Silk Road trade that connected merchants from Nepal and India to the peoples of Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula (and vise versa) meant that Arabs were exposed to Buddhists and their beliefs before the advent of Islam. It is therefore not surprising that even though the Qur’an does not discuss or name Buddhism or the Buddha, names for the Buddha and Buddhist statues and structures existed in Arabic in the classical period. The rich Arabic texts that emerged as a result of exchange with Buddhist communities, and especially texts inspired by narratives about the life of the Buddha, appear in different forms in Sunni, Shi’i and Sufi literature from the classical period of Islam onward. These narratives not only show a variety of interpretations of the received narratives but also a history of transmission of Sanskrit, Pahlavi, and Manichaean texts into Arabic. The earliest Arabic versions of the Buddha’s life are different from each other. At the center of this study is a tenth-century Arabic text, Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa (The Epistles of the Sincere Brothers or the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity), that quotes the Buddha alongside respected prophets and philosophers from different religious backgrounds and retells the story of the Buddha’s life. While Arabic versions of the Buddha’s life show direct relationships to Pahlavi adaptations of the Buddha’s life, Ikhwan al-Safa’s version from the tenth century contains evidence of a relationship to Turkic Manichaean texts. I argue that Ikhwan al-Safa retain the asceticism of the original Buddhist narratives but reject other Buddhist ideas, creating a monotheistic, Neoplatonic asceticism of their own. Unlike other versions of the Arabic narratives of the Buddha’s life, Ikhwan al-Safa’s version heavily emphasizes the role of philosophy for salvation and eternal happiness. Still, Ikhwan al-Safa count the Buddha among the prophets and philosophers, quoting him alongside Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Socrates, Aristotle, and Pythagoras.