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InshAllaah it's a good opportunity for knowledgeable Muslims to give dawah to the Japanese. May Allaah Ta'aala aid the dawah in Japan. Aameen.
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OGA, Japan ý The Japanese have long taken an easygoing, buffetlike approach to religion, ringing out the old year at Buddhist temples and welcoming the new year, several hours later, at Shinto shrines. Weddings hew to Shinto rituals or, just as easily, to Christian ones.
When it comes to funerals, though, the Japanese have traditionally been inflexibly Buddhist ý so much so that Buddhism in Japan is often called ýfuneral Buddhism,ý a reference to the religionýs former near-monopoly on the elaborate, and lucrative, ceremonies surrounding deaths and memorial services.
But that expression also describes a religion that, by appearing to cater more to the needs of the dead than to those of the living, is losing its standing in Japanese society.
ýThatýs the image of funeral Buddhism: that it doesnýt meet peopleýs spiritual needs,ý said Ryoko Mori, the chief priest at the 700-year-old Zuikoji Temple here in northern Japan. ýIn Islam or Christianity, they hold sermons on spiritual matters. But in Japan nowadays, very few Buddhist priests do that.ý
Mr. Mori, 48, the 21st head priest of the temple, was unsure whether it would survive into the tenure of a 22nd.
ýIf Japanese Buddhism doesnýt act now, it will die out,ý he said. ýWe canýt afford to wait. We have to do something.ý
Across Japan, Buddhism faces a confluence of problems, some familiar to religions in other wealthy nations, others unique to the faith here.
The lack of successors to chief priests is jeopardizing family-run temples nationwide.
While interest in Buddhism is declining in urban areas, the religionýs rural strongholds are being depopulated, with older adherents dying and birthrates remaining low.
Perhaps most significantly, Buddhism is losing its grip on the funeral industry, as more and more Japanese are turning to funeral homes or choosing not to hold funerals at all.
Over the next generation, many temples in the countryside are expected to close, taking centuries of local history with them and adding to the demographic upheaval under way in rural Japan.
Here in Oga, on a peninsula of the same name that faces the Sea of Japan in Akita Prefecture, Buddhist priests are looking at the cold math of a population and local fishing industry in decline.
ýItýs not an exaggeration to say that the population is about half of what it was at its peak and that all businesses have also been reduced by half,ý said Giju Sakamoto, 74, the 91st head priest of Akitaýs oldest temple, Chorakuji, which was founded around the year 860. ýGiven that reality, simply insisting that weýre a religion and have a long history ý Akitaýs longest, in fact ý sounds like a fairy tale. Itýs meaningless.
ýThatýs why I think this place is beyond hope,ý Mr. Sakamoto said at his temple, which sits atop a promontory overlooking a seaside village.
complete article at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/world/asia/14japan.html?em&ex=1216180800&en=c78804cddde7b415&ei=5087%0A
wa salaamu alaykum,
Sajid
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sajid_chauhan_81
14-07-2008 @ 9:42 PM
