Why China’s Reds fear religious freedom

The anti-religious and dictatorial communist officials who have been badmouthing the Dalai Lama, one of the greatest living spiritual gurus in the world, cannot be expected to know about Asra Nomani, the celebrated author of Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam. But if anyone in China wants to know why His Holiness is revered by Indians and those in the rest of the world who do not equate religion with “the opium of the people”, should turn to this book by the Bombay-born Indian-American journalist (formerly with The Wall Street Journal). This is how Nomani begins her fascinating account of self-discovery.

ALLAHABAD, INDIA: One hot winter afternoon, I was lost in India on the banks of the Ganges, a river holy to Hindus... By chance, my path intersected with the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, the Dalai Lama, inside an ashram, and he set me off on my holy pilgrimage to the heart of Islam. It was January 2001, and I was, quite fittingly, in the city of Allahabad, “the city of Allah,” the name by which my Muslim identity taught me to beckon God.

Although a Buddhist, the Dalai Lama, like millions of Hindu pilgrims, was in a dusty tent village erected outside Allahabad to make a holy pilgrimage to the waters there for the Maha Kumbha Mela. He joined the chanting of a circle of devotees dressed all in white. When they had finished, I followed the Dalai Lama to a press conference...(where) an Indian journalist raised his hand. “Are Muslims violent?” he asked.

My stomach tightened. This question reflected a stereotype of the people of my religion, but, alas, the national flag of Saudi Arabia, the country that considers itself the guardian of Islam’s holiest cities—two historical sites called Mecca and Medina—includes the sword... The Dalai Lama smiled. “We are all violent as religions,” he said. After pausing, he added, “Even Buddhists... We must stop looking at the past, and look at the present and the future.”

Nomani’s own question at the press conference was: “What is it that our leaders can do to transcend the issues of power that make them turn the people of different religions against each other?” His Holiness answered: “There are three things we must do. Read the scholars of each other’s religions. Talk to the enlightened beings in each other’s religions. Finally, do the pilgrimages of each other’s religions.”

... contd.

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