The Culture And Practices In Islam Theology

The Culture And Practices In Islam Theology The origins of Islam are from Saudi Arabia, it is a religious tradition that is monotheistic. The literal meaning of the word Islam is submission to God Julie Williams, 2008 This complete code of life is based on the divine revelations preached by Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h) it addresses all aspects of life: spiritual, social, moral, intellectual, political, economical etc. Its teachings show us how to surrender to Allahs will in every area of life, Who is the supreme creator and sustainer of this world. The sacred scripture of Islam is the Quran, which is the compilation of all the divine revelations sent to Holy Prophet (p.b.u.h) and were taught by him. The underlying principle which is the foundation of Islam is that there is only one God, Allah. He has no equal or any partner. Five Pillars of Islam are its unifying characteristic; they are the primary aspect of religion. These five pillars include Tauhid, which is the first and most important; it is faith in one true God, Allah. The second is Salah or Namaz, which is the ritual prayer Muslims are required to perform five times a day. Fasting is the third pillar of Islam where Muslims fast for a whole month. Zakat, the charity compulsory on certain wealth is the fourth pillar, the fifth pillar is Hajj, which is a pilgrimage a Muslim with enough wealth is required to take at least once in his lifetime. Apart from the five pillars of Islam, there are also six articles of faith. These include: Belief in One God Belief in all the prophets Belief in the four original Holy scriptures Belief in the angels Belief in the Hereafter and day of judgement Belief in Divine verdict Muslims are usually distinguished by their devotion to the obligation of praying fives times to Allah in a day. Another defining characteristic of Islam is pre-eminence of the sacred places, which are Makah, Medina and Jerusalem. A ritual of Muslims is to gather in a congregation at mosque to pray and worship Allah, also study the divine scripture, Quran. The distinction as to who is better in the Muslim community is based on solely the individual Muslims devotion to serving in the path of Allah. The universal aspect of Islam caused it to expand almost instantly after it evolved in Arabian Peninsula, in the present world it has spread across Africa, Europe, Asia and rest of the world. Although most of the Muslims are born into faith but Islam always welcomes the coverts too (Julie Williams, 2008). Even though Islam originated from Arab region, the Muslims are not necessarily Arab; it is a universal religion which is for everyone across the globe. There are Muslims from almost every n ationality in the world, now the Arabs are only 20% of the Muslim population across the world. The influence of Arab culture on Islam has had effects on those who belonged to other cultures but adopted Islam too. This has created a cultural bond due to similarities that they share among their societies, although these different societies do still have characteristics that clearly distinguish them. The culture of Islam inherited an Arab culture that was originated in desert, which although is simple yet not in any way unsophisticated. It has a verbal tradition founded on the broadcast of culture by means of narrative as well as poetry. Although, the largest impact on Islamic civilization is that of the written scripture, the whole civilization is based on the teachings written down and compiled in form of Holy Quran and taught by the Holy Prophet (p.b.u.h). A ts of animate beings. The focus of Islamic art is on Allahs omnipresence, which cannot be illustrate ts of animate beings. The focus of Islamic art is on Allahs omnipresence, which cannot be illustrated in any imagery. The calligraphy in Arabic is a famous art form to beautifully write Quranic verses. The Islamic art with its artistry as well as grandeur has not failed to inspire awe over the centuries.d in any imagery. The calligraphy in Arabic is a famous art form to beautifully write Quranic verses. The Islamic art with its artistry as well as grandeur has not failed to inspire awe over the centuries.n important part of the Islamic culture is its signature art and architecture (Larry A. Samovar, Richard E. Porter, Edwin R. McDaniel, 2009) which is marked by floral decorative patterns and abstract art. The fundamental aspect of Islamic art is that it is devoid of illustrations of living beings, especially humans according to the teachings of Islam, since it is forbidden in religi on to paint or draw portraits of animate beings. The focus of Islamic art is on Allahs omnipresence, which cannot be illustrated in any imagery. The calligraphy in Arabic is a famous art form to beautifully write Quranic verses. The Islamic art with its artistry as well as grandeur has not failed to inspire awe over the centuries. Critically outlines how the history and practices of Islam shape the lives of Muslims today in a short paragraph Most of the practices which are prevailing in Muslim world of today are not mentioned in The Quran. Although, the saying of Holy Prophet (p.b.u.h) and his conduct of every day life provide the Muslims of today the basis for traditions and the practices of today in form of Sunnah. The Sunnah and Hadith of holy Prophet (p.b.u.h) provides a guiding path for all the Muslims of today from every day rituals like eating with the right hand, growing beard for men and hijab to cover the head for women, greeting another Muslim with salaam etc to major issues like marriage and legal problems. In the troubled world of today however, it is crucial to be able to differentiate as to what is true to Islamic nature and what only a part of culture. Many of the customs that prevail in todays Muslim world have no roots in either Quran or Sunnah. Compare Islamic culture with other cultures Islam is one of the three Divine religions, other two being Judaism and Christianity which preceded Islam but were annulled when Allah sent the message of Islam through Holy Prophet (p.b.u.h), which was to be the last and universal religion for the entire mankind. The preceding cultures have various similarities but major differences in comparison to Islam. Lets take Judaism for instance, there are many differences among these two religions yet they all originate from one basic difference. Although they both believe in One God, they have difference in the belief of Prophet, Islam is based on the teachings that Holy Prophet (p.b.u.h) came with and believes him to be the Last Prophet. Where as Jews believe only in the prophet hood of Moses. According to Islamic belief any who denies that Holy Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h) was the last prophet would be doomed to an eternity in hell. There are other contrasting beliefs in both the religions too, for example Jews believe prophet Ismail to be an idolater where as Muslims respect him as prophet of Allah. Christianity and Islam have a lot of similarities. Both of them hold the belief in Prophets, Divine scriptures, day of judgement/resurrection, importance of religion. Many of the teachings in their scriptures are similar too, although the Original transcript of Bible has now been tampered with. Regardless of these similarities there are a lot of crucial differences too. Their Understanding of Allah is very different, in Islam God is one and only with no equals where as in Christianity they deem Jesus to be the son of God. In Christian culture, the belief of divine revelation is that God himself appeared to preach and provide redemption. Islam on the other hand looks upon revelation as a form of guidance. Aside from difference of islam with these two major religion cultures, since islam has spread across the world, its true culture has taken various changes depending on the region it exists in, for example in subcontinent, Malaysia and Indonesia. The influence of hindu culture is dominant on muslim practices too, since the people that converted to islam and formed muslim communities there were originally hindus. Practices like lighting candles on the last seven Ramadan nights has been adopted from a Hindu festival, so are many of the customs involved in marriage that require bride and groom to sit centre stage and get appraised and blessed by the crowd. These practices are contrasting to what is truly Islamic and have no origins in islam whatsoever.

Faith Ringold :: essays research papers

Who was Faith Ringold ? Born in New York , Faith Ringold was an African American artist who started school in 2nd grade . While she was at home , her mother taught her the basic skills . She knew how to read before she went to school . In her early childhood she use to be sick every so often , she could not attend school regularly ; however, her mother use to bring her drawing books and pencils . Therefore , she spent most of her time drawing . So, as she grew older and began to go to school , one day her teacher asked her to draw a mountain. Because she was born and raised in New York, she had never seen a mountain before; therefore, she could not draw the mountain properly . The professor told her " you cannot be an artist, " and she said to the professor " yes I could and I will be artist . " She had great internal locus of control and self-confidence . She believed she could do it and she did it . Her mother was a fashion designer . She was very close to her mother, and her father was a great role model for her . He also use to draw , in other words he inspired faith to become an artist . Faith Ringold was a bright artist . She benefited a scholarship in college . While in college she had the opportunity to ship her works at an inexpensive price to sell outside the country. 1960 she learned what African art was as a black artist . She also learned to mix her European training with the African art . She learned about African designs , and African American art . Faith Ringold wrote her stories and painted them on her works . She painted the tradition of African art and design she drew her family 's every day life . Faith Ringold was an artist who justify her culture and her existence with the black art . She expressed who she was through her art .

A Feminist Approach to Toni Morisson’s Beloved Essay

When hearing about Toni Morrison’s novel, â€Å"Beloved†, one may imagine it as being another story about a slave’s life. And this is not wrong. â€Å"Beloved† does tell the tales of many slaves. It tells of whippings, rape, hard work and escape. But, while drawing this image of the historical aspect of enslavement and black culture, Morrison also tells the personal story of a very strong female slave. Morrison’s novel focuses mainly on the female characters – Sethe, Baby Suggs, Denver, Beloved – and their relationships. If feminism may be defined as a major movement in western thinking in western thinking since the 1960s, which puts particular emphasis upon the importance of women’s experience, then â€Å"Beloved† can be regarded through a feminist perspective. Even though â€Å"Beloved† tells the story of many slaves, because of its focus on the proactive and independent women in the novel, it also makes a feminist statement. Morrison has a particular way of writing the female body into the discourse of slavery, motherhood, human rights and morality. She presents the exploitation of the female body in both a sensory and psychological way. There are many examples in the novel that illustrate this aspect. In the case of Sethe, one of the major characters, we can observe both ways of exploitation of the human body. The stealing of her milk during the rape she suffered writes her experience as a woman slave who has no right to her body and also her experience as a slave mother with no defense, who is used to the violation of her own body, but cannot bear the forcible extraction of her milk meant for the child in her womb. The psychological trauma left behind this experience is felt by the mother who is symbolically separated from her child. The earliest need that a child has is mother’s milk. Sethe is traumatized by the experience of having her milk stolen because it means she cannot form the symbolic bond between herself and her daughter. Sethe’s body shows nothing but suffering if one takes into consideration the chokecherry tree scar on her back caused by the cruel whipping she suffered in the same night of the rape and her attempt to escape. She also felt pain when she gave birth to Denver, thing which can be judged by the bleeding feet about which Amy sais â€Å"it hurts for something new to grow†. The only time when Sethe uses her body for her own pleasure was when she has sex with Paul D. Another example of the female body being written into discourse is illustrated through Beloved, a mysterious character thought to be the daughter Sethe murdered when the girl was only two years old. Beloved’s skin is like a baby’s skin, she sleeps a lot and her faculties of speech and movement are not well developed. Physically Beloved is the embodiment of the discourse of motherhood for a slave, of the evil. Her body is a sacrifice that saves the other children’s lives from the meanness of the schoolmaster through her death. From Sethe she feeds on the attention and the maternal guilt that has been poisoning her life. Finally the physical disappearance of her body and her death is the absolving exorcism that removes the last vestiges of torment left over from the slave days. The character of Beloved is the epitome of the past and present entwined in a consciousness. She is still a baby in terms of behavior but the body is like that of the woman she would have become if she wasn’t killed. Her supernatural manifestations are the result of the unresolved conflicts in the mother-child bond between Sethe and Beloved and its very existence is because of the non linearity of her consciousness. I see Beloved’s murdering of her child a desperate gesture of a mother who wants to protect her children from salvery. The community sees Sethe’s murder an unforgivable one. Slavery created a situation where a mother is separated from her child, leaving devastating consequences behind: a whole life suffering from a bad guilt and also a psychic trauma. Motherhood feeling is universally deep and when mothers are unable to provide maternal care for their children, or when their children are taken away from her then they feel a lost sense of self. Similarly, when a child is separated from his mother, he also looses the family identity. Sethe was never able to see her mother’s true face because her smile was distorted from having spent too much time with the â€Å"bit†, so she was not able to connect with her own mother and therefore does not know how to connect with her own children even if she longs to. Concerning the language of the novel, the way of writing, one can observe a feminine way of writing, the semiotic language that Julia Kristeva mentioned sometime. There can be observed a freeplay of language, a fluidity of words free of any control unlike the fixity and linearity of male discourse. There is a passage in the third part of the novel that best illustrates this way of writing, the fluid and poetic nature of the narrative in one of the dialogues between Beloved and Sethe. There can be observed a long flowing verse in which the mother and daughter identify eachother, establishing the long lost maternal bond and acknowledging the events that took place between them: â€Å"Why did you leave me who am you/ I will never leave you again/ I drank your blood/ I brought your milk/ You forgot to smile/ I loved you/ You hurt me/ You came back to me/ You left me†. There are no punctuation marks and one sentence runs into another, each sentence is loaded with intense feelings showing accusation, guilt, assurance, love, like a rushing river that carries all the emotions in its fierce fluidity. The depth of a maternal emotional experience is rendered throughout this novel. The other female characters, Denver and Baby Suggs had the chance to see the beauty of freedom. Baby Suggs’s freedom was bought by the sacrifice of her son Halle, while Denver is far from the tormented life in slavery thanks to her mother’s protection and estrangement from the black community.

Mountain Biomes Life At High Elevation

Mountains are a constantly changing environment, in which plant and animal life varies with changes in elevation. Climb up a mountain and you may notice that the temperatures get colder, tree species change or disappear altogether, and the plants and animal species are different than those found on lower ground. Want to learn more about the worlds mountains and the plants and animals that live there? Read on. What makes a mountain? Inside the Earth, there are masses called tectonic plates that glide over the planets mantle. When those plates crash into one another, the push the Earths crust higher and higher into the atmosphere, forming mountains.   Mountain climates While all mountain ranges are different, one thing they do have in common is temperatures that are cooler than the surrounding area thanks to higher elevation. As air rises into the Earths atmosphere, it cools down. This affects not only the temperature but also the precipitation. Winds are another factor that make mountain biomes different from the areas around them. By nature of their topography, mountains stand in the path of winds. Winds can bring with them precipitation and erratic weather changes. That means that the climate on the windward side of a mountain (facing the wind,) will likely be different from that of the leeward side (sheltered from the wind.) The windward side of a mountain will be cooler and have more precipitation, while the leeward side will be drier and warmer.   Of course, this too will vary depending upon the location of the mountain. The Ahaggar Mountains in Algerias Sahara Desert will not have much precipitation no matter which side of the mountain you are looking at. Mountains and microclimates   Another interesting characteristic of mountain biomes is the microclimates produced by the topography. Steep slopes and sunny cliffs may be home to one set of plants and animals while just a few feet away, a shallow but shaded area is home to a completely different array of flora and fauna. These microclimates may vary depending upon the steepness of the slope, the access to the sun, and the amount of precipitation that falls in a localized area. Mountain Plants and Animals The plants and animals found in mountainous areas will vary depending upon the location of the biome. But heres a general overview: Temperate zone mountains Mountains in the temperate zone, such as the Rocky Mountains in Colorado generally have four distinct seasons. They usually have conifer trees on their lower slopes that fade into alpine vegetation (such as lupins and daisies,) above the tree line. Fauna include deer, bears, wolves,  mountain lions, squirrels, rabbits, and a wide variety of birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians.  Ã‚   Tropical mountains Tropical areas are known for their species diversity and this holds true for the mountains found there. Trees grow tall and at elevations higher than in other climate zones. In addition to evergreen trees, tropical mountains may be populated by grasses, heathers, and shrubs. Thousands of animals make their homes in tropical mountain areas. From the gorillas of Central Africa to the jaguars of South America, tropical mountains host huge numbers of animals. Desert mountains The harsh climate of a desert landscape - lack of rain, high winds, and little to no soil, makes it difficult for any plant to take root. But some, such as cacti and certain ferns, are able to carve out a home there. And animals such as big horned sheep, bobcats, and coyotes are well adapted to live in these harsh conditions. Threats to Mountain Biomes As is happening in most ecosystems, the plants and animals found in mountain regions are changing thanks to the warmer temperatures and changing precipitation brought on by climate change. Mountain biomes are also threatened by deforestation, wildfires, hunting, poaching, and urban sprawl.   Possible the biggest threat facing many mountainous regions today is that brought on by fracking - or hydraulic fracturing. This process of recovering gas and oil from shale rock can devastate mountain areas, destroying fragile ecosystems and possible polluting groundwater via by-product runoff.