[Buddha-l] NYTimes.com: Let Us Pray for Wealth

[Dan Lusthaus]

Richard,


> > If you did the first part of your homework well, you will have traced
the
> > outline of the green areas on most of the above maps. Coincidence?
Fantasy?
> > Prejudice? You decide.
>
> Coincidence mostly. That you try to make more of it than that? Prejudice,
> narrow-mindedness, irrationality and hatred, mainly.

And this is where we differ. There are too many dots, in too great a
density, at the periphery of the green areas -- and within them -- to
reasonably attribute this all to "coincidence."

Your repeated attempts to find parity where there is none are disheartening.
How many 9/11s in the last ten years can you name that were perpetrated by
Buddhists? (I'll even grant you the Aum Shin Rikkyo group, though a strong
case could be made for excluding them from consideration as "Buddhists" -- 
but let's throw that in.) Now make a list of all the Islam-related terrorist
activities you can think of from the last ten years (there are too many for
you to remember them all, but just do the best you can; just try to recall
the most spectacular). For extra credit, get out the map again and plot all
incidents according to location. Now compare the totals from both lists.
Your imaginary parity evaporates with the disparity.

But let's put aside the (very real) threat that Islam today poses to the
nonMuslim world. An equally deep tragedy is the increasing popularity,
achievement of power, and "extipation" of opposing opinions and people by
especially virulent strains of Islam. Islam contains much beautiful history
and profound thought, art, science, culture... -- though even in the heyday
of the Ibn Sinas and Ibn Rushds and al-Hallajs, they were attacked,
persecuted and even martyred -- as well as an ugly, violent history, turned
on deviant Muslims as well as on infidels. The beautiful Islam is presently
disappearing throughout the Muslim world, intimidated into silence or worse.
I can't tell you how deeply that saddens me.

Let me put this in more concrete -- if personal anecdotal -- form. When I
taught a course on Islam (yes! They ASKED me to do it), what we studied so
inspired a number of students that half-way through the course they were
seriously contemplating converting to Islam. At another school, after I was
asked to give a couple of guest lectures to a graduate seminar on Islam
(most of the students were Muslims from overseas), despite the fact that the
dept. had two scholars of Islam on the faculty, several of the students
wanted me to be the advisor for their dissertations, or at least on their
committees. So much for my alleged prejudice. On the other hand, at some
other schools I have been told that they would be afraid to let me teach a
course on Islam -- not because they were afraid I would bad-mouth the
tradition, but exactly to the contrary, the local Muslim community -- which
would form a substantial portion of the class -- consisted of a type of
fundamentalist Muslim for whom the "beautiful" Islam was NOT Islam. Sufism
is not Islam. Etc. And those schools had already had violent and
intimidating incidents against profs from such students. Only someone who
spoke the kind of Islam these students approved of, or who knew how to
tiptoe on the right eggshells, would be safe (relatively) to teach such
courses. That was a matter of grave concern and consternation to those
depts. A frightening number of schools have relayed such stories to me (from
various parts of the country -- rural as well as urban). It is one of the
unspoken secrets of university teaching in this PC age, when discussing such
things out loud gets one accused of prejudice, etc. Maybe that disturbing
trend hasn't made it to New Mexico yet. Perhaps you will retire before it
gets there. But it is coming.

Dan Lusthaus