Last month in Sri Lanka, a powerful Buddhist monk went on a hunger strike that resulted in the resignation of all nine Muslim ministers in the cabinet. The monk had suggested that Muslim politicians were complicit in the Easter Sunday attacks by Islamic State-linked militants on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka, which killed more than 250 people. During Ramadan celebrations in May, Buddhist mobs besieged Islamic prayer halls, causing Muslim worshipers to flee. “Buddhist monks will say that they would never condone violence,” said Mikael Gravers, an anthropologist at Aarhus University in Denmark who has studied the intersection of Buddhism and nationalism. By 2050, Pew projects that there will be nearly as many Muslims in the world as there are Christians.

Source: International New York Times July 08, 2019 16:07 UTC