Examining Islam Around The World Religion Essay

Examining Islam Around The World Religion Essay Islam is defined as submission and peace to God. Worldwide there are more than 1 billion Muslims less than one fifth is Arab. Islam is the major religion of much of Asia, and Indonesia as well with the worlds most abundant Muslim population. Today Islam is a very sensitive and controversial topic; there are a lot of misconceptions and conceptions about its belief, values and goals. In this research paper l will examine the teachings of Islam and how they are interpreted and or practiced in different countries and cultures, including the United States, Great Britain, the Middle East, India and Pakistan, and other country of Asia. How Islam is understood in each countrys culture and how is it contrasted with Christianity and Judaism? How do these understandings impact the ways that Muslims and non-Muslims interact and communicate with one another. Religion is one of the moving forces behind many of the event and attitude that have shaped our world. During the centuries, countries and cities have been developed and destroyed; and battle have been fought, all to protect or make known one religion or another. Islam is the second largest religion in the world; without doubt Muslims differ in their personal engagement and practice between doctrinal and cultural attitude, and have different apprehension about the correct practice of Islam. It had remained fairly invisible to most Americans prior to the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979 with its taking and holding of US hostages (Simmons, Gwendolyn, Zoharah 2008). Of course, American interest in Islam has been further heightened by the horrific events of September 11, 2001, prior to which not much information about Muslims and Islam was available in US newspapers, on radio or television or on the bookshelves in the bookstores or public libraries (Simmons, Gwendolyn, Zoharah 2008). After 911, Medias, radios and books gave negative views of Islam to Americans which made life harder for Muslims over all. Majorities of Muslims living in the US are foreigners, Muslims in America who have been raised traditionally in Muslim cultures speak of the tension they experience trying to remain close to cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious roots while attempting to expand a sense of belonging in their adopted home. American societal patterns are at odds with needs of Muslim life and practice: Schedules works do not easily permit for the five times Friday congregational or day salat prayers. Eating institutional facilities such as prisons, schools, military do not have set up for Muslim dietary practices. The cultural acceptance of sexual permissiveness and the allowance of alcohol in America and immodesty in clothing and comportment are seen as negative influences on the community faith, particularly on his younger people. The shariah law, however, continues to be held as the perfect pattern of life to be striven for, somehow, in the middle of contemporary American culture. On the other side of the world in Europe Muslims in Britain are extraordinarily well accommodated with one another. There are more various Muslims from more dissimilar parts of the globe and communities living together harmoniously in Great Britain than any other city in the world. An essential element of that unification among Muslims is the dexterity to project an apparent Muslim religious uniqueness on top and over any traditional identity or culture. The complication for the expansive society is that unlike, food, fashion, music, sport, drugs, humor, or the arts, religion is not shareable and inseparable. Is not to affirm Muslims do not have many things to talk over with, Humanists, Jews and Christians, on the opposite Muslims now have an essential place in religious discussion of issues in Great Britain. Invariably people define assimilation as the range to which culture has been shared and ingurgitated, from well known entertainment to tastes in narcotics. The belief of Islam h as become shareable in the confined sense that most people in Great Britain or England now know something about it therefore, conversion to Islam is not unusual, however people cannot take it as it please them because is not like a cultural or entertainment source. Therefore the only integration of Muslims into larger community is the magnitude to which obvious Muslim practice is welcome by the latter. Another interesting country where Islam is practiced is India and Pakistan. Muslims are about twelve percent of Pakistan and India population. However their influence on the Pakistanis and Indian society is much stronger. One of the main reasons is that, there are many Muslims rulers in different parts of Pakistan and India. Majorities of the Muslim rulers of Pakistan and India are invaders from the west. In general the Muslims of Pakistan and India like the Muslim world is splited into two major sects, Shia and Sunni. And just like in the Muslim world there is tension between these two sects. Each of the sects has many different schools in each place. There are also Muslims from both placed who affirm to be the descendants from the daughter of Prophet Muhammad and the men in these communities add the title Syed before their names, some other claim to be the descendants of the first Muslims and add the title Sheik. Asia is home of sixty five percent of the worlds Muslims population, and Indonesia, in Southeast, is the worlds largest Muslim country. Although the national slogan of Indonesia, (Unity in diversity), was intended to be a certainly national one, is no less applicable to the Southeast Asian Muslims community, as well as to Muslims all over the world. If questioned about the main elements of their faith and practice, most Muslims will point out the five basic duties of Islam. It consist of, the daily prayers or salat, the profession of faith or shahada, the hajj, the giving of alms or zakat and fasting in Ramadan or sawm. Despite for all that, there is an entire range of calendar rites and celebrations of passage combined with Islam, also to mention the clear acts of piety that some believers perform before carrying out basic actions, like call upon Gods name prior to washing ones face and limbs also before prayer or eating. Again, these acts are split across Islamic pace and time. On the other side, many distinctions among adherent of dissimilar theological and cultural traditions remain essential. though the global society of the faithful come together in Mecca for the don then the hajj the identical costume of two unsewn also known as ihram, they frequently travel as a group in narrow managed groups of fellow countrymen and linguistic communities with tags displaying their national flags. At the same time, there are many distinguishing local practices that are felt to be completely Islamic in the Southeastern of Asia, although these, on occasion, have been disapproved by Muslims of differing cultural backgrounds by virtue of their lack in displacement from, their individual histories. Local practices contain the visitation of the burial place of the saints of Java or the use of drums in place of the call to prayer. Other examples of distinct Southeast Asian practices may be associated to the harness of the sarung a common practice with non Muslims and Muslims all over the Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, the somewhat late circumcision of young males frequently celebrated as a major event in village, the use of shadow puppets which is believed by some local communities to have been invented by one of the saint Muslin to make clear Islam in the local dialect. Even if such habits are viewed sideways or regionally apparent elsewhere, if not argued honestly, such practices are nevertheless seen as ways of correlating to a belief that is global and equal. Christians, Jews and Muslim worship the same God. These three are monotheistic religions, with many common, texts, beliefs and doctrines. Muslims respect the same prophets as Christians and Jewish, including, Abraham, Noah, Jesus, Moses and Jesus. In reality, Muslims consider Islam to have been present from the time of Abraham, with Judaism and Christianity being central forms of the last religion confessed to Muhammad. Jews and Christian are specifically guarded in the Quran as Peoples of the Book, because Islam considers both the Torah and New Testament and to be revelations from God, though inaccurate in the process of human communication. An example of a difference in apprehension, Islam does not admit that Jesus is the son of God; this acknowledgement would disprove the Islamic belief in the uniqueness of Gods deity. Like Judaism, Islam has powerful constitutional tradition that describes the rules by which believers of the religious community should live. Part of these rules includes dietary restriction against eating pork which is very similar.

Music as Social Commnetary

The end of the Reagan Administration is not generally known for political activism and yet during the highly conservative Reagan years, some of the biggest efforts of music to combat the problems of the world began. John Cougar Mellankamp wrote the album, â€Å"Rain on the Scarecrow† and began the Farm Aid concerts to draw attention to the disappearing American family far. Michael Jackson and the musical elite of the day wrote and performed, â€Å"We Are the World† and Sir Bob Geldof drew attention to the African famines with his multi-star performance and recording of â€Å"Do They Know It’s Christmas?† Into that political climate, singer/songwriter Jackson Browne wrote and released the song, â€Å"How Long? † on his â€Å"World in Motion† album released in 1989 (â€Å"Ontario Coalition Against Poverty† 1). Speculation runs high that Browne may have been directly addressing the issues of international poverty or may have been discussi ng the issue of Apartheid in South Africa, avery popular cause of the late 1980s. Browne, the German-born son of an American military photographer, had become well-known for his political activism.After writing for some of the biggest names in the music industry including The Byrds and The Eagles (Paris 1), Browne recorded his own music beginning in the mid-1970s and culminating with his hits â€Å"Running on Empty† and â€Å"The Load Out (Stay)†. Then, his formerly easy-going music turned into political statement after political statement. He organized a coalition of musicians against nuclear energy after the Three Mile Island accident and often wrote about politics, saying,† nothing is more personal than your political beliefs.† (Paris 1) But America of the late 1980s was in feel-good mode. The wall was coming down in Berlin, the Cold War at an end and the Soviet Union was crumbling. The album which featured â€Å"How Long† was the worst performanc e of Browne’s career, other than his debut album when nobody knew his name (Wade 1). The famine in Ethiopia and other parts of the world were big news, though largely ignored except for during feel-good relief efforts and homelessness in America was a huge issue as the Reagan era drove the divide between the haves and have nots even farther apart.Browne, who was critical of liberals and conservatives alike (Ward 1), wrote the song to call everyone out for their blithe acceptance of the arms race and huge military budgets. Others speculate that the song relates to the Anti-Apartheid efforts. The South African crisis was big news during the Reasgan administration with Congress enacting strict restriction on South African trade, beginning in 1986, and popular culture canonizing Nelson and Winnie Mandela.And that anti-Apartheid movement was important in popular culture. Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) highlighted the problems involving the race-based discrimination in South Africa the sam e year the song was released and the colonial system instituted by the Dutch did not end until years later. Sadly, however, the song seems largely misplaced in time, coming out in the first year of the presidency of George H. W. Bush when the world accepted that the arms race was over and social consciousness was beginning to take hold.It almost appears as though Browne missed the boat with â€Å"How Long† as he was critical of the military industrial complex which was already in the process of dismantling after the reunification of Germany and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the song deals specifically with the issue of children and starvation, but did not serve to draw particular attention to the problem worldwide, possible due to the vagaries of the song. The vagaries of the song make it difficult to identify what social injustice in particular Browne hoped to address and that may have been his point.While asking in general â€Å"How Long? † peo ple were willing to tolerate social injustice around the world, Browne may have helped to draw attention to both the need for nuclear disarmament and the need to end Apartheid. We do know that it asks the listener to consider the children and their future. â€Å"How Long† begins with a verse describing the possibilities evident in a child’s face and asks the listener, presumably Americans and other citizens of the world, how long the child would survive if it were up to them (â€Å"How Long† Lines 1-8).The problem is that the children of the 1980s were not the flower-power generation of the 1960s and the subtly was lost. Asking â€Å"How long — would the child survive/How long — if it was up to you† was not the call to action needed in the late 1980s. The self-absorbed generation could easily just answer the question and ignore the call to action underneath the words. Indeed, there is no evidence that the song had any impact other than as a subtle reminder of what they saw daily on the news. In the second verse, Browne gets a little more direct with his indictment of the listener but still fails to call them to action.â€Å"When you think about the money spent On defense by a government And the weapons of destruction we've built We're so sure that we need And you think of the millions and millions That money could feed How long — can you hear someone crying How long — can you hear someone dying Before you ask yourself why? † (Browne, â€Å"How Long† Lines 9-16) Ultimately, Browne does a good job of pointing out the political and social issues of the time, but fails to take a stance on what should be done about it.There is a vague notion that the government should stop spending money on missile defense systems and nuclear weapons in favor of spending on social issues, but he never implores his audience to take action. Instead, the audience can simply agree that yes, it is a problem and then g o back to their own lives without interruption or any change in action. Perhaps the one place where Browne’s work might be considered effective is in his final verse, when he discusses the need to think of the globe differently than the blue and white and green image seen from space (Browne, â€Å"How Long†).Finally, he asks how long until we â€Å"have something to offer where the planet’s concerned? † (â€Å"Browne, â€Å"How Long† Lines 38-39) Though the song is generally accepted as an anti-military, pro-social reform ballad, these last lines may have been influenced by his relationship with environmental activist and actress Darryl Hannah and may allude to the idea that people need to take action with regard to the world’s environmental situation. In that way, it may have had some limited effect on public awareness about environmental issues.Realistically though, it appears that the only real effect of Browne’s work may have bee n on his career. Reviewer David Marsh, well-known for his commentary on rock music, put it this way. â€Å"This is one time Jackson Browne did his words profound justice as a singer — it's simply a great piece of singing, stark, angry, pained and yet aching more than anything else with a love that's proven yet again to be insufficient to hold a life together.The question while this music and the story unfold is not how the singer will survive — he's already told us that — but how the listener will keep his composure long enough to hear it through. † (Ward 1) The song may well have been a sign of the times and completely appropriate for the long view of history, but in the culture of the times, it was too passe, with not enough call for direct action.Still, just a few years later, Browne got his wish during the Clinton administration when the military industrial complex was largely dismantled, America’s standing army minimized and world concerns bro ught to the forefront of American consciousness. Apartheid also fell in the intervening years, coming to an end in 1994. By the time the song had its desired impact on spending priorities, the drought had shifted and the starving was in Rwanda and Darfur and Americans had moved on to another music form and again forgot the starving children.Just as Browne’s cry for justice came very late in the era of Apartheid, it came very early in the call for environmental activism and people missed its call to do the right thing and care for the children of the world. Works Cited Browne, Clyde Jackson. â€Å"How Long? † World in Motion, Elektra Records, 1989. Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, â€Å"Activism and protest song lyrics page† < http://www. ocap. ca/songs/howlong. html> December 5, 2007. Paris, Russ. â€Å"Jackson Browne: Biography†. , December 5, 2007. Ward, Michael.â€Å"Jackson Browne: the Artist behind the Words† http://media. www. versusmag. or g/media/storage/paper584/news/2003/10/22/Music/Jackson. Browne-547215. shtml>, December 5, 2007. How Long by Jackson Browne When you look into a child's face And you're seeing the human race And the endless possibilities there Where so much can come true And you think of the beautiful things A child can do How long — would the child survive How long — if it was up to you When you think about the money spent On defense by a government And the weapons of destruction we've built

Cause and effect: gambling Essay

Throughout life we take chances with many different things. We take chances for ourselves, and we take chances for others close to us. Chances are things which will give you so much good in your life if you go for the right things and succeed when taking the chance. As is everything in this life taking chances are all and only good within moderation. When you take yourself to an abusive level with anything it becomes dangerous for you and all who surround you. An unsuccessful gambler may carry the same attributes of a very greedy person. A greedy person is someone who always wants more, and in essence a person gambling is looking to get more then they have. Gambling is considered to be addictive for many people, and depending on the degree of your addiction it can affect your life in more places then just your wallet. People engage in gambling through its ever-present incentive. The incentive in gambling is most commonly a financial reward, but it may also be many other different things. The mind of a person is hopefully set to learn from mistakes, and this is the mindset of many gamblers, these are successful gamblers. The reason they are successful is because they are able to establish what the problem was in their loss. After establishing their problem they learn to not repeat their fault. Next, when the mind set of a person is not gauged to learn from their mistakes, but only learn through extreme measures is when gambling becomes a larger problem. A gambler can be successful and not greedy, but a bad gambler is made through greed. If the gambler does not want to lose anymore or accepts his winnings they become unsuccessful. Greed is one of the seven deadliest sins, andn it is so fitting indeed. When a good gambler suffers from losing he or she turns around and puts their loss aside and does not let it intertwine with any aspect of their life other then gambling. When an inexperienced or unsuccessful gambler loses, the loss effects more then just the gambling aspect of their life. The unsuccessful gambler will turn to things of more negativity. The reason the gambler turns to these things is to ease their mind and hide their feelings. This way of coping with losing could ultimately result into hurting financially, as well as emotionally, and even physically. The first problem the gambler will face will be financial loss. The first thing to go in gambling is your wallet, and unfortunately one of the most commonly related problems to depression is debt. Losing money will affect the mindset of the gambler causing possible depression. This is when the problem reaches the emotional aspect it may take. The chain of events continues from depression on ward to abuse among substances, most commonly drugs and alcohol. Drugs and alcohol are substances made to relax the mind and take them away from the reality of things. The reality of the situation is that all drugs and alcohol will do is further affect the gambler financially as well as emotionally, and physically. When abuse of alcohol and drugs is brought to the home life of someone all it brings is deceit and ultimately pain. If the gambler has a family life the habits of drugs and alcohol will be tried to be concealed by the user to not hurt anyone else, and ultimately the truth surfaces taking an even bigger toll on the gambler. The abuse of alcohol and drugs is also closely related to physical abuse. Being intoxicated on drugs and alcohol can in fact lead to abusing close friends or family. It is most likely never said, but gambling can lead a person to rehabilitation. It is somewhat ironic that a hobby usually carried by wealthy, or well off people with strong mentalities can lead to complete collapse and weakness. This chain of events the gambler goes through can have almost a ruining effect on their life. Gambling is caused by the mentality of a risk taker or someone who enjoys taking chances wanting more then they have. Taking chances is not a bad thing by any means. It only becomes bad when it is abused. The effects of abusing gambling are never ending. Abusing gambling can lead to many extremes of negativity. It is up to the mind of the gambler to know when it is time to stop, or if it is not risking too much by continuing on.

Let’s just assume that the ultimate goal of United States’...

Let’s just assume that the ultimate goal of United States’ absolutely vile public school system is not to create an army of mindless, insipid, obedient workers that specialise in the completion of mundane and menial laborious tasks to help blindly build a malevolent dystopian corpocratic regime. But shocking and uncomfortably plausible conspiracy theories aside, let us begin by observing and acknowledging the massive flaws of the US’ public education system. There are several aspects surrounding the reasons and evidence of the belief that massive dysfunction, the incursion of the 13th amendment regarding compulsory education, and largely useless content being taught in school is overwhelmingly relevant in the modern school system;†¦show more content†¦Your first sentence, dear imaginary carper, is entirely and undeniably correct; of course children require education, and of course, education is necessary for the development of their cognitive processes. How could I deny this? Notice the fact that nowhere in that statement did I say that compulsory education was necessary, helpful, or even morally legitimate; and the current methodology of education in the United States is entirely corrupt and unhelpful to overall mental development, which I will cover latterl y. Onwards to the second portion of your rebuttal, wherein you imply that schooling, as it is, directly benefits these soon-to-be working adults in their endeavors as working adults. While I will admit that, as mentioned above, education as a concept will no doubt encourage intellective competence, and therefore existing public schools somewhat aid skills in a professional setting, schools are absolutely terrible at this task in the grand scheme of things. If this is truly what public schools nationwide hope to achieve, preparing students for their adult lives and subsequent employment (which seems, to me, at least, very unlikely given their massive amount of failure on this front) then why don’t there exist courses on how to do your taxes, how to ace a job interview, or even just how to work, and I mean really work, not just solving endless streams of mathematical equations or writing