could someone please explain to me all the major events in islam and then the basic rules thereof?
Man, that would be one almighty big post :p.
If you want something that comprehensive, I suggest a book, preferably several. Do a search on my name in Cafe Society and you should turn up one possible reading list on the topic.
- Tamerlane
I agree with Tamerlane - bit of a big topic. If you want something free, you could start with the Wikipedia entry.
When you’ve got some more questions, come on back here…
Here ya go:
- Tamerlane
Or you could summarize the Islamic religion by saying that it is a latter-day Abrahamic style religion of social etiquette and Devine ordained rules-to-live-by given by a monotheisitic God whose earthly messenger, Mohammed, was not imbuded with the redeeming ideas of "love thy enemy"or “brotherly love” or the idea of indiscriminate “Christian Love” that has given birth to Western Civilization today.
and of course, Christianity’s history (in several major forms) most certainly imbued itself with “love thy enemy”. Your post is hypocritical.
Sure. The christian world is embedded in brotherly love, as history clearly shows…
A chance to take a cheap shot at islam shouldn’t be missed…
Milum: […] whose earthly messenger, Mohammed, was not [imbued?] with the redeeming ideas of "love thy enemy"or “brotherly love” or the idea of indiscriminate “Christian Love” that has given birth to Western Civilization today.
I think it’s pretty misleading to say that ideas of “love thine enemy”, “brotherly love”, and/or “Christian Love” have given birth to Western Civilization. Western Civilization is a humongous hotchpotch of cultural elements from various sources, including not only Judaism and Christianity but the philosophy, law, science, and arts of ancient Greece and Rome—and also including Islam itself, which had major impacts on late medieval Western science, technology, philosophy, and theology.
Attempting to summarize Islam by saying “it’s like Christianity because it’s monotheistic but it’s different because we got Love and you just got a buncha petty rules, nyah nyah” is, um, somewhat distorted.
Apart from that, I don’t think it counts as “basic rules”, but the five “pillars” of Islam are :
-the profession of faith : “there’s no god but God and Mohammed is His prophet”
-The five daily prayers
-The ramadan : a yearly 40 days period of fast (no food, beverages, cigarettes, sex, etc…from sunrise to sunset)
-The alm to the poors
-The pilgrimage to Mecca (if possible)
From the wikipedia entry on Islam:
Is there a Muslim here who could tell me whether they agree with that statement and if they do, how they reconcile that belief with life in a secular society?
If a muslim lives in a secular country then the laws of that country take precedence over islamic laws. They must obey national laws even if they directly contradict islamic laws.
clairobscur has got it right, but that’s just the basic Islamic tenets.
Technically, if you observe the Five Pillars of Islam, you’re a Muslim. However, some Muslims would also argue that one must also observe the Shari’a. Note also that various sects within Islam itself don’t agree on how various observances should be observed.
The Shari’a is a sort of legal code that’s plugged into the religion itself. This code of laws and behaviors is pretty much enforced by the ruling regimes in several Islamic countries, and is largely the thing that makes a country “Islamic.” Islam’s a religion with pretty firm ideas on how society should be run. It is, in some ways, kind of an “eye for an eye” sort of thing – this is the legal code that dictates lopping off hands of thieves, and beheadings, and such. It’s important to note that it dates back quite a ways, and hasn’t really been updated lately – it is, literally, a “medieval” set of laws. However, being holy and all, amending it is a bit of a trick.
Then, lastly, we have the Hadith, the day to day sayings of the Prophet as frantically written down during his life and after his death by various members of his entourage. Whenever anything comes up that isn’t covered by the Pillars or the Shari’a, Islamic scholars drag out the Hadith, and begin rereading and interpreting and hoping Mohammed left a clue on how to deal with this situation… which largely leaves new problems up to the interpretations of older Islamic scholars. Conservative, to say the least.
Am I missing anything? I’m far from an expert, but this is my understanding of how it works.
What do muslims believe they must do in order to get into heaven?
Not medieval - 7th century.
I would love to see what would happen if the Iranian leaders got overthrown. I think there is a sizeable groundswelling of anti-islam feeling in that country. Get rid of the mullahs and this would explode forth with massive implications for the rest of the islamic world. It could be the trigger that finally forces islam to lighten up a bit.
I could be wrong but the impression I get is that if the mullahs were to be overthrown, then Iran would immediately become a secular country and a lot of people would revert to zoroastrianism. Many Iranians see islam as a foreign religion.
Although, of course, it’s hard to know the real truth. I’m just basing my opinion on what I read from Iranian dissidents living in the west. And it’s possible that they are exaggerating in order to hasten the overthrow of the mullahs by getting western help.
Although I did read that a few months ago it was the anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Khomeini. The ruling council proclaimed a national day of mourning but it just happened to fall on a day which was a national holiday. Normally on this holiday thousands of Iranians head for the coast but on this occassion there was a very bad traffic jam and the coast road was log-jammed. Apparently, all the Iranians, rather than mourning, got out of their cars and began partying in the streets. Celebrating the fact that the Ayatollah was dead.
None of this has much to do with the OP but then I’ve never been very good at staying on topic.
Hijack : it’s the second time in a few days I see someone not including the early middle-ages in the “medieval” period. So, i’m wondering. Does “medieval”, in english, refers only to a specific part of the middle-age?
I’m extremely surprised by this statement, so I need some more explanations.
-Don’t you think that islam is now so deeply rooted in Iranian culture, and for such a long time, that it wouldn’t really be possible for a significant part of the population not merely to give up islam, but to join another religion?
-Are the Iranian people, on the overall, relatively familiar with the tenets of zoroastrianism to begin with? It seems to me it would be a basic condition to even entertain the idea of a conversion.
-I know that on the overall, Iranians tend to take great pride in their history, including pre-islamist history. But does this positive perception extend to the former persian religion, and if so, to which extend? Is zoroastrianism (contemporaneous) positively viewed or at least well accepted by the average Iranian?
-It seems to me that zoroastrianism doesn’t allow conversions. Am I wrong? Wouldn’t it be a significant obstacle?
Finally, the use of the word “reverting” seems a little odd to me, given the very long time elapsed since the introduction of Islam in Iran. I mean it seems at first glance akin to a lutheran Norwegian “reverting” to the worship of Odin…
Hmm, I dunno…when I see medieval I always think of 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th centuries (approximately).
I would be extremely surprised if it happened too. I’m just passing on information I have come across, I can’t vouch for it’s veracity. This is why I said I would be interested to see what would happen if the mullahs got overthrown - just to see what would happen.
Well they wouldn’t be joining “another” religion. They would be reverting to their religion.
Christianity has been in the UK for a very long time but you would be surprised at the number of people who still hold onto vestiges of pagan belief in the UK - earth worship etc. Many villages still hold ceremonies every year that are nothing to do with christianity. Burning whicker men only died out completely last century. They have to close off stonehenge every year at solstice time because of the sheer number of people going there.
They probably aren’t experts but remember it is their religion not just a religion so they probably have a reasonable idea about it in general - more than you or I (as non-Iranians) would have anyway
I think it is positively viewed (insofar as islam allows a positive viewing of ANY other religion). I’m not saying they would all convert en masse, just that a secular republic would allow more freedom for a fledgling neo-zoroastrianism to emerge. It would also give them the freedom to organise and to advertise. It may start small and get bigger or it may just die off - who knows?
But I think there would be at least some Iranians who would revert.
I don’t know much about zoroastrianism either but I’m sure they would find some way round this. They wouldn’t be “converting” to zoroastrianism, they would be “reverting”.
See above about paganism in the UK. You could argue that earth worship etc has a much more powerful hold over the UK than christianity because we see it as our “original” religion. Much more ancient than christianity.
Please note I’m not saying that any of this would actually happen. I’m just saying it would be interesting to see to what extent it happens (if at all). If Iranian dissidents are to be believed then it would happen at least to some extent, although I’m sure they exaggerate.
Medieval or Middle Ages is generally defined as post-Roman, pre-Renaissance, with Roman in this case being roughly post-Justinian ( Justinian is often referred to as “the last Roman Emperor”, Heraclius as the first Byzantine Emperor, though obviously this is rather rough as there were rulers in between the two ). Generally 600-1400 would be considered medieval, so the 7th century would be the early Middle Ages and as Islam broke on the scene during Heraclius’ reign, it is appropriate enough to refer to it as a medieval-origined religion.
I don’t, from everything I’ve read. Rather there is a sizeable groundswell against the velayat e-faqih or rule by reliugious leaders, a concept championed by Khomeini but never widely accepted even by the majority of the senior Shi’a clergy in Iran.
I think this is absolutely untrue. My Islamic history professor was a secular, beer-drinking Iranian from a family of secular Iranian professionals ( and he still visited most of his family in Tehran annually ), but I’m quite certain he’d differ with that viewpoint. The Iranians are a very historically rooted people that look back with pride on the achievments of the Achaemenids and Sassanians. But they are also pretty thoroughly Islamicand look back with great pride to the Abbasid Caliphate ( a highly Persianized dynasty that arose in large part with the support of Persian converts alienated by the Arabocentric policies of the Umayyads ) and dynasties like Safavids of the 16th-18th centures as well. They aren’t about to throw over their religious roots of the last millenia+ based on a couple of decades of misrule by a religious establishment that even a majority of senior Shi’a clerics look at dubiously.
Any dissident pushing a mass revival of Zoroastrianism of all things I think has gone a bit over the edge to out-and-out nutty. The dissidents are correct that there is quite a bit of internal support for a more secular regime ( and still some internal opposition to the idea as well, from the more pious ) - the Iranian government is probably living on borrowed time - but the religion-switching thing is a rather bizarre pipe-dream. But then good ole professor, who loathes the current clerical regime in Tehran, referred to a significant chunk of the American-based Iranian dissident movement ( many of which are from the former upper-class, the only segment of the Iranian populace to overwhelmingly back the late Shah ) as “mental masturbators” :D. Especially the royalists, who are dreaming of their own slightly ( but only slightly ) more realistic idea of a restoration of the monarchy.
So to re-cap:
Completely secular, but still overwhelmingly Muslim Iran ( just as the U.S. is a secular, but still overwhelmingly Christian country ) - remotely possible.
Genuine democracy, with some religious law remaining on the books - far more likely.
Restoration of Iranian monarchy - pretty darn unlikely, but slightly possible.
A largely or even significantly Zoroastrian Iran - incredibly unlikely to the point of unreality.
- Tamerlane
I have a Zoroastrian friend - a Parsee (Iranians that migrated to India to escape religious persecution, IIRC) - and the religion seems so cool. So easy, so simple, so tolerant. Good words, good thoughts, good deeds. Much as Jesus simplified Christianity/new-Judaism to “love thy neighbour, love thy god” before it was fucked up by a load of “saints” and church figures in the centuries to follow.
Tch. You should watch your wording - that could come off as a bit of a diss to our many fine Catholic posters.
Myself, speaking as liberal athiest scum ;), I’ve always been a bit fascinated with Iran’s most oppressed religious minority, the Baha’i. An interestingly tolerant and open-ended religion in some respects.
- Tamerlane
God no - it’s not a specific dig at Catholics - it’s a dig at pretty much ALL “denominations” and interpretations of Christianity, from the horror of St Paul’s “teachings” onwards. The unnecessary, man-made (I would say human-made, but let’s face it, they’re not made by women) rules imposed after Jesus departed, that totally contradict much of his teaching. Love thy neighbour, love thy god, it’s that simple. It’s not about throwing people in prison for being gay, or affording women a lesser status/authority, or heaping the guilt on anything to do with sex. Love=tolerance, respect. How hard is that?
Too hard, it would seem, for most.
I don’t know much about the Baha’i - I don’t think I’ve knowingly met one, though there are a lot of Iranian people here so I may have without realising it. I’ve met quite a few Lebanese Druze. None of them ever seem to have much idea what their religion is about (unless they’re just keeping it secret!)