Idolatry and the Taliban

The Taliban regime's effort to rally world Muslim opinion behind it by projecting the vandalism at Bamiyan and the large-scale destruction of artefacts in other parts of the country as being in consonance with Islamic tenets, did not fetch the expected support. Barring a few shrill voices from the fringe, extremist quarters, most Muslim countries as well as leading Islamic scholars have voiced their strong disagreement with the Taliban. They insist that Islam does not allow the destruction of the places of worship of others. "There is no compulsion in religion," says the Holy Quran, and in destroying the Buddhas, the Taliban are guilty of a heinous violation of the very religion that they claim to so passionately uphold.

Those familiar with Buddhism know that idol worship is quite foreign to the original teachings of the Buddha, and in this, they come very close to the Islamic position on the matter. Orthodox Hinayana Buddhism had no place for idols of the Buddha, depicting him in the form of symbols, instead, such as, a lotus or the wheel of the law. Yet, over the centuries, particularly owing to the influence of Hinduism and various Tantric traditions, the Buddha's simple creed was turned into an institutionalised religion, the Mahayana or the Great Vehicle, complete with its own priesthood and deities, who came to be represented, of which the 'historical' Buddha, became but one, in the form of idols. An indication of the impact of Mahayanist idolatry is that the Persian and Urdu term for idol, but, is derived from 'Buddha'.