{"id":89272,"date":"2019-05-23T16:26:04","date_gmt":"2019-05-23T23:26:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=89272"},"modified":"2019-05-23T16:26:04","modified_gmt":"2019-05-23T23:26:04","slug":"the-spread-of-islam-in-sri-lanka-and-changing-requirement-of-religious-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/05\/23\/the-spread-of-islam-in-sri-lanka-and-changing-requirement-of-religious-education\/","title":{"rendered":"THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN SRI LANKA AND CHANGING REQUIREMENT OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

When\nI read open views in newspapers and other media devices, I found that many have\na problem, why Islam spreads rapidly in many countries and nobody has opted to\ndiscuss the major reason to rapidly spread Muslim religion.  Islam is a religion like other religions and\nno one can identify that Islam has a specific spirituality or a logical philosophy\nthan other religions. In fact, we can see that Islam contained many practices\nand attitudes like in other religions and sometimes against humanity expressing\nmythical views that they do everything (good and bad) on account of God or to\nsatisfy God. Does God expect from people to work against humanity?  Why people have specific interest in such a\nreligion which goes against humanity? This is an unresolved question among\npeople for a long time and many academics did not consider finding solution to\nthis question. Real Islamists believe that they have five roles to play that\nare Taweed (there is no God but Allah himself), Salaat (pray five times a day),\nZakaat( Muslim who have money must give a percentage of 1\/40 to help people,\nSyaam (fasting during the Ramadan) and Hajj (Pilgrimage to Mecca). The concept\nof Taweed means believing a one God, which is related to many religions such as\nJudaism, Christianity, Catholics, and Hinduism and it doesn\u2019t further mean that\nthis concept forces believers to kill non-believers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Islam\nbegan to spread after 600 years of Jesus Christ and the social doctrine of\nJesus Christ was stricter and was based against individual selfishness of\npeople and he criticized the social policies and practices of Judaism in his\ntime as he happened to live in that society. Jesus Christ strongly criticized\nthe ideas and practices of family relationships in that society which he was\nliving and the way of people looked at God in Judaism in that time.  Jesus Christ was against the divorce and\neducated God as a loving father than a character that takes revenge from people\nand he educated two commandments that people have difficulty to follow in an\nenvironment with full of desires, but they were the best social and spiritual\npolicies for the spiritual progress of people. \nSuch policies individually and socially centered and promoted people to\nget away from selfishness allowing others to give opportunities to live in the\nsociety.  Practically, it was a hard task\nfor individuals as people were full of desires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\n600 years of Jesus Christ, Islam emerged and attempted to change the policies\nand teaching of Jesus Christ, allowing for a male-dominated society. Islam\nrecognizes Jesus Christ as a Messenger of God, but the nature of recognition\ndoes not clearly appear that Islamists agree with the teaching of Christ.  Islam liberalized marriage and divorce rules,\nand the concepts and practices that were tabooed by Jesus Christ who advised a\nhuman to engage in altruistic activities against selfish life. Islam allows an\neasy divorce system and generally treats women like slavers of men despite\nmodern changes in Islam. Old Testament and Koran clearly indicate the beginning\nof a female and the nature of the beginning of a female clearly showed that\nmale and female are equal when they live in this world and either male or\nfemale cannot regard, opposite is inferior while living in this world. When\nsociety consists of assigned more roles to male other (female) appear as\nplaying less role, but the truth was that the role played by either male or\nfemale could not be judged by narrow arbitrations degrading the role of women\nis inferior.  However, the society\ndeveloped bias folklore against the values of female. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\nIslam supports for male-dominated society and has a flexible rules and\nprocedures for divorce, marriage and pro polygamy in human behaviour, Islam was\nattracted by people who had a mentality to a selfish and a clinging life for\ndesires.  In that way, Islam rapidly\nspread in the world because Islam supported to desires of male over female.\nThere is no argument that if Islam had strict rules on marriage and divorce and\nwomen rights, people would have not gone to Islam looking for spiritual\nliberation.  In modern world, we can see\nthat people used to look for spiritual liberation from various forms of\nBuddhism (Mahayana, Hinayana, Sen and Jain etc). Hinduism also educates that\nall lives began are sacred as they are parts of God and should be treated with\nrespect and compassion. When looks at Islamic society with the practice of\nMuslim personal laws in Sri Lanka, it is quite difficult to see that Islam\ntreats female as a part of God and treat them with respect and compassion.  No religious person uses a pregnant woman as\na suicide bomber and so-called Islamic leader of Wahabism used a pregnant woman\nas a suicide bomber to kill others.  It\nwas a crime against humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maldives\nIslands was a Buddhist country and the major reason to change religion of\npeople in Maldives was dishonest strategies of Muslim traders and liberal rules\nto divorce and remarriage in Islam.  The\nliberal ruling for divorce and marriage in Islam and encouragement to polygamy\nwere the major contributing factors to rapid expanding of Muslim religion.  In the modern era, this idea might subject to\naltercations as many Islam countries have changed their laws, traditions and\nattitudes, as people had internal demands to change many practices, especially\nafter the Iraq war and Islam religion faced to a change in practice as well as\ncustoms. However, the concept of taweed has not changed or interpreted in the\nway people to respect in culture, religion and society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historians\nin Sri Lanka have opinion that Islam came to Sri Lanka as a result of the\nbehaviour of traders came from Eretria, Aden and Persia as these traders\nmarried Sinhala women in the country without disclosing whether they were\nmarried or not before to Sinhala ladies. \nProf G.V.P Somaratne (2007) states trading business in Indian Ocean\nrelegated to Islamic traders and harbor towns of Sri Lanka were also dominated\nby Muslim traders.  In fact, the spread\nof Islam in Sri Lanka was not a result of specific reason that Islam was\ncarrying a spiritual and specific philosophical message over other religions,\nbut it was Sinhala women who married to Muslim traders and allowed to be their\nkids convert to Islam.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert\nKnox wrote in his book (An Historical Relation of the Island of Ceylon) that\nKing Senkadagala Rajasinghe had a strong conjecture on the behavior of Muslim\npeople as the behaviour of them was suspicious to him.  King Senkadagala Rajasinghe was not addicted\nto using too many women, he was not mad on persistent to liberalize marriage\nand divorce rules in Islam in Sri Lanka. \nRobert Knox further states that Muslim people at that time were poor and\nKing insisted provide donations to them. It can assume that Muslim traders\ndeserted their local wives and children and went back to own countries without\nproviding means to live in the country. \nHistory also shows that King Senerat allowed Portuguese to destroy\nMuslim Mosques in seasides and other important note is that a King of Sri\nLanka, who was in 1210 BC was killed by a conspiracy as he was an Islamic\nfaith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\ncountries where divorce is legally allowed and liberalize remarriage rules, the\nspread of Islam is very slow and in countries where indirectly allow polygamy\nand have traditions to cling life of desires, we can observe that Islam\nreligion is completely disregarded by people. In many Western countries where\nthere are more liberal policies and equal opportunity for women,\nanti-discrimination laws, Islam would not rapidly expand as individuals can\nachieve what they expect without converting to a specific religion.  Current Muslim people in those countries\nmigrated as people of Islam faith have a conflict in family life because their\nkids do not respect the traditions of Islam culture.  In fact, these Muslims are struggling to keep\ntheir children in Islam respecting to practices in original countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many\nreligions in the modern world have spiritual leaders and religions like\nCatholic has an international leader, and devotees of religion follow the rules\nof a leader.  However, Islam has no\nInternational spiritual leader or publicly accepted and known to all people,\nand the public has suspect what is the leadership guidance and how to correct\nthe mischievous behavior of devotees. In Sri Lanka, Buddhism is the major\nreligion with many devotees and it had a leadership which has the power to express\nthe accurate philosophical guidance. \nPeople see that from time to time leaders come to media and express\nviews on the exasperating behavior of devotees or movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nreport published by Shenali Waduge in Lankaweb summarised reported events after\nEaster Sunday attacks and information given in the report surprising to public\nand seems that radical Islamists worked to acts of terror all over the country\nand the government is responsible for such a massive expansion of planned terror\nactivities and depriving intelligence services and finding of them.       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS When I read open views in newspapers and other media devices, I found that many have a problem, why Islam spreads rapidly in many countries and nobody has opted to discuss the major reason to rapidly spread Muslim religion.  Islam is a religion like other religions and no one can identify that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-theophilus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}