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Compare Buddhism and Islam

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Religion is defined as "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God" . There are many recognised religions of the world, which all teach its followers to live life "the right way", whose definition varies according to the religion itself. They have some beliefs and practices that distinguish themselves from each other. Some examples are differences and similarities of Buddhism and Islam.

Buddhism originated from India, and was founded by Prince Siddharta Gautama, who later came to be known as Buddha, or the enlightened one. Born of a princely caste, he later renounced his comfortable life in search for nirvana. In order to do that, he joined a band of ascetic, who was a group of Hindu priests. …show more content…

In relation to this belief is the practice of prayer that Muslims place importance on, but the Buddhists disregard, and rather believe in meditation or the cleansing of mind.

The second major difference is the incentive for not doing evil in life. For a Buddhist, the reason why one does not harm other beings, for example, is that it will affect your karma. For a Muslim, it is more of because Allah will punish bad deeds and reward good ones. The ultimate goal in both religions also differ, Muslims' are to go to heaven, whereas Buddhists' are to attain nirvana. The Buddha also said that the human self has no atta (soul) in contrary to Muslims.

The roles of scriptures in the two religions also differ. Muslims treat the Koran as the literal word of Allah. It is believed to have been passed down to Muhammad over twenty-three years in the form of Gabriel's (Allah's angel) voice . It is from this Koran that a Muslim understands his Allah's commandments. In contrast, Buddha does not have a holy book that plays such a big role in the religion. The most important scripture for a Buddhist is the Tripitaka. It originally consists of three volumes of teaching, but its role is not as significant as in the case of Islam. Initially, the Buddha passed down his knowledge to his followers verbally, and his followers memorised them. Eventually, the Tripitaka was put together, and overtime, other additional scriptures and poems were added to it .

It is also partly due to the

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