that he should stay where he is, and stop all
fighting in China? Fighting has never been a habit strictly confined to Christians; nor have wars been entirely unknown outside Christendom. It may be that certain hermits or holy men, both eastern and western, have individually abandoned war. But we are not talking about abandoning war, but about abolishing war. In what sense have Christians failed, in which Buddhists have not equally failed? In what respect is Buddhism, which has looked on at all the Asiatic fighting for four thousand years, any more successful than Christianity, that has barely looked on for two thousand? I do not think the thing is any real discredit either to Buddhism or Christianity, for anybody who is really “enlightened” about history and human nature. But if we are to be told about ten times a week by every newspaper and noisy talker that Christianity has failed to do anything because it has failed to stop fighting, what are we to say of the chances of the Chinese gentleman of stopping it in Europe with a new religion, when he could not stop it in Asia with an old one? At a guess, I should say that a Christian appeal for peace would often have been much nearer to practical politics than the metaphysical enlightenment of the Buddhist. Without putting very much money on the chances of either, I should say there would have been something rather more remotely resembling a chance for a Franciscan saint influencing the policy of Richard Coeur de Lion than of a Buddhist monk (with his mind full of Nirvana) stopping the march of Genghis Khan. But that is a minor guess, and does not matter. The obvious point is that, if Christianity is to be called a failure because it has not abolished war, Buddhism can hardly be a certain and solid guarantee that we shall abolish war. The truth is, of course, that all such talk of abolishing this and that, among the recurrent misunderstandings and temptations of mankind, shows an essential ignorance of the very nature of mankind. It does not allow for the hundred inconsistencies, dilemmas, desperate remedies, and divided allegiances of men. A man may be in every way a good man and a true believer, and yet be in a false position. Indeed, the military gentleman who wrote the letter about Buddhism and War need not look far for such an example. By his own standards, he is himself inconsistent in being a Christian soldier; and even more inconsistent since he seems to be a Buddhist soldier.
I have taken this one text from the daily paper before me because we all know that the religion of our fathers is being perpetually pelted with such texts. And even apart from any loyalty to my faith, I have enough loyalty to my fathers, and to the general record and reputation of English and European men to feel that it is time that such taunts should be treated as they deserve. It is no disgrace to Christianity, it is no disgrace to any great religion, that its counsels of perfection have not made every single person perfect. If after centuries a disparity is still found between its ideal and its followers, it only means that the religion still maintains the ideal, and the followers still need it. But it is not a thing at which a philosopher in his five wits has any reason to be surprised. As a matter of fact, it would be much more reasonable to use this taunt against the irreligious who use it than against the religious against whom it is used. It is the very people who use it most, the secularists and humanitarians who really do go in for promising millenniums of peace and plenty It is the novelists and essayists of the sceptical school who announce at intervals the War That Will End War, or the World State that will impose universal peace. Christianity never promised that it would impose universal peace. It had a great deal too much respect for personal liberty. The sceptical theorist is allowed to throw off Utopia after Utopia, and is never reproached when they are contradicted by the facts, or contradicted by each other. The unfortunate believer is alone always made responsible, and held to account for breaking a promise that he never made.
Undoubtedly, this sort of sneer would be quite as unjust to Buddhism as to Christianity. The ideal of Buddha might still be the best for men, even if millions of men continued to prefer what is lower than the best. As to whether the ideal of Buddha is the best for men, that is a much larger question which cannot be at all suitably developed here. Indeed, there is a great deal of difference of opinion about what the ideal of Buddha really was, especially among Buddhists. That also is a taunt vulgarly thrown against the followers of Christ, which might just as well be thrown against the followers of Buddha. The mysterious Chinese gentleman may impose on all the nations of the earth the same definition of peace, and still have a more delicate task, when he has to impose on all the Theosophists the same definition of Theosophy. But some at least of the disciples of the great Gautama interpret his ideal, so far as I can understand them, as one of absolute liberation from all desire or effort or anything that human beings commonly call hope. In that sense, the philosophy would only mean the abandonment of arms because it would mean the abandonment of almost everything. It would not discourage war any more than it would discourage work. It would not discourage work any more than it would discourage pleasure. It would certainly tell the warrior that disappointment awaited him when he became the conqueror, and that his war was not worth winning. But it would also presumably tell the lover that his love was not worth winning; and that the rose would wither like the laurel. It would presumably tell the poet that his poem was not worth writing; which may (in certain cases needless to name) be indeed the case. But it can hardly be called an inspiring philosophy for the production of good poems any more than bad. It may be that these persons are wrong about what is threatened by Buddhism. It may also be that the other persons are wrong about what was promised by Christianity. But I hope we have heard the last of the muddled discontent of worldly people, who curse the Church for not saving the world that did not want to be saved, and are ready to call in any other theory against it – even the wild theory by which the world would be destroyed.
Taken from Illustrated London News, March 2, 1929.
eduardo odraude says
Brilliant stuff.
Diann J Scott says
I am a practicing Buddhist, and HHDL is my root guru. I feel compelled to put my two cents in and come to his defense. Your article is very well written, however, because you don’t know the entire background of the Indian and Tibetan people.
I think you’ve misled folks conceptions about His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet and his views on Muslims, where they’re non-violent, and different in his countries.
“There is hell of a lot of difference in Indian Muslim and Saudi Muslim .. Though we share a same religion but cultures are different.” (article below).
In his defense, please don’t put him in the same basket with Pope Francis – that is sickening to me personally.
HHDL travels the world and his mission is about uniting all religions to accept each other’s belief systems without prejudice. This is called “Interfaith Religions” that I’ve been to this (with a Indian Muslim, Rabi’s, Priest, Christian Ministers, and other denominations).
Please try to understand. You may be correct, I too doubt he’s read the Koran. But Indian Muslims have not perverted their religion or they wouldn’t live in harmony with Buddhist and Hindus.
Thank you for your time and concerns. Please read this.
https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-Middle-East-Muslims-and-Muslims-of-India
gravenimage says
Diann J Scott wrote:
Please try to understand. You may be correct, I too doubt he’s read the Koran. But Indian Muslims have not perverted their religion or they wouldn’t live in harmony with Buddhist and Hindus.
………………….
Diann, invading Muslims butchered all the Buddhists in what is today Afghanistan and Pakistan. Very few survive in Bangladesh, and those that do are threatened and persecuted.
And Muslims continue to wage violent Jihad against Hindus. How is this “living in harmony”?
“Bangladesh: Muslims hack Buddhist monk to death inside temple”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/05/bangladesh-muslims-hack-buddhist-monk-to-death-inside-temple
“The shocking history of the jihad against India”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/08/the-shocking-history-of-the-jihad-against-india-never-before-told-in-the-west
There are–sadly–thousands more stories like these.
Lydia Church says
Right, it definitely did not turn into what is called a ‘self fulfilling prophecy’ in academic terms!
Again, I repeat; it did NOT.
Time for another strategy, like reality.
nicholas tesdorf says
Despite all that, the Dalai Lama is still more sensible than Pope Francis.
Necrophage says
Sure, but that’s not saying much. Francis is a Communist and probably a pedophile himself.
gravenimage says
Hugh Fitzgerald: Two Versions of the Dalai Lama (Part III)
………………
I *hope* the Dalai Lama is waking up to the threat of Islam.
Carol the 1st says
+1
The Dalai Lama has made the understandable quantum leap of assuming that Islam follows the needs of mammals. How treacherous of Islam to only produce tainted milk.
Just ask any imam and you’ll be told that Islam is about KNOWLEDGE – it is definitely NOT ABOUT SILLY THINGS LIKE ARGUMENT, EMOTION, AND LOVE. Those are Jewish and Christian traps and muslims are above all that. If Moe were here he’d tell you.
Moe is the summit of all Islamic knowledge.