Question: A Buddhist friend asks what the Holy Quran says about Buddha. How should I explain this to him?
– M.J.M. Nijamdeen (Sri Lanka), Jeddah
Answer: The Quran is not a history book that chronicles every single person who has ever lived in the world. If it were written in such a manner, the Quran would become a thousand times larger than it currently is.
The Quran focuses solely on how a human being should live in this world to attain goodness; that is what is essential for humanity. It merely highlights, from time to time, the lessons that mankind ought to derive from the lives of certain individuals.
That is why Buddha is not mentioned in the Quran. His omission implies no shortcoming.
At the same time, if one reflects on what conclusion to draw regarding Buddha, Islam provides an explanation.
Buddha was born at a certain point in time and subsequently passed away. Hundreds of thousands of years have elapsed since the creation of the world, yet Buddha lived for only about a hundred of those years. Such a person cannot be God. One cannot worship or offer devotion to someone who lived and died just as we do.
One can analyze Buddha based on the Quran by asking: If he were God, who managed the world during the hundreds of thousands of years of its existence before his arrival? One can conclude that worshipping him is incorrect.
Similarly, the Quran opens the door to analyzing concepts such as his doctrine of vegetarianism, allowing us to determine that it is not universally applicable across all times nor necessarily beneficial to humanity.
Therefore, whether it concerns Buddha, Rama, Confucius, Rajneesh (who appeared recently), or the various "Sai Babas" of today, the Quran offers a very clear answer regarding the conclusion one should reach about them. While their names may not appear in the Quran, the answers regarding what decisions can be made concerning their actions are indeed present there. Tell that to your Buddhist friend.