Can Japan show the West how to live peacefully with Islam?

[अखण्ड भारत!!!]

Unlike Hindutva propaganda claims, the reality is that Buddhism in India was well into decline long before Muslims ever set foot in India.

The primary cause of Buddhism's eradication from India was Hindu Brahmanism.

Looks like some brahmins dressed up as muslims and burned buddhists and nalanada to malign muslims

 

[अखण्ड भारत!!!]

Later Muslim conquerors only destroyed some physical structure of Buddhism, but the Hindu Brahmins exterminated the language, culture and soul of Buddhism in India -- centuries before Muslims ever showed up.

By debating...not by force

 

[DiehardPakNerd]

By force not by debating!

 

[अखण्ड भारत!!!]

By force not by debating!

Source?
Your head?

 

[DiehardPakNerd]

A piece of home: The multinational congregation at the Tokyo Camii attends Friday prayer.


Long ago, in another life, I went to a mosque in San Francisco to attend Friday prayer. More than the calling of Islam, it was a Libyan woman who beckoned me, and for the sake of family blessing, I considered a love conversion.

Enamored and clueless, I checked out the scene — an alabaster agnostic among dark-skinned and bearded believers, who eyed me wonderingly as we kneeled to pray.

Face down with my arms outstretched, my behind in the air and my nose smelling the prayer rug, I could feel that a prostration is a submission — a concession of smallness in front of a higher power. I could feel that as a humble servant to the only one god, Allah, you are no longer boss of the spectacle that is you. It was a gut-level challenge.

As I was leaving the mosque, saying goodbye to the regulars who had warmed to the newbie, I started liking these people and their humility. But with the exotic aroma of spices and the muezzin droning the Arabic verses, there was a sense of an alien reality. “If I get in too deep here,” I mused in private, “I might lose myself.”

The intrepid writer George Plimpton — who made a career out of ambling into otherness — once captured this bittersweet affirmation, leaving a football field to applause after a hapless trial with the Detroit Lions.

“The outsider did not belong,” Plimpton wrote about the amateur and his audience, “and there was comfort in that being proved.”

Like other projects enamored and clueless, my love conversion was later aborted.

Fast forward to Tokyo, the present. As this Saturday ushers in Ramadan, the monthlong fasting from dawn to dusk that is observed by Muslims worldwide, it has been striking to see Japan’s efforts to make this minority feel at home.

Some university cafeterias, hotels and restaurants now offer halal meal choices. There are Muslim tour guides, as well as prayer rooms at airports and companies — in addition to more than 100 Islamic associations. Even Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, at a Ramadan party last summer, assured foreign ambassadors of the “unbroken bond” between Japan and the Muslim world.

In part, the embrace is customer service. As relations with China went sour, Japan eased visa restrictions last year for Southeast Asian nations, to offset the lost business. This boosted tourism and student exchanges from Malaysia and Indonesia — the latter home to the largest Muslim population in the world — to the point that now more and more hijab headscarves are dotting Japan’s urban landscapes.

“Islam here is growing,” says Musa Omar, the executive director of the Islamic Center Japan in Ohara, Setagaya Ward, which first opened in 1963. He speaks with congenial authority, the kind of man who inspires you to read books and be a better, more spiritual person.

“We don’t recruit, but the mosques are full and each day people are coming to visit. Also, there are more conversions — many of them for marriage, both women and men.”

There is no reliable count of Muslims in Japan, allows Musa, but it now far exceeds 100,000. Having lived here for 40 years and served as the Sudanese ambassador, he thinks that the local community enjoys a unique idyll.

“There are no ties to our homeland politics,” says Musa. “At Japanese mosques there are no divisions, no problems between Sunnis and Shiites. The police here are on our side, and the people are open to Islam. Whatever prejudice they may have, they get from the West.”

Who would have thought: Japan, a utopia of pluralism?

Uniting a colorful mix of expats from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, removed from the context of sectarian strife and the historical Western interference still haunting many Muslim countries, could the Japanese brand of Islam be a showcase for its peaceful essence? Are the frictions between Muslims and the West based in part on identity posturing?

The Tokyo Camii, the largest mosque in Japan, built in a lavish Ottoman style, emerges from the Shinjuku skyline like something out of “Arabian Nights.” For the second Friday prayer in my life, I embedded myself there with 200 Muslims who had gathered for a sermon and food — perhaps the most multiethnic crowd anywhere in Japan (although the vast majority of the faithful are men).

The sermon, held in English and Japanese, exhorts the congregation to respect their parents. Later on, as people line up for rice and potatoes, the atmosphere is relaxed and clubby, a meet-and-greet among fellow immigrants. A visiting group of Japanese seniors is getting a tour of the mosque.

It feels different from Western environs, where Christianity and Islam are seen as the other’s Other. There is the fear of a Muslim planet — an immigrant force out-populating the natives, seeking to set up a caliphate governed by Islamic law. Afraid of a stealth ideology, conservatives such as the historian Sir Martin Gilbert warn that “the European idea is being subverted by Islamic hostility to the very ethics and values of Europe itself.” The message is picked up by politicians and media exploiting the Muslim bogeyman.

“The larger threat comes not from the immigrants themselves, but from our response to them,” Doug Saunders counters in his book “The Myth of the Muslim Tide: Do Immigrants Threaten the West?”

“These are clashes within civilizations, not between them,” Saunders writes, “and to a large extent they are products of the false belief, held by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, that the world is divided into fixed and irreconcilable civilizations.”

With an array of surprising facts, Saunders claims to show that most Muslim immigrants have no wish for Shariah law. Likewise, he writes, their fertility rates are actually decreasing as this diaspora adjusts to lifestyles and trends in the West.

Meanwhile, in Japan, no one frets over the Great Decline. Islamophobia is not an industry; the Other here is Chinese. The Japanese may be drawn to what they see as the pureness, the disciplined abnegation on display during Ramadan, yet unlike some in the West, they don’t appear to feel challenged by perceptions of superior spirituality.

“The Tokyo religion is fashion,” jokes Rahil Khan, 47, from Rawalpindi in Pakistan. A company owner with a swashbuckling air, he is a fixture in the Muslim community. Khan believes it is the social element that is attracting the Japanese.

“People are lonely at home,” muses Khan, “so they come to the mosque for company, for conversation and jokes. At the iftar (the shared breaking of the fast after sunset during Ramadan), many Japanese show up for free food. They follow Ramadan more than Islam — it’s like a festival.”

On a Saturday night, Khan takes me to my third mosque in Tokyo, on the outskirts of Asakusa. A prayer leader from Indonesia speaks to a group of Pakistanis and a Tunisian about the “Five Intentions to Read the Quran.”

The multinational setting leads to a comical misunderstanding, when the leader asks the group in English, “So why does the Quran have 30 juz (the Arabic word for ‘sections’)?” and Khan replies, perfectly sincere, “It is, like, orange juice for the 30 people. You know, they are thirsty.”

Being a Muslim means many things to many people in their very different lives. As for the evening prayer in Asakusa, it feels like a guys’ night out without booze — expats meeting with friends and connecting through things they would do back home.

But in Japan as well, the authorities are watching Islam. Government officers check the mosque in Asakusa, and the police keep an eye on Khan as he roams Shinagawa on business. One day, in decidedly un-Japanese fashion, he walked into a station and confronted the officers.

“I go inside and say, ‘What is the problem? Let us talk about this problem!’ If you need something, you should come and ask.”

No one says that diversity is easy, or even natural. A harmonious pluralism might need curiosity as well as indifference, both emblematic of how Japanese handle otherness. As for the showcase Muslim community, the alabaster agnostic is keeping his fingers crossed.


Can Japan show the West how to live peacefully with Islam? | The Japan Times

Well thats great...good thread ..apart from Indian contamination of allegations that have now become the spice of this forum..
Japan is good for being so liberal ..

And Islam.
Its a.mystical religion that attracts... no wonder the west is also adopting it fast though I don't agree with switching religion for marriage ..Islam is about Allah

And muslims dont need a Shariah based law in Japan because its laws are adequate and already centred around shariah..most of the new world laws are originally from islam..
I hope that japan and its premises join hands with Islam for the bettetment ..unlike the European and Americans who have only sowed seeds of hatred among nom-muslims and muslims and also between muslims and muslims

 

[DiehardPakNerd]

Proof the present Hindu extemism, the past hindu extremism towards muslims so if they can be hateful and biased and forceful towards people with whom they share 600 years...I totally know how would have they been before

 

[अखण्ड भारत!!!]

Proof the present Hindu extemism, the past hindu extremism towards muslims so if they can be hateful and biased and forceful towards people with whom they share 600 years...I totally know how would have they been before

Again source...your head???

Proof the present Hindu extemism, the past hindu extremism towards muslims so if they can be hateful and biased and forceful towards people with whom they share 600 years...I totally know how would have they been before

Funny how muslims have grown to become 20% from 7% in India after partition despite hindu extremism

 

[amitkriit]

..unlike the European and Americans who have only sowed seeds of hatred among nom-muslims and muslims and also between muslims and muslims

I agree, Muslims are always innocent. Thousands of structures like Bamiyan's Buddha, World Trade Centre, Mumbai's Taj Hotel are witnesses of their innocence. This is also a fact that the Solar System is governed by the Sharia Law, law of gravitation is just a product of some mad man's restless mind. Countries like Maldives are so innocent that they don't allow Crooked non-Muslims to become citizens of the country.

 

[MarkusS]

Bulgaria is better then Turkey?hahahah Albania is soon coming in EU. Good luck with dealing Albanian mafias running around EU.

Did you ever visit turkey? Turkey is not just Istanbul and Izmir. Large parts in the east look like africa. So yep. Bulgaria is indeed better than turkey. Basic fact is that muslim countries have no place in EU. We dont want them, we dont need them. Its not working.

 

[DiehardPakNerd]

Wow... If you were really a man with a mind. Youd know that TERRORISTS ARE NOT MUSLIMS ATLEAST IN ACCORDANCE TO WHAT ISLAM SAYS.

Secondly yes, Gravity is due to Shariah and this world was made for Islam.

Why are you despising spread of islam, your hindi extremist awakened. Afterall Islam is what bothers the entire world because it was the not so long agos long time ruler! !!


Go *uck off with you absurdity.. We're talking islam and Japan not hindus and extremist india
Who cant keep from poking their nose in everything that ain't their business!

Every thread you open there are indian filth loaded bugs spreading hate...

 

[DiehardPakNerd]

The same muslims are being ruthlessly massacred in Asaam and indian occupied Kashmir

 

[Jlaw]

The question is can Japan live peacefully with Muslim population at 10 milliion +?
Koreans make up1.5% of Japanese population and they are being discriminated in Japan. Koreans have similar DNA but yet Japanese discriminate against them.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324031404578482570250163826

Biggest killer of muslims are muslims themselves.

I think American soliers are the biggest Muslim killers.

 

[अखण्ड भारत!!!]

The same muslims are being ruthlessly massacred in Asaam and indian occupied Kashmir

Bangaldeshis illegals and terrorists...not just any muslim

 

[DiehardPakNerd]

No dear they are just common harmless citizens! !!

 

[Abotani]

@Developereo
Those are extremely stupid comments that Buddhism in India was wiped out by Hindu extremists. Buddhism is actually growing at the moment in India. @Abotani @Tshering22 as Indian Buddhists, what is your opinion on his comments?

Not a buddhist here mate,heck I am more of an agnostic though I do have buddhist family members.But yes,the claim of elimination of buddhism in India is damn retarded.Even in my state where majority are animists,buddhism is prospering and expanding.It's as native in Arunachal Pradesh as animism.I wouldn't even bother refuting the pakistani members making outlandish claims.no use banging one's head against the wall.