Transgressing Traditions through Interreligious Dialogue: Buddhist-Islamic Dialogue from a Christian Perspective

Although Islam and Buddhism began meeting as early as the seventh/eighth centuries CE, Muslim-Buddhist dialogue seems to be a fairly recent phenomenon. Given that much of this dialogue is currently focussed on practical and ethical issues, this chapter asks under which premises it may proceed to a more theological level, allowing both traditions to recognise each other as genuinely but differently related to the same ultimate reality and thus opening up the possibility of mutual learning and transformation. To some extent, this process has already started in the work of the so-called Traditional School and recently found a startling expression in the 2010 document Common Ground between Islam and Buddhism.