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The
Laughing Buddha
By Abul Kasem
Dear
Buddha:
Are
you both angry and mad with us? Are you laughing at us now that
we are about to lose our pants and shirts and possibly our skins
and lives too? Remember,
a few months ago, whenever we passed by your tallest figure in
the world, we used to laugh at you.
Do you know why we used to do that, Buddha? We used to
laugh at your humble statue simply because we knew that your
days were numbered. We
created the only perfect Islamic society in the world. We
followed every word in the Qur’an and translated them to
reality. We followed every sentence from the ahadith and
implemented them to each and every person in our dearest Emirat
of the Mumeneen. No
Islamic Mullah could challenge us that we did anything unIslamic.
Even the other Islamic paradises like Pakistan, Iran, Sudan
could not match our Islamic zeal. They were really jealous of us
that we had the guts to implement the Qur’an and Hadith to the
letter while they dared not. The world was astonished at our
audacity and defiant attitude. Nevertheless, we did give a damn
to the world. We
only followed Allah's decrees and His best creation, the prophet
Mohammed’s practices. One
of the practices of this best creation of Allah was that he
personally destroyed all the 360 idols in the holiest place on
earth, which is Kaaba in Mecca.
Therefore, when we looked around, we found your statue
was the tallest standing statue of yours' in the world. There
are other great statues of yours; like the sleeping Buddha, the
sitting Buddha, the meditating Buddha, the reclining Buddha
scattered in many parts of the world. However, we had your
tallest standing Buddha in our Afghanistan. We decided to
tarnish your face, dismantle your figure and even demolish you.
We thought that by doing this obligatory duty of ours' (that is
to destroy each and every idol of yours in Afghanistan), Allah
will be extremely pleased with us and will surely save us from
the natural calamity like the three years of continuous draught.
The whole of humanity cried when we killed your stone-carved
body. However, we
did not care. We
were extremely joyous after annihilating you and we proclaimed
to the world that no Buddha statute should be alive in
Afghanistan. That was the decree by our most exulted Ameer-ul
Mumeneen, the grand Mullah Omar. The entire followers of yours'
from Japan to Burma and Thailand begged us not to destroy your
statue. They even proposed that they would take your body out of
Afghanistan. But we disagreed. Our Ameer-ul-Mumeneen decreed
that you must face Islamic justice.
Therefore, we simply ignored them and went ahead with
your execution plan. It was one of our greatest achievements,
that is, slaying hard granite built body of yours. We are sure
you did feel a lot of pain when we broken asunder your body into
small pieces by powerful explosives. But that is the way most
Islamic punishments are meted out. The Islamic punishments are
meant to inflict the severest pain before death. We never allow
peaceful and painless execution as the infidels do.
Our values are different and we look to our ‘Prophet of
Peace’ for inspiration.
So,
why are we turning to you and writing to you now after all these
months? Well,
Buddha, you know that we had a supreme guest with us by the name
of Osama bin Laden. In fact, he is actually the father-in-law of
our Ameer-ul-Mumeneen and vice versa.
He and our Ameer follow our prophet to the letter even on
marriage matters. For
example, he (our prophet) married the 6-year-old Ayesah, the
daughter of his best friend Abu Bakr and thus our prophet became
the father-in-law of his best friend.
The prophet then married the young daughter, Hafsa, of
his another great comrade, Umar who also married the
four-year-old half sister of Ayesha (the posthumous daughter of
Abu Bakr). Thus,
they all became father-in-laws to each other.
Seems very weird, isn't it?
However, this is not weird at all.
In Islam, everything and anything is possible.
After all, Islam has the solution for all worldly and
post-worldly problems.
Osama
thought that he was very smart.
Therefore, he sent suicide squad to America and there
they killed around 4000 people there. This led America to
declare a war on us. We took the challenge rather blithely. We
were sure of our victory. Osama was absolutely certain that the
whole Ummah will be on our side and they will surely take up
arms when the infidels attack us.
We sent urgent i-mails (Islamic mails) to Allah to tell
us what to do. In the meantime, we wanted all Muslims of the
world to unite under the flag of Osama's Al-Qaeda. However, to
our utter surprise we found that an insignificant number of the
Islamic Ummah had responded to our clarion call. Only a few
thousand Pakistani Mujaheeds
joined us to slay the infidels. Nevertheless, we never lost our
hope in the eventual victory of ours through the help of Allah.
Dear
Buddha, we are so ashamed now to tell you this. You may not
believe it. We waited and waited for the reply to our i-mails to
Allah. By the way,
let us tell you that our i-mails to Allah is sent through
Islamic high technology like Islamic telepathy as we have banned
the infidel's Internet communication technology in Afghanistan.
We really did not need Internet communication when our
Ameer-ul-Mumeenieen has regular divine messages from various
sources through Islamic dreams and inspirations. Why should we
use modern technologies when we are truly guided by Allah?
Why should we use satellite and wireless communication of
the infidels when we have the super fast Islamic communication
media like Zainamaj (prayer
rug), Tasbeeh (prayer
beads), and the incredibly sensitive Islamic antenna (turban),
which we forced every Afghani to wear.
This we had to do because we must let every Afghani
receive your message through this type of dish antenna. See how
clever we folks are! We
can beat any infidel's technology hands down.
No joke! However,
when the infidels attacked us through heavy bombing, this mode
of communication with Allah broke down completely. We do not
know how or why this happened.
We thought that Allah would repair the communication
system and restore his channel of information flow.
Alas! That
did not happen either. We do not know why suddenly Allah has
decided to abandon us in this mid ocean, figuratively speaking
of course. When we thought on this matter, we quickly realised
that it must be you who had convinced Allah to abandon us.
O, Buddha! It is just unbearable! We were certain that
you must be in hell, that you have no access to our prophet and
to Allah. Please tell us if Allah has changed his mind on you or
not due to our unkindness to you.
Is Rasul -E-Karim
with you? We are very eager to know.
Dear
Shakka Muni Gautama Buddha, it looks almost certain that we have
no choice but to become martyrs or to surrender to the infidels.
Our calls to Islamic Ummah fell into deaf ears. Even our Allah
has abandoned us in midstream. We now have only one choice. Yes,
this choice was unthinkable even a few weeks ago. Now, it looks
like we must ask you for your help. Look, Gautama, please recall
your ancient messages of love, Ahimasa,
kindness and sympathy to all human beings. You also told the
world about the law of Karma. So, please bring back those old
teachings of yours to humankind, p-l-e-a-s-e!
Our
beloved Gautama, once we were your diehard followers. All of
Afghanistan was yours. Look up the history and we are sure you
will remember our glorious past under your guidance. Suddenly,
the Islamic invaders forced us to abandon you and imposed Islam
on us. We are sure you know the history very well. Please
Gautama, understand that our ancestors had very little choice
but to accept Islam in order to save their neck. They had to do
it because the Islamic invaders brainwashed us by saying that
'Paradise lies under the shades of swords'. Gautama, have you
read Sahih Bukhari?
The book is an absolute gem!
If not, then please get a copy from Mohammad in paradise
and see for yourself in book number 52-hadith numbers 73 or 210.
It is the same way that Islam was established in many other
parts of the world like India-Pakistan-Bangladesh etc.
Therefore, you see, Islam brought paradise to these
places through sword. Ditto
for Afghanistan. They
thought that it was a hell during your time. The Muslims had to
use their swords to bring paradise in Afghanistan too. They also
wanted to cut your stone curved body into pieces.
But there was no dynamite or other powerful explosives
during that time. Therefore, they had no choice but to mutilate
your nose, ears, eyes and face and inflicted plenty of Islamic
lashings, which were still visible on your person before we
finally broke you down to powder. Dear Gautama, was it very
painful? We are so
sorry now that we gave you such pain before we finished you off.
Now, please try to understand.
We really do not have any grudge against you. It is just
that we must carry out our divine duties. So, please forgive us
for what we did. We
know your law of Karma is eternal.
But we never thought that this law would catch up with us
so fast. Many
Buddhist monks in Thailand and Japan predicted our downfall and
eventual return of your smiling face in Afghanistan. But their
time frame was one thousand years.
They are utterly wrong! The time frame has been only a
few months! How is that possible, Siddharta?
How is it possible that the inviolable law of Karma has
eventually reached its long arm to us? Please, please, show us
some mercy. Is it possible to defer the enforcement of this law
for some time? We are sure you will consider our humble appeal
so that we can save our lives.
Lord
Buddha, we are so fearful to call you lord, because we have been
taught throughout our lives that we have only one lord and that
is Allah. But now that Allah has abandoned us forever, we do not
mind calling you lord just as a mark of respect to you.
Are you happy now? We
are atoning our sins now. Please show us some mercy. Lord
Buddha, did you know that the largest site of the Buddhist
civilisation is in the largest Muslim country in the world? It
is at Borobudur near Yogjakarta in Indonesia. Incredible,
isn’t it, Buddha? It is one of the biggest tourist attractions
in Indonesia and a big source of foreign income for the
impoverished Indonesians. You know very well that during your
days Indonesia was a very rich and powerful country. But now it
is a basket case after Islam invaded Indonesia. Isn't it very
funny that whenever Islam takes over a country then that country
becomes hopelessly poor within a very short period of time.
Millions of tourists from all parts of the world flock to
Indonesia just to see your stone-carved faces.
However, tourists seldom go to visit Islamic sites. Why
is it so, Buddha? Why
even after you died you have become such a great immortal? Why
is it that the most alive and the fastest growing Islam does not
attract any tourist? Is
that because of us? We
had greatest success in making two words the most despised in
the world. These two words are 'Islam' and 'Taliban'. This is
not really our fault at all.
We just followed what our faith has asked us to do. Is it
fair that the whole world should bear so much disdain for us? No
doubt that by slaughtering your stone-carved person we lost a
good revenue from tourist who came to our forsaken land mainly
to visit you. We
have many other Islamic sites (like the world's largest mosque
being built with the Saudi money), but alas not a trickle of
tourists are interested in them. This is really very puzzling to
us.
Now
we have decided that we had had enough. We want to abandon our
Allah. We shall rebuild your magnificent sculpted body again.
However, this time we shall make it out of white marble and we
shall make you the largest laughing Buddha in the world. We are
sure that you will be happy with us again.
So, please bestow on us your mercy and protect us from
your law of Karma.
We
remain, devotedly yours
The
renegade Talibans
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Abul
Kasem pens from Sydney, Australia.
His e-mail address is - [email protected]
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