The introduction talks about how after the attacks on September 11th, politicians and preachers in the United States declared a clash of civilizations between the Western Societies and the Middle East. \u00a0Many people had this bias that Western Civilization was democratic and enlightened while the Middle East was barbarous and archaic. \u00a0However, the author goes on to explain how it is more of class of monotheisms. \u00a0One line from the passage that I found interesting was, “Religion, it must be understood, is not faith. \u00a0Religion is the story of faith. \u00a0It is an institutionalized system of symbols and metaphors that provides a common language”. \u00a0He then goes on to talk about how this clash of monotheisms occurs when this faith becomes entangled in religion.<\/p>\n
Chapter 1: \u00a0The Sanctuary in the Desert<\/p>\n
The first chapter begins by talking about the sanctuary called Ka’ba. \u00a0I really liked how the author described in great detail the appearance of the Ka’ba. \u00a0It helped me visualize something\u00a0that I had never seen before. \u00a0There are said to be three hundred and sixty idols housed at the Ka’ba. \u00a0Each one representing different gods in the Arabian Peninsula. \u00a0One part of the reading that surprised\u00a0me is when the author talks about how no one knows who built or how long the Ka’ba has been there. \u00a0One theory is that since the Ka’ba is near an underground spring known as Zamzam, that wandering tribes\u00a0used the Ka’ba as a secure place to store various objects used in rituals.<\/p>\n
Another part of the chapter I enjoyed was when he discussed the term Jahiliyyah. \u00a0Jahiliyyah is defined by Muslims as an era of moral depravity. \u00a0Jahiliyyah Arabs were thought of as polytheistic individuals who engaged\u00a0in bad behavior with little thought of their moral consequences.<\/p>\n
Through just the intro and the first chapter of this book I already have been exposed to Islamic culture and religious beliefs that I previously did not know about. \u00a0I look forward to the next chapters of this book.<\/p>\n
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The introduction talks about how after the attacks on September 11th, politicians and preachers in the United States declared a clash of civilizations between the Western Societies and the Middle East. \u00a0Many people had this bias that Western Civilization was democratic and enlightened while the Middle East was barbarous and archaic. \u00a0However, the author goes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9196407,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9196407"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":709,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions\/709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208spring2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}