Summary

The history of Muslim–Buddhist relations has long been underexplored or been dominated by impressions of hostility. Recent scholarship has revealed a long history of contacts, often against the backdrop of trade, mission, and imperial expansion. How early these encounters took place and what their earliest shape was depends on views regarding the westward spread of Buddhism, the religious landscape of pre-Islamic Iran, and the nature of early Islam. Medieval Muslim authors sometimes associated the religious traditions of pre-Islamic Arabia with Buddhism or Indian religions in general. The early Abbasid period (8th–10th centuries) was especially significant for the development of Muslim knowledge of Buddhism. Details about the religion, including descriptions of the Bamiyan Buddhas and religious practices, can be found especially in geographical and historiographical literature, but also book catalogues and surveys of different religions. The family of the Barmakids, formerly keepers of the Buddhist Naw Bahār in Balkh, rose to great power at the Abbasid court and represents the integration of Buddhist elites into the cosmopolitan caliphate. A version of the Life of the Buddha, known as the story of Bilawhar and Būdhāsaf, began to circulate in the Middle East at around the same time. One of the difficulties in assessing Muslim descriptions of Buddhism is to reconstruct and historicize categories of religion and religious taxonomies.