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Title: World Religion Report [Date] World Religion Report Introduction Islam in Arabic is derived from the word Sale which means peace, purity, submission and obedience or in its religious sense as the submission to the will of God and obedience to His law. Islam as a religion dates back to the times of Adam and its message has been conveyed by Gods prophets and messengers who include Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad for mankind and according to Islam Gods last prophet and messenger was Muhammad. In Islam there is belief of only one God which translates into Allah in Arabic and in its accuracy means, The One and Only Eternal God. (Meaning of Islam) Background to the Interview Different places always fascinate people in different ways and one always wonders what the life styles, culture, ways of earning, how they live with their sorrows and how they celebrate their joy, what they eat, how they eat and most importantly one also wonders how they practice their religions and if it is with complete and extreme blind faith or if it is with logical reasoning. Good human beings are perhaps not the ones who practice their faiths with a narrow vision, but those who can also be critical of their religion if its teaching are in any way contrary to human values or be bold enough to be critical of the people who misrepresent and misinterpret religion as a means of fulfilling their personal and sometimes terrifying agendas.
I had the opportunity to visit Karachi, Pakistan while in transit for a holiday in the Far East, I had arranged my stopover in Karachi to be a two day stopover so that I would have the experience of learning about a new land, which to me was like stepping into a new world. My general observation was that people in all parts of the world, the Pakistani people too were more involved in the struggle to make their and their dependents lives as better as possible. However, many of them practiced their religion of Islam with great fervor and complied to the letter with its strict conscripts. The general appearance of religion practicing Pakistani men were of having large well-kept long beards but mostly without moustache's and they wore baggy pajama-type trousers with long sleeved shirts that were almost knee length and of the same cloth material and they all wore skull caps or turbans. I had the opportunity of befriending a shopkeeper during my souvenir buying visit to the local bazaar which in plain English means a market and during our casual interaction, I realized that he wanted to in a hurry close the deal for the nice piece of onyx souvenir that had interested me. Instead of going through the bargain haggling process, he quoted a surprisingly low price which I immediately agreed to and noted as he gift wrapped my purchase that he wanted to close the shop in a hurry.
When I asked him what his hurry was and why he had agreed to sell me the onyx piece at such a bargain price, he smilingly replied that it was the time for prayer and out of courtesy invited me to share a cup of tea with me if I would wait while he went to offer his prayers at a nearby mosque. I accepted his offer for tea and when I asked him to take me with him to experience the atmosphere of the mosque, he was genuinely and pleasantly surprised and from one of his desk drawers picked up a skull cap and after placing it on my head, said that we were both now ready to offer our prayers. On reaching the mosque, we had to remove our shoes and place them in tiny cubicles next to the mosque entrance and then had to follow the ablution ritual where the hands, face, neck and feet were first cleansed by running taped water while sitting on a low bench like platform. Thereafter we entered the prayer hold and he told me that I could follow the prayer ritual like all the others or simply sit and pray in my heart for a peaceful world. The prayer leader performed the Namaaz prayer and everyone simultaneously followed the ritual which required everyone to stand, bow and kneel with their foreheads touching the ground a number of times. The prayer was over in approximately 5 to 10 minutes and I left the mosque with my new friend whose name I had yet to know to have the promised cup of tea.
Not surprising to me anymore, before the tea would come some salty and sweetmeat snacks had arrived first as we sat once again in the comfort of the souvenir shop. It was then that I decided that I would interview my unnamed friend and find out more about him and learn his views about his religion. The Interview My new friend introduced himself as Noman Usman and due to the prevalent misunderstandings between cultures, he felt more than happy to clarify why the world had become an unsafe place to live in for everyone. When I asked him how he saw the linkage between Islam and extremism, with a loud laugh and a jovial thumping of his hand on his knees, he replied that there was a link between Osama Bin Ladin and Mullah Omar and their likes with extremism and none between the religion of Islam and extremism because his religion taught that the killing of a single human being irrespective of what his religion or belief he has was the same as the killing of the whole human race, and the saving of a single human being was like the saving of the whole human race too. Islam according to him ensured and protected the rights even of enemies and could be fought back only when the attacked.
Once they were defeated they were to be given full protection and their welfare had to be ensured. There was absolutely no concept of pre-emptive strike or revenge in Islam and other religions and the holy places of worship associated with them had also to be respected. Accordingly, the rights of the minorities were more important in the religion of Islam because they were in their true sense minorities and superceded the importance of the majority. Terrorism according to Noman Usman was a tool that the like of Osama and Mullah Omar used as effectively as the western leaders did in justifying war between a small group of people who misrepresented their religion so that they could increase their following and pursue their personal hidden agendas as a religious war between cultures.
Why else he countered were people like Osama and Mullah Omar not representing the countries of their birth in their war against the West and were leaving in mountain caves in unknown secret places. When I asked him how he differentiated Christianity with Islam, he explained that Jesus Christ was as revered in Islam and he was in Christianity but the fundamental differences in belief between the two religions according to Noman Usman were that while the Christians believed Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, the religion of Islam believed him to be one of the Prophets of God and while they believed in his miraculous birth in the same way as the Christians, Islam believed all prophets were foremost human beings and could not be compared or represented as God. While categorically denying that Islam was in any way linked with terrorism he defended every religion of the world by saying they all professed peace or otherwise they would not be religions at all. On inquiring with my new and philosophical friend if he thought that there should be a new set of rules for women who practiced Islam, he countered with the question what was wrong with the existing religious laws which gave women more rights than they gave men. He explained that women were to be protected and taken care of for all their needs by their fathers and brothers and after their marriages by their husbands.
Even if women earned by working or through entrepreneurship's, the wealth would be their own and even the father, brothers or husbands had no right over their wealth or property, however, on the other hand women had a right over the wealth, property and were to be protected and taken care of by their by paternal male members of their families before they were married and by the husbands after their marriages. In case of their husbands deaths by any unfortunate circumstances, women would still have to be taken care of as long as they lived by their paternal male family members. He argued that new laws could not be created so that they gave so much freedom to women that they would surpass the limits of decency and morality and where sexual permissiveness would be such that there would be unmarried mothers in homes. According to Noman Usman, irrespective of there being rules or no rules, the balance and respect with decency had to be maintained or otherwise humanity would suffer.
When I asked my new friend about the religious holidays that were most significant in Islam, he replied that the two most celebrated ones were the Eid-Al-Fitr which followed immediately after the month of fasting and the Eid-Al-Adha in which lambs, goats, cows and even camels were scarified in honor of Prophet Abraham who had successfully passed the test of agreeing to Gods command in offering his son Ishmael's life on a mountain top. (Eid-Al-Adha: Festival of Sacrifice) When I had asked him how one converted to his religion of Islam and how many Gods were there in his religion, he explained that the answer to both my questions had the same answer of making a solemn declaration that There was only one God and none other and that Mohammad, Peace be upon him, was his Prophet. (Conversion to Islam) On inquiring if there was a priest or a guru who preached and lead sermons in his religion, he replied that any person who had studied the religion of Islam with understanding and who was morally and in all aspects a good person, could preach and lead the prayers in the mosques but here he also complained about some of the religious leaders who aside from their duty in doing Gods good work sometimes involved themselves in partisan manners with political and other personal agendas. According to Noman Usman, the mischief in the world was because of religious leaders all around the world trying to politicize and through the platform of religion by misrepresenting it and mistranslating it from its original tenets of meaning well for everyone. Noman Usman said that it was necessary for every believer of the Islamic religion to perform the Hajj pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina at least once in a life time if one could afford the expenses, and that he was planning to perform his Hajj together with his family members in the coming year. Compare & Contrast of Religions Like it has been mentioned in the above paragraphs, the difference explained by Noman Usman were the fundamental difference in view by the Christians that Jesus Christ was the Son of God while according to Islam Jesus Christ was one of the Prophets of God and his Messengers and while Christianity is based on Jesus Christ and the teachings based on the holy bible, Islam is based on the teachings of Prophet Muhammad and the holy Koran. Conclusion The conclusion to this essay is that with the proper understanding, tolerance and with the correct methods of interactions between people of different cultures, countries and continents positive results are attained, in a similar way why can not differences be resolved between people of different religions. When we analyze with honesty and an open heart any religion, we will discover that all religions mean peace and wellness for all of humanity and therefore the fault is not with any religion, but with the people who claim to be the champions of religions and end up doing more harm than good to humanity.
The politicizing of religions by world leaders and religious leaders should stop because its exploitation provides fuel to the extremist evil forces that are in their minorities to grow in numbers and strengths and make our world a more dangerous and unreligious place to live in. Works Cited: Conversion to Islam web Eid-Al-Adha; Festival of Sacrifie web Meaning of Islam web Public Holidays web
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