Global Civilization

A Buddhist-Islamic Dialogue

Majid Tehranian, Daisaku Ikeda

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9780857731920
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Buddhism

"Global Civilization" emerged from a series of conversations between two peace advocates of Japanese and Iranian origin. It covers the encounters between Buddhist and Islamic civilizations from the 7th century to the present. For all their cultural differences, Buddhism and Islam share a surprising number of intrinsic similarities. The topics discussed include such diverse subjects as the nature of religious faith today, global ideological terrorism, religious fanatacism and universal human rights. Ikeda and Tehranian, two important representatives of their respective faiths, propose dialogue as the most effective method of conflict resolution at interpersonal, intra-national and international levels. It is a call for tolerance, for dialogue and for peace.

CHAPTER 1

Why Dialogue?

Ikeda: I have great respect for those who fight for peace. Many people talk about peace but few take action for the cause. I understand you’ve been to Durban in South Africa.

Tehranian: Yes, I have. The Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research held an international conference there on the theme of African food security. Thank you for your thoughtful message to the conference. I’m well aware that from early on you have been very much interested in Africa, saying that the 21st century is an African century.

Ikeda: I have made every effort to meet as many African leaders as possible, including President Nelson R. Mandela of South Africa. Durban reminds me of Mahatma Gandhi …

Tehranian: Right. Durban is the third largest city in South Africa, and that’s where Gandhi’s nonviolent peace movement was started. He lived there for twenty-one years from the end of the last century, organizing an anti-discrimination campaign.

Ikeda: We will be talking about Gandhi and his ideas from time to time in this dialogue, but the recent developments in India and Pakistan make me painfully aware of the need for humankind to reevaluate the concept of nonviolence and find ways to put it into practice. Nuclear warfare must be avoided at all costs.

Tehranian: I agree with you completely. It is precisely to that end that the Toda Institute has chosen “human security” as one of its principal research projects. One major subject we address is how to abolish all nuclear weapons.

I am determined not only to devote myself to research but also to build up an international network of wisdom for the ultimate abolition of nuclear weapons.

Born into a Spiritual Life

Ikeda: Before we begin our discussion, I would like to ask you about your personal background. That will help deepen our mutual understanding and it will also be a good way to introduce you to our readers.

Tehranian: Well, I was born in 1937 in an Iranian city called Mashhad. Mashhad literally means “a place of martyrdom”. This is where Imam Reza, the 8th Imam of the Shi’a Islamic faith, is buried. Imam Reza came to the city in the 9th century as governor of Khorasan province, but soon after his arrival he was poisoned by his adversaries and died. He was well known as a just and righteous leader and his death was so deplored that the city was named after him as Mashhad.

Ikeda: I hear that his tomb is now a holy site to which a great many Shi’a pilgrims from all over the world come to pay tribute.

Tehranian: That’s right. So, as a child, I grew up with a keen awareness of the spiritual significance of my birthplace. I now live in Hawaii, but whenever I think about my home city, the first thing that comes to mind is the golden dome of the tomb and its lofty minarets.

The dome is at the city center and I could see it from my home. We would hear the calls to prayer issuing from its minarets at sunrise, noon, and sunset.

Ikeda: The golden dome shining in the sunlight and the sounds of people’s prayers vibrating throughout the town … It must have been quite a picturesque and memorable scene.

I was born in 1928 in Tokyo’s Ohta ward. Of many childhood memories I remember particularly well the sight of the beautiful blue sea from the seashore near my home.

My family was in the business of gathering and processing a kind of edible seaweed called nori. I still have vivid memories of my father and his assistants going out to work late at night to take advantage of the rise and fall of the tide … and my mother working hard to help the family business.

Tehranian: I can never forget my mother’s beautiful chanting of the Koran in the morning and at night. I’m sure that it was her voice, which I heard chanting every single day, that implanted deep religious feelings in me.

My day was punctuated by drums, azan chants (calls to prayer), and my mother’s chants. This gave my young life a beautiful regularity, reminding me of the existence of a world beyond myself. Looking back, I think I was born into a spiritual life without knowing it.

The Folly of War: Turning People into Beasts

Ikeda: Very interesting, indeed. The peaceful days of my childhood did not last very long. When I was eleven, that horrible war—World War II—broke out.

Tehranian: I was only three, then. Despite its declared neutrality, Iran was invaded and occupied by the Allied forces. Our country was also used as a “Bridge of Victory” for transporting war materials from the Persian Gulf to a beleaguered Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, my home city Mashhad was bombarded and occupied by the Russians. While walking along the streets of the city, I remember hiding behind my mother’s chadar so that the Russian bombs would not hit me!

Ikeda: War completely destroys the happy life of people, reduces whole towns to ashes overnight, and deprives us of the lives of our loved ones and dear friends. The horror of war is beyond imagination unless you’ve experienced it yourself.

Tehranian: I have one really bitter memory. One day my older brothers were swimming in the city’s public pool. Some Soviet soldiers came along unexpectedly and, finding my brothers, began to bully them about. They held them under the water until they were gasping for air and would pull them out again at their whim, delighting in my brothers’ desperation. They were getting their kicks from mistreating little children! I was made painfully aware that wars turn people into beasts. At times, the Russian soldiers would give us children sweets, but that sort of kind behavior was the exception, not the rule.

Wartime Experiences: Comparing Notes

Ikeda: The opening sentence of my novel The Human Revolution reads: “War is barbarous and inhuman. Nothing is more cruel, nothing more tragic.” It was not an abstract notion, nor was it cheap sentiment, but an honest and strong expression of indignation against war, which forces everyone into tragedy.

Tehranian: That is truly moving. It wasn’t until I went to school and learned reading and writing that my hatred of war led to some action. My antiwar sentiments first took a nationalist turn. In the second grade, I became a budding journalist by producing a handmade magazine. It included stories, cartoons, and even an editorial, although quite a simple piece, to be sure!

Ikeda: What did the editorial say?

Tehranian: It focused on the Allied occupation of Iran. I used a story we had learned at school about two sisters fighting over a doll, tearing it into pieces, and leaving everyone in tears.

The accompanying cartoon showed a map of Iran being fought over by the Allied powers, the Russians in the North and the British in the South. My grandfather, who bought a copy of the magazine, said to me, “You should be censored for your own good!”

My fate was thus sealed. I became an outspoken pacifist and anti-imperialist writer for the rest of my life.

Ikeda: A crucial turning point in my life came when I was nineteen. I met Josei Toda, who was to become my mentor. I learned from him that the central pillar of the Soka Gakkai movement was Buddhism, which is pacifistic in its basic orientation. I also learned that during the Second World War, Soka Gakkai leaders fought against the militarist regime, criticizing its fanatic war effort, and as a result the founding president Tsunesaburo Makiguchi died in prison, and my mentor, too, was imprisoned. It was because of this early postwar encounter with Josei Toda that I embarked on the “road to peace” by upholding Buddhist principles.

Struggle against Authority: The True Worth of a Person

Tehranian: I myself was once taken into police custody for unjust reasons, so I can appreciate the greatness of Messrs. Makiguchi and Toda, who never compromised their convictions while in prison.

I went to the United States to study at Harvard University. There, I got involved in the movement for my country’s democratization as president of the Iranian Student Association. That put me on the blacklist of the Iranian secret police.

In 1971, when I was thirty-four, I wanted to go home because I felt very homesick. My parents advised me against the plan for fear of my safety, but I decided to return anyway, partly because a friend from Harvard and a high-ranking official of the Iranian government wanted me to help him in his work.

Ikeda: That’s when you were put under physical restraint.

Tehranian: Well, yes. When I arrived at Tehran, a secret police official who had been checking his blacklist file grinned as soon as he saw my passport. He must have rejoiced at catching an anti-Establishment movement leader. I was immediately taken into the security office at the airport.

As I was being taken there, I could see my family waving toward me on the other side of the glass window. They had expected me to come out soon, but when they realized what was going on, they looked really scared. They all knew well about the terror of dictatorship in Iran.

Ikeda: It sounds like a suspense scene from a movie.

Tehranian: So I asked a security official to relay a message to my family. I told them not to worry about me because I had a friend in the government who would guarantee my safety. It was just some sort of misunderstanding that I was under arrest, I said, so please go home.

The following morning I was released, as apparently the authorities were assured that I was no security risk. I nevertheless had to agree that I would report myself to the police whenever they summoned me, and that I would not leave the country without official permission. For the whole seven years I remained in Iran then, I was constantly under surveillance.

I began working soon after my return home, but I was not paid my salary at first.

Ikeda: The power of first-hand experience!

Like my predecessors Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda, I was put into jail on a false charge. It was July, 1957, and I was twenty-nine. I will never forget that experience.

The ruling power elite was afraid of the growing popular movement that the Soka Gakkai represented. They wanted to nip it in the bud, so to speak, before it was too late. That’s why they arrested me under a false accusation, but I never yielded to any coercion or oppression by the ruling authorities.

Tehranian: I always feel great respect and admiration for the first three presidents of the Soka Gakkai for their courageous actions and uncompromising commitment to their beliefs and principles.

They each had to overcome tremendous personal suffering, and yet they all went beyond personal concerns to act for the benefit of humankind. There are many people in the world who are suffering, but it is rare to find people like yourself and your predecessors who transformed themselves to fight for a noble cause in the interest of humanity.

The Human Revolution: Source of Value Creation

Ikeda: “Transcend your personal worries and sufferings and transform yourself in such a way as to contribute your due share to society and humanity”—this is the motto of the SGI movement aimed at human revolution.

Tehranian: That’s where I find the name Soka, or “value-creation”, particularly significant. Take Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King—people who opened a new path for creation in history. They were invariably born and lived in an era when established values were in crisis.

In order to live fully in an age of crisis and make “wisdom for creation” of new values shine forth, one must cultivate strong will-power and self-discipline so as to be able to cope with all adversity. Generally, the better disciplined a person is, the more likely he/she will challenge the established authority and open up a new path of creation in the course of struggle against the old.

Ikeda: A path of value creation in an age of crisis requires well-tempered self-discipline— I could not agree more with the point you have just made.

Professor Nur Yalman of Harvard told me that he believes “sustained challenge is the fountain of great value creation”. As I interpret it, “sustained challenge” means that each man and woman must hone his or her wisdom to build up a network of solidarity among awakened people. Peace, for example, will remain an empty dream unless people have an ability to check any reckless moves of the power elite; the tragedy of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Foreword by David Chappell
• Preface by Daisaku Ikeda
• Introduction by Majid Tehranian
• 1. Why Dialogue?
• 2. Islam
• 3. Buddhism
• 4. Buddhist-Islamic Encounters
• 5. Spiritual and Religious Revivals
• 6. Clash of Civilizations
• 7. Dialogue of Civilizations
• 8. In Search of Global Ethics
• 9. A Century of War
• 10. A Century of Peace?
• 11. Choose Dialogue
• Epilogue
• Glossary