RELST 6665

Buddhists and Muslims: Asian Interactions

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2018-2019.

In popular discourses, Buddhism and Islam are now often conceptualized as sharply contrasting religious traditions.  Moreover, tensions between Buddhists and Muslims now feature strongly in some contemporary Asian social and political arenas.  However, historically, interaction between Buddhism and Islam, and between Muslims and Buddhists, reveals many striking instances of co-presence, and interdependence in Asian contexts. For instance, Buddhists and Muslims shared pilgrimage sites and trade routes, sometimes facilitating the growth of one another's religious communities.  Moreover, the expansion of these religious traditions often involved comparable patterns of patronage and localization.  We explore the co-presence of Buddhists and Muslims in Asia thematically, using case studies from diverse Asian locations, from late 1st millennium A.D. to the present day. In doing so, we will come to understand the distinctive post-colonial and later capitalist dynamics that contribute to Buddhist-Muslim political violence in Asia.

When Offered Spring.

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