Abstract:
The study aimed at discovering the status of religious tolerance in Islam with compared to Buddhism, which was based on the premise that the religious tolerance has a significant impact on the spread of Islam. The study adopted the descriptive analytical method; compared between the Islamic belief and Buddhist belief; and analyzed the aspects of agreement and disagreement between the both. The researcher benefited from various resources, references, researches and scientific journals, in addition to the Internet. The study came in five chapters: the first dealt with the conceptual fundamentals of the research; the second gave a historical brief about Sri Lanka and its most important religions; the third defined the Buddhism, its origin, evolution and faith and its stand towards religious tolerance; the fourth explained the fundamentals of the Islamic faith, its characteristics and its stand towards religious tolerance; the fifth illustrated the aspects of agreement and disagreement between Islam and Buddhism, and the non- application of religious tolerance by Buddhism with Muslim minorities. The results of the study were that Islam is different from all religions, whether they are divine or not, and that it is the last religion remaining with its fundamentals and resources fixed and documented, not extravagant to distortion or alteration. One of the recommendations was that the media should pay attention to this issue. The researcher also suggested that further studies should be carried on regarding religious tolerance.