Buddhism and Islam have very different visions of the ultimate goal of humanity and, accordingly, possess strikingly different views on the meaning and purpose of earthly existence. Both religions see life as filled with suffering and hold that human efforts must be directed at liberation from suffering and from constraint by earthly things. But Buddhism--with its emphasis on discovering the path to transcendence and enlightenment--sees suffering, or the ability to be affected by suffering, as the result of human ignorance. Once ignorance is overcome the knowledge acquired means an end to suffering in the achievement of nirvana, "the ideal state of being." Islam, on the other hand, holds that after death those whose actions were in accordance with the rules and values revealed to Mohammed by Allah will attain Paradise. In this life the individual is subjected to suffering and all the trials of existence because s/he does not follow the guidance Allah so clearly offered through the Prophet. For almost every religion it has been important to account for earthly suffering in some way that explains it and offers a promise of escape from it. How a religion does this is intimately related, therefore, to the kind of promise it makes regarding some state in which the potential for suffering ends. A comparison of Buddhist and Islamic ideas about this sort of promise will demonstrate the connection between the activities of humanity in this world and the altered state of being that is each religion's highest goal.
Both religions include variations in doctrine and practice related to conflicting interpretations of teachings and revelation or to the adaptation of the faith to many different cultures. But the essential core of Buddhist thought can be found in the teaching of Siddhattha Gotama, also known as the Buddha, in the canons of the earliest schools of Buddhism, especially the Pali Canon of the Theravada school. Islam, which ...