But the real question is, was Budhism a religion of Allah? According to IslamQA it is not. And it is a reputable website, so i accept Sheikh Munajjid's opinion until further evidence is provided
Allah knows best.
It is indeed true that Buddhism is not a religion of Allah (or was), but in the same website (IslamQA) they claim that Muhammad (peace be upon him) is in the Hindustry scriptures. And I do not deny that! This is because of 2 things:
1- In the Hindu scriptures, there are other Abrahamic figures such as Abraham (I think he is called Brahama?), Ishmael, and Issac. So it makes sense for our prophet (peace be upon him) to be in them.
2- There was not a people without a messenger:
And for every Ummah (a community or a nation), there is a Messenger; when their Messenger comes, the matter will be judged between them with justice, and they will not be wronged. (Qur'ân 10:47)
And verily, We have sent among every Ummah (community, nation) a Messenger (proclaiming): "Worship Allah (Alone), and avoid (or keep away from) Taghut (all false deities, etc. i.e., do not worship Taghut besides Allah)." Then of them were some whom Allah guided and of them were some upon whom the straying was justified. So travel through the land and see what was the end of those who denied (the truth). (Qur'ân 16:36)
So that could mean that they took some teachings of prophets from Allah and put them in their scriptures.
The reason to why I doubt that our prophet is in Buddhism is because the first point doesn't apply. There is no relation to the Abrahamic religions in Buddhism. The evidence for Muhammad (peace be upon him) in it is also very weak.
Buddhism is a branch of Hinduism. And they believe in incarnations of deity , gods , godess on earth.
"Buddhism and Jainism, both religions are considered different from Hinduism due the very basic difference between the way they treat idea of God. Interestingly the basic philosophy that underlies both is Sankhya philosophy.
Sankhya defines duality as inherent nature of things. Everything will have two opposite sides of same, look like two faces of a coin.
When it got adopted in Hinduism in Vedas they treated everything that is manifestation of supreme brahaman as God (heard of stupid chiche called Hindus have 33 million Gods) when this system became too thick, then arrived Buddhism or Jainism (around same time, 600BC) which said nothing is God or God dies not exits, only humans who achieve real knowledge exists and they are called arihant or Buddha. Basically in other words, what current times refer to atheists is what Buddhism or Jainism were, nastik or atheistic religions.
If you see other than this basic difference much of other things remained similar. Since the basic idea of God was opposite, both Buddhism and Jainism are not considered part of Hinduism. In fact in India, Jains are one of the minority, without any benefits obviously."
Source:
Reponse by Kapil Jain :
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Buddhism-not-considered-as-a-branch-of-Hinduism
