Emotional Supression

In one of the readings that we were assigned for this week, I was part of the group that had to read from the point of view of a Muslim on Christianity. I had a work by an Islamic traveler whose name was Usamah ibn-Munquidh. His work was a narration of his experiences with those belonging to the christian faith, whom he referred to as the Franks. He begins by saying, 'Their lack of sense' and how although they are nothing but animals to God, their level of loyalty, faithfulness, and dependency to him is astonishing and admirable, but not very impacting. He also presents the idea that all Franks are cold- blooded, insensible, undisturbed people who find no need to help others see what is being done wrong.

I find this curious. One of the examples he gave was of a man who arrived home one day to find a stranger lying in bed with his wife. He proceeded in a very calm way to ask why it was that he was there. The other man responded that he was awfully tired and entered for a responsible nap. The man then asked why it was that he laid in that particular bed, the other man responded, because it was already disturbed. The man then asked why did he lay with his wife in it, the other man said because it would be rude of him to ask her to leave pertaining that it as her own bed. The man then told him to get out and if the event occurred again, he would be forced to challenge him in a quarrel. Given this story, could it be that Christianity actually teaches suppression of emotion, lack of sensibility along with lack of interest, and cold attitudes towards others? Although i am not of the christian faith, i did grow up with a catholic grandmother and later her values were taught to me through my own mother during my early years, as a little child. I like to think of myself as a warm hearted being, but with my lack of strong education on Christian beliefs, i am unsure now.

Considering the fact that the writer of this text was a Muslim of the Islamic faith during the period of the Crusades, and during the time when not everybody and not even the majority of the population knew how to read, it could be that he was probably trying to strengthen the beliefs of those who did know how to read? I mean, those higher up with power were the ones able to read, so he could also have been trying to appeal to them as an intellectual person who was devoted. Whichever goals that Usamah ibn-Munquidh was trying to achieve, i think he might have done because it makes Christianity appear as a religion that takes away from its followers the ability to have strong opinions, to feel strong feelings, and to be of free will.

Religion and Union

It has been proven time and time again that religion has the power to unify and bring people together under one common belief, but it also has the power to disperse, separate, and discriminate. While many like to think religion can be a completely separate issue from politics, I think so otherwise. You see, religion unifies but also separates people, religion cannot exist without followers and religion needs leaders. Leaders are those who followers follow, if the followers are unsatisfied with leader, the leader must be changed. In other words, politics occur. When politics occur, it is very uncommon for people to all be in the same team, unless the leader is astonishingly great at leading and keeps followers content.

In Islam, Muhammad was the initial leader. He was a natural at inspiring followers, and was good at resolving problems between people. Islam prospered and grew. Islam became successful and united during his time. After Muhammad’s death in 632 C.E., the tightly knit Islamic society began to crumble. Conflicts concerning power, right of interpretations of the Islamic beliefs, and correct versus incorrect views on the role of Islam in society, arose.

In a reading for this week, I learned about the Sunni and Shia Muslims. You see, Sunni and Shia Muslims share the most fundamental Islamic beliefs and articles of faith, what they differ on are the political aspects. Over the centuries, these political differences have separated and created a number of varying practices and positions that have now come to carry a level of spiritual significance.

It is clear that the division between the Islamic sub-groups is connected to leadership and right. As mentioned, it was not until after Muhammad's death that these conflicts and groups began to appear. The question that the groups differed opinions on was as to who was to take over the leadership of the Muslim nation. The Sunni Muslims agreed that the position should be taken by someone close to Muhammad, a close friend of his, someone capable of doing the job, and this is what happened. The first Caliph of the Islamic nation was a close friend of Muhammad. But some disagreed with this. The Shia Muslims believed that leadership should have stayed within Muhammad's bloodline, those specially appointed by the Prophet, or Imams appointed by God.

This political aspect of leadership lead to disputes, conflicts, and separation of two groups once very close in beliefs. This conflict has lead to violence such as civil wars between Muslim groups and the obvious separation of the overall faith of Islam, through the creation of new empires and new ways of worship. I think that Religion is largely affected by Politics, as proven here, but why does it have to be? What religions have avoided this immersion?

School is the way to go!

I think that in any case, education is the key to success. Through out time, it has been shown many, many times that the societies that thrive and prosper are the ones that set up systems of education, may they be for religious education such as monasteries, or for philosophical advancement such as universities, etc. Its societies such as the Buddhist, with their monk education, Christians with their priest schools, Islam with their houses of wisdom, the Greeks with their various type of schools, and many others that have found the need to reach some kind of level of "Enlightenment," to get out of the dark and as a society/ civilization, rise. I hold it as one of my strongest values that education has the power to help anybody advance more in life, and achieve something better.

Although it is very clear that many societies have acknowledged this need, the example I would like to explore is the Islamic community, all those alive during the time of Islam's rise and unknowingly became part of it. You see, Islam started very small and slowly gained followers. It’s the transition from small to bigger that I would like to get into. There are many reasons as to why Islam became so appealing to people, among them was the appeal that it was welcoming and did not discriminate against groups. Many can debate this, but it was the overall reason for many, it also did not present a suppressive reign. Islam brought many people together, and its openness to others aloud the tolerance of other beliefs.

So the importance of education in the spread of Islam was huge. With varying cultures, all together in a place, human interaction was at play. As it is well known, the house of wisdom that Islam had in Baghdad became a very attractive place for great minds to go. There, varying cultures merged with great minds. This is what essentially happens in any learning to teaching environment, ideas merge and advancement generally occurs. I think it was an important step that they took to explore previous great civilizations and their form of thinking along with the discoveries and advancements that they did. This to me shows that while they were doing good progress on their own, the need to look further out, and attain more views on something became known. Because of this need, Islamic scribes/ writers turned to ancient philosophers such as the Greeks, the Romans, the Persian, and many other ancient societies. They translated their scripts, and made books retelling the discoveries of the ancient philosophers, making them available to others who wanted to explore further. This in turn turned Arab into the language of knowledge. At this point, Islam reaches its point of importance and it was thanks to their choice of making education something valued

Pass the paper, please!

 Among the many things we modern people take for granted now, is paper. Paper? You may ask. Why? There is a simple reason for that. Books. You see, back when Europe was in its dark ages, in what we also know to be the medieval times/ ages, Islamic civilizations further down south, were thriving and making huge steps, more like leaps, with advancements in technology.  They made great discoveries and invented many methods that are still in use today, or were, for many, many years.

One of the most important contributions was the creation of paper. Through the creation of paper, the once mainly oral tradition of Islam became more solid, and less at risk of possible changes to the history of the religion through the writing of the Qur’an.  I think it’s interesting that even though the Qur'anic beliefs were once transmitted from person to person, the message it carried was apparently, for the most part at least, kept true to its origin. But that’s the thing, I don’t understand how oral traditions lasted so long in the teaching of something so important, while still staying true to the initial message, I’m sure things were emitted by some and added by others, yet its claimed that all is true, all to the very smallest detail. I am nobody to judge but it’s curious. I guess it’s all just on who decides to believe it. Maybe it’s the very smallest detail’s message that counts, and not the message itself.

Nonetheless, the importance of paper is due to the impact it had in the dispersion of the Islamic faith. With books written on it created to be the holy text, the availability of it was open for others to explore. In the movie, the "house of wisdom" was a place in Baghdad where the smartest people of the time, the scholars, gathered to discuss issues and resolve questions. I find it extremely interesting how through out history, there is always a "power." For example here it was the Islamic Empire/ Regimen, because of the knowledge developing in their area, their language became something extremely needed by others in order to be up to date with the advancements being made in such a palace. And of course, these were being recorded in... What? Paper of course!

The importance of paper is very, very high. Its effects on historical events are major, and its contribution to solid evidence and recording of information for the public helped even more with expansion of ideal. It became a prime use for human interactions. I don’t think Islam would have been so successful if it hadn’t been for paper, or at least, success would have taken longer.