Abstract:
Sri Lanka is a nation in which multi-religious, multi-ethnic multi-language people live. Buddhists are the
majority, while Muslims form the second minority group next to Tamils. Since historical times, the community
relationship between Buddhists and Muslims has been prevailing. However, recently, a disturbing trend has been
widely spreading among the Buddhists and Muslims. This situation has emerged during the aftermath of the
anti-Muslim campaigns set by a number of Buddhist Nationalist Groups (BNGs), with their main goal being to
propagate incorrect opinions about the Muslims to promote negative views about their socio-culture, and to
distort the idea of a peaceful relationship between Buddhists and Muslims in the country. Accordingly, in the past
several years, they have campaigned against halal certification on consumer goods, hijab and niqab of Muslim
women, cattle slaughtering, places of worship and prayer services, among others. Moreover, they spread out the
illusion that the above aspects of Muslim socio-culture are notable threats to the Buddhist people. So, these
aspects are assumed by the Buddhists to be obstacles for maintaining a community relationship with Muslims.
On the above background, analyzing the extent to which the above aspects influence the majority-Buddhists and
minority-Muslims relationship, and determining as to whether an unfastened relationship will prevail between
them, are the main objectives of this study. Based on the results, it is certainly affirmed that the above Muslim
socio-cultural aspects, except slaughtering of cattle, have not pushed their influences to damage the
Buddhist-Muslim relationship in Sri Lanka. In this respect, it was found that the aspect of ‘slaughtering of cattle’
is the only obstacle to the Buddhist-Muslim relationship. Furthermore, the recent campaigns have not changed
the Buddhists’ mood in terms of maintaining a better relationship with Muslims. Moreover, the campaigns did
not change their habits in keeping up the relationships with Muslims, without any break as how they behaved
during the war (1984-2009) and pre-war periods. However, it is worthy to note that the BNGs have succeeded
through their campaigns to create a negative Muslim stereotype among a small population of Buddhists in Sri
Lanka.
