This study examines the claim made by researchers that there is a shift in conflictdynamics in post-war Sri Lanka from ethnic hostilities to largely religiouslyinspired hostilities (Wickramasinghe 2015, Herath and Rambukwella 2015, Klem2011) due to the rise of BBS and aggressive Muslim reform movements.

The study focuses on three religious sites with a multi religious heritage in central Sri Lanka which do not provide evidence for an unambiguously religious turn insocial conflict in Sri Lanka in the post-war era. The religious sites studied with a history of multireligious engagement between Buddhism and Islam have potential for promoting conflict as well as solidarity. The current situation in these three sites do not indicate a major rupture in terms of interreligious relations. The study concludes that while these sites have become entangled with externally drivencampaigns for religious purification that can certainly contribute to bothinterreligious and intrareligious tension, it is difficult to argue that what we havewitnessed is an irreversible change in the nature of social tension in Sri Lanka.