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About Me
- Mr. Dalton
- Mr. Dalton is an instructor in the Upper School at Beaufort Academy. He is inept at car repair and home or lawn maintanance of any sort, but is an accomplished philosopher. In his spare time he enjoys throwing darts while listening to old Duran Duran cassettes.
-Islam, in its true sense (without any cultural/social changes to it), gives relatively equal rights to women. Other religions such as Christianity and Judaism don't give women equal rights, despite their importance. Why is that?
ReplyDeleteNote: Much of the blame for the stripping of women's rights in these religions goes to social/cultural opinions.
-In Islam, there is a book that different sects believe in that establishes the Islamic Holy Law. It is designed to help Muslims model Muhammed and be open to the divine. Do other religions have laws or guidelines similar to this?
-Although the three monotheistic traditions came from different roots, they still came to similar conclusions about the definition of the undefinable God.
1) I find it interesting that Muhammad strived to liberate women from domesticity. In Jewish and Christian scriptures, women were subordinate and still are in some churches today. Christians say that they are accepting of people, so why is there still a gender struggle going on presently?
ReplyDelete2) Islam can be interpreted in a number of different ways. Is there a correct interpretation? How can we determine this interpretation? Compare to Jewish/Christian faiths.
3) Smith takes a more admirable approach to Islamic religion, admiring its beauty and vigor. Armstrong takes a more pragmatic approach, stating facts, without showing much emotion.
The fact that women were not originally supposed to have to wear veils is interesting. In fact, they used to have more freedoms than Christian and Jewish women had. I've heard many people claim that they look badly toward Islam not because of the events of 9/11 but because of how they treat women. If the Koran was not misinterpreted like it was forcing women to become subservient, would the general "American" view toward Islam be different today?
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting thing is the fact that Armstrong mentioned misinterpretation of the Koran. While she was talking about putting veils on women, she was basically claiming that people interpreted the Koran in a much more literal way than it should have originally interpreted. However, after reading that article in class, one can infer that this is her view of all fundamentalist religions in modern times. Therefore does her writing claim what actually happened or what she has concluded has happened through her theory?
Would Islam have broken off into different "sects" if Muhammad were still alive to address the different interpretations of the Koran? Would people have followed him? Also consider the same question in Christianity.
1) Was Muhammad motivated to give women almost equal rights solely by a sense of justice or did the prospect of gaining more converts for his new religion an influencial factor? Why or why not?
ReplyDelete2)Why does Christianity, and many other religions, lack anything like the Shariah law?
3) Islam divided into several different sects fairly quickly. While some were considerably more powerful than others, it does not seem that any were as successful as the Catholic church in the west. Why?
I think it is interesting that they are so similar, such as the women being inferior to men and Christianity thinks Muslims are strange and vice versa.
ReplyDeleteWhy would Muslims' treatment of the Imams be any different than the treatment of Muhammad if they were descendants? What was so special?
Can you describe the Traditionists' views and the difference to the other Muslim sects? I got a little confused.
When considering women's clothing in Islam it is valuable to examine the setting in which the religion originated. Seeing that the attire best fitted for arid climates is based around completely covering the body, is there any true issue with Islamic women covering themselves, or is it simply a cultural standard translated into a religious one through contact with people of other parts of the world?
ReplyDeleteIf Jesus, Muhammad, or any other founder of the world's religions were to return and say that sects A,B, and C were all wrong, and only sect D had a correct interpretation of their Bible, Koran, etc, would A, B, and C all merge into D, or would they remain independent sects? Depending on your answer, how does this reflect upon the fragmenting of religions into sects in regards to both religion and society?
Are any tensions between different religions, the result of religious differences? (Not considering tensions between sects within a religion.)
1. It states how "in the early years of Islamic history, therefore, speculation about hte nature of God often sprang from a political concern about the sate of the caliphate and the establishement". Do you think all religions has a political concern?
ReplyDelete2. Why do you think they believe God is too rational and too like a man?
3. What do they state that God does? Is it different from how Christians believe or similar?
During Muhammad's lifetime, Islam was strongly egalitarian; "The religion of al-Lah was originally positive for women" (157). Muslim women had more rights than Western women up until the nineteenth century. The Koran addressed women equally as men, and sometimes even explicitly, uncharacteristic of Jewish and Christian scriptures. With such a strong history of equality of the sexes, why has the Islam faith become notorious for the subordination of its women?
ReplyDeleteAfter Muhammed's death, many changes in the Islam faith ensued. How did varied interpretations of the Koran affect the Muslim people and their faith?
Christians often view the interwining roles of Arab politics and the Islam religion in a negative way. Likewise, the Jewish people and Muslims have difficulty understanding Christians' "passion for abstruse theological debate" (159). This statement, in my opinion, refers to the diverse Christian views of creation, evolution, different interpretations of the Bible, etc. The Christian faith is also very different from the other two religions because of its many denominations.
1. "Supporters of the Ummayads had rather disingenuously claimed that their un-Isamic behavior was not their fault because they had been predestined by God to be the kind of people they were." (then what does it mean to be Islamic). Could this statement stand for our own current events?
ReplyDelete2. These two men (at the end of chapter) were in such a quarrel because they had their own opinions about God and argued which ones were right or not. Could this be the real reason why we in such a conflict overseas?