Courage required to face the facts

Is the bomb explosion that injured 12 tourists a new chapter in an old war?

When the Muslims arrived in Maldives, the people were Hindhu/Buddhist and had been for more than a thousand years. The islands were dotted with Buddhist temples and considered sacred territory by the Vedic people of the region. Ibn Batuta, the most infamous of the Muslim Arab colonizers, describes how the Maldives were peaceful and free from attack.

Before the Muslim Arabs could bundle up the women in burkhas and teach true Islam to the island people, the Portuguese found the ocean route to this ocean. The new invaders drove out the Arabs, but the ideology of Islam had gained a foothold. The imposition of the ideology was now carried out by surrogates. At times as in the case of Ibn Batuta they were traveling Arabs and at other times they were men who had traveled to Arabia and North Africa.

People who are going around claiming Maldivians have always been a hospitable people who have welcomed visitors to these islands may be referring to another peaceful time before the arrival of Islam that is mentioned by Ibn Batuta.

Good intentions are not enough. We must examine the truth. This is not the first attack on foreigners. The people on the ship that carried the Kaanzee Kamanaa were killed. Are we forgetting that the Frenchman Pyrard's shipmates were left to die of starvation?

Historical records such as the Loamaafaanu copper plate engravings clearly show that the bloodiest chapter in the history of the people of these islands came with the arrival of Islam. People were driven out of the islands where they once lived unafraid of attack. Men underwent forced circumcision, and women suffered genital mutilation. The Buddhist monks and those who did not accept Islam were beheaded in the biggest bloodbath in the history of the islands.

In contrast to what is continuously expressed and taught, Islam arrived in Maldives not peacefully. To clearly understand what happened in Maldives on the arrival of Islam, one has also to read the records of Muslim atrocities in India and beyond. The genocide of the Hindu-Buddhist people on the Indian sub-continent and South Asia at the hands of the Muslim invaders is still the biggest killing spree in all human history. Islam gained a foothold on the people of these islands through violence and terror.

To find a peaceful solution to the problem, what is required first is intellectual honesty. We must stop reciting and repeating what is clearly not true. A good starting point would be to admit that our people did not convert peacefully but were murdered and terrorized into submission.