Final Exam Study Guide Introduction to World Religions Fall 2014 General Terms Scholars Burton Mack The presentation of the New Testament and the Bible as a coherent narrative written by people who were present in the earliest moments of the events whose writings were meant to lay foundation for the church that would later develop As Mack and NT scholars say this is not quite how it happened o For there were many groups with many different understandings of the same events who created texts that were authoritative for them o Like we talked about on Monday most of these texts were written anonymously and were only later attributed to important figures from the past o Over the course of the second and third centuries centrist Christians were able to create the impression of a singular monolinear history of the Christian church 7 Aaron Hughes Wrote Situating Islam 2007 After September 11 2001 the academic study of Islam changed o Virtually overnight Islamic studies went from a discipline with a considerable amount of historical though not necessarily critical depth to one that was interested almost solely in explaining why Muslims were not the bad guys This is not to imply that this is wrong It is a scholar s natural reaction to want to defend his or her object of study from distortion and overtly prejudicial stereotyping 94 o Yet despite the hostile attacks and the media onslaught the subsequent desire to defend at all costs something problematically defined as a normative Islam one that just happened to mirror the democratic and liberal values of the West 96 o Virtually overnight scholars engaged in and doing good work in various areas of Islamic cultures became involved in the media where they were reduced to relying upon and ultimately parroting all sorts of ridiculous essentialisms Presumably this was done in order to protect an object of study held dear however this to use the words of Lincoln that I have invoked frequently throughout this study should not be confused with scholarship Lincoln 1996 227 99 Dale Martin Greek term deisidaimonia superstition o Rendered in Latin as superstitio At first superstitio is not pejorative but it later takes on a negative connotation which is used for o Non Roman religion o uncivic religion o Unphilosophical religion o Traditions based on fear incorrect ideas about the gods rituals or motivations understanding myths literally magic etc Unlike deisidaimonia which refers mainly to simple traditional ideas and practices superstitio carries a sense of political danger because these traditions were often o foreign o did not participate in the city empire practices of religion o non orthodox Roman practices o Described as private strange excessive As we have seen through our discussion of Judaism the idea of the land of Israel has remained important and at the forefront of what many consider to be Jewish identity political science scholar Israeli Palestinian conflict critic Denied tenure from DePaul University in 2007 Professor at UI Chicago Her argument is that the Jordan River serves as a border both physically and mythically In the realm of national mythology stories of pioneers refugees and freedom fighters insist upon the Jordan as the eastern border of the homeland The lore of the border indicates an initial stage of collective expression that generates national identity Border stories set the limits of group identity as they order geographical imagination This is a colonial claim that where the Palestinians had lore the British and later the Israelis had history 239 241 Norman Finkelstein Rachel Havrelock Islam Five Pillars of Islam 1 shahadah 2 salat o bearing witness declarations of God as God and Muhammad as his prophet o prayer obligatory five times a day o A mu adhdhin leads the call to prayer o Prayer has cycles that consist of bowing kneeling and prostration o Repeated formulas Such as the fatihah first surah of the Qur an Site of worship established by Abraham and Ishmael in Mecca o Face the Kaaba 3 zakat o almsgiving connects worship of God to service to the poor o Purifies people from greed and attachment o 2 5 of accumulated wealth 4 Ramadan o fasting honors this holy month Tradition says that this is the month in which the Qur an was revealed to Muhammad o Time of year changes due to being on a lunar calendar o if a person is exempt from fasting they must feed a poor person for every day that the do not fast o Ends with a three day festival Eid al Fitr o Different Muslim festival Eid al Adha being debated right now in Maryland 5 Hajj o pilgrimage to Mecca re enacts the experience of Abraham and Ishmael o Wear white clothes o Lesser Hajj occurs within Mecca Walking counter clockwise around the Kaaba Running between two hills o begins on the 8th day of the 12th month Pilgrims go to Arafat and prayer on the Mount of Mercy Symbolically stone Satan in Mina Blood sacrifice Considered free of sin and take title Hajji Hajjah Malcolm X in Mecca Atat rk As part of the Central Powers in World War I the empire suffered defeat o Followed by movement for liberation led by Mustafa Kemal Atat rk He abolished the caliphate in 1924 and turned the state of Turkey into a modern secular republic Changed Arabic alphabet to Latin got rid of religious institutions With the destruction of the empire and reform of Turkey reforms pairing both tradition and modernity disappeared The Kaaba Wahhabi Movement Site of worship established by Abraham and Ishmael in Mecca Involved in the pillar of Islam known as salat The Wahhabi Reform Movement o Muhammad Ibn Abd al Wahhab 1703 1792 o aligned himself with a local prince in Arabia The prince would maintain political control the movement would have religious control still present today in Saudi Arabia o Saudi Arabia is a Wahhabi state ruled by the descendants of Al Sa ud the prince who al Wahhab aligned himself with o Against idolatry and supplication veneration of saints veneration of Muhammad Advocated for the destruction of sacred sites like the Kaaba o Wanted to purge Muslim society of those practices beliefs that they felt were un Islamic Shari ah Islamic Law o Oxtoby and Segal refer to Islamic law as a religious science Stresses right living shari ah divine law Way of life based on moral imperatives o Sources of law Qur an importance placed on relationships moral issues Sunnah custom practice Life example of Muhammad s words and deeds Based on hadith literature After the Qur an this is the primary source
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