Agence France-Presse reported today that Dharmarajika, a Buddhist<\/a> monastery in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, is serving food to Muslims this Ramadan, \u201cin a rare example of social harmony between the religions in the South Asian nation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The monastery, they report, \u201chas become a hit on social media since it started distributing daily food packs for Muslims who break their fast during the Islamic month at sunset, known as Iftar.\u201d The abbot of the monastery, Suddhananda Mahathero, speaking to AFP, said:<\/p>\n \u201cBuddhism taught us that serving humanity is the ultimate religion. We are feeding the poor Muslims who cannot afford to buy proper meals to break their fast.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n One of the Muslims who visited the monastery is quoted as saying,\u00a0\u201cI can eat some good food served with love and care.\u201d And a policeman at the site said,\u00a0\u201cThis is such a wonderful example of religious harmony: showing respect and affection to the fasting neighbours without thinking of the difference of religions.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear how much of a hit on social media they have beyond Bangladesh, as their (apparent) facebook page<\/a> only has 178 \u201clikes\u201d as of now and a search of Dharmarajika on twitter<\/a>\u00a0turns up just a couple news stories and then stories dedicated to the Dharmarajika stupas located in Sarnath, India and Taxila, Pakistan. In any case, however, it is a wonderful example of the interfaith benevolence desperately needed in this part of the world and beyond. As I wrote last month about Burma (Myanmar)<\/a>, such acts are happening there as well \u2013 Buddhists and Muslims coming together in friendship, sharing, and mutual concern \u2013 but there, as in several nations in the area, the overall relationship is strained at best.<\/p>\n The AFP story concludes:<\/p>\n In September 2012, tens of thousands of Muslims vandalised and torched nearly a dozen Buddhist temples in the south of the country following allegations that a Buddhist man had desecrated the Koran.<\/p>\n Many Muslims took to social media to thank the Dharmarajika monastery for their food distribution, posting photos on Facebook of the yellow-clad monks handing out supplies. Others praised the monks on Twitter.<\/p>\n \u201cI really appreciate the initiative and thank them,\u201d Nur Hossain, a banker, told AFP.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Here are a couple of the tweets sent out in recent hours (click the pic.twitter link for images):<\/p>\n Bangladeshi #Buddhist<\/a> monks feed fasting Muslims over #Ramadan<\/a>: http:\/\/t.co\/xEHHspwtgJ<\/a> via @aquilastyle<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/3QguLwnORP<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Interfaith Ramadan (@InterfaithRam) July 8, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Dharmarajika \u2013 a Buddhist monastery in Bangladesh, feeds fasting Muslims over\u00a0Ramadan http:\/\/t.co\/4Vu2VCmDhu<\/a>pic.twitter.com\/Jfh2K4kQzv<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 PKonweb (@PKonweb) July 7, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n View the full story here<\/a> or here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Agence France-Presse reported today that Dharmarajika, a Buddhist monastery in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, is serving food to Muslims this Ramadan, \u201cin a rare example of social harmony between the religions in the South Asian nation.\u201d The monastery, they report, \u201chas become a hit on social media since it started distributing daily food packs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":4972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,31,33],"tags":[184,520,47,530,185],"class_list":["post-4971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buddhism","category-interfaith","category-islam","tag-bangladesh","tag-buddhism","tag-interfaith-2","tag-islam","tag-ramadan"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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