Wahhabi Extremism Is Not Islam!

Wahhabi extremism is not Islam, say Sinhala-Buddhist nationalists in Sri Lanka. The Sufi Muslims there agree

- Frances Bulathsinghala

Following the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka on April 21, which killed more than 250 people, some Buddhist monks have demanded that the country be made a theocracy.

On July 7, the controversial Gnanasara Thero, secretary-general of the nationalistic Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), told a massive Buddhist conference in Kandy that if 7,000 of 10,000 Buddhist temples on the island contested elections, the face of Sri Lankan politics could be changed. Gnanasara was till recently in jail in a contempt of court case; President Maithripala Sirisena cut short the six-year term, on May 23, through a special pardon.

Gnanasara said the Buddhist clergy was capable of mobilising the Sinhala population into a single vote bloc, to elect a party that would get a clear majority in parliament. The call was to shape a pristine Buddhist identity and vanquish Islamic terrorism.

Though the traditional Sufi Muslims of Sri Lanka have a history of living in peace, the growth of puritanical Wahhabism and Salafism has distanced Muslims as a whole from the rest of the populace.

Interestingly, the Easter bombings were aimed at the minority Christians and not the majority Sinhala Buddhist community. The Christians have largely been silent bystanders in the strife between Buddhists and Muslims. But a few weeks after the bombings, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, head of the Catholic church, declared that Sri Lanka was a Sinhala Buddhist country. For BBS and similar groups, this statement was a great morale booster.

The BBS hit the headlines after the anti-Muslim riots in Aluthgama in 2014, in which four people were killed. Riots rocked Ampara and Kandy last year and several areas around Negombo in May this year.