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Conflicts due to religion
Conflicts between Muslims and Christians
Conflicts due to religion
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Muslim Nations and Their Crisis of Leadership
Muslim nations face a crisis of leadership, which affects both them and their relationship with other countries. In Muslim society the leader embodies both political and moral authority. Yet even the best-known thinkers who comment on Islam, like Professor Samuel Huntington and Francis Fukuyama, have failed to identify the importance of Muslim leadership.
On the surface there is a bewildering range of leadership: kings, military dictators, mullahs, democrats, and, as in the Taliban in Afghanistan, young and inexperienced tribal men running a country. Overshadowing all these, we are witnessing new Muslim movements and a new kind of populist, aggressive and literalist Muslim leadership struggling to emerge. The Taliban and their guest from Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden, who is accused of masterminding the bombing of the American embassies in Africa in 1998, best symbolizes this trend. In other countries such as Algeria, Egypt and Pakistan, similar Muslim leaders actively challenge the established rulers.
For these warriors of Islam, the injustices of their rulers and the fact that some enjoy support in the West, all the cultural invasion of western media images, as well as the stereotypes of Islam in the Western media such as the 1998 Hollywood film The Siege, in which Muslims are shown as terrorists and fanatics, highlight the serious cultural and political problems that Muslims face. These coupled with the indifference of the West to them, combine to create a focus on the West as the enemy. From this perception to actively opposing the West as a form of jihad or religious war, is one short step.
While the often Westernized nationalist leaders of the post-independence period...
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... states; Sunni Muslims have fought Shi'ites, and Iran and Iraq waged a bloody ten-year war that may have killed a million people. And from Karachi to Cairo, Muslim cities erupt into sectarian and ethnic violence at a moment's notice. Foreign visitors are often targeted at random.
Now that the Muslim world, through Pakistan, has an `Islamic nuclear bomb' Muslim leadership matters more than ever. There is every likelihood of other Muslim nations joining Pakistan in the near future. The world will become an even more dangerous and unstable place.
Clinton and his Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, have predicted that the events of August 1998 were a foretaste of things to come; that this is the way that the wars of the future will be fought. They may be right. But the response of the Muslim world will depend on whether the Osama model prevails, or that of Jinnah.
Events that capture the entire world’s attention are few and far between. Fighting wars normally occurs between acknowledged enemies. In the war against terrorism, most notably, the war against Al-Qaeda, the enemy is unknown. One is not the enemy of the United States of America by virtue of one’s ethnic heritage. A Muslim is not a hidden enemy simply because he is Muslim. A Muslim does however become the enemy when he targets the world as a member of Al-Qaeda, the vision of one man. He was an intelligent and educated man who came from wealth and high esteem, who, guided by his faith, through radicalization, exile from homeland, and anti-western sentiments, built the terrorist organization known as Al- Qaeda. His name was Osama bin Laden.
Islam is one of the largest religions existing today, with a total of about 1.6 billion1 followers, according to Pew Research Center. The sheer immensity of people following this religion is staggering, but the influence that Islam has had on world history is even more important. Without Muslim advances in areas such as math, science, and medicine, the western world wouldn’t have existed.
Ansary, Tamim. Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes. New York: PublicAffairs, 2009.
Ayoob, M. (2007) The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim
Burns, Thomas J. "Islam." Religion and Society. OU Campus' Dale Hall, Norman. 14 Apr. 2014. Lecture.
Islam is portrayed and is commonly accepted as the most violent and largest direct threat to the West. This is a generalization made by most of the West, but it is not particularly the West or the Islamic people’s fault. There is constant turmoil in Islamic countries in the Middle East and these conflicts are what make the news in the West. The only representation in the media that the Islamic nation gets is that of war. Though most Islamic people are not violent, the select few that do participate in terrorist groups give the rest of the Islam nation a bad image.
G. Hossein. “Legitimacy, Religion, and Nationalism in the Middle East.” The American Political Science Review, Volume 84, Issue 1 (1990. 3), 69-91.
There is a strong belief that Islam and politics are directly tied. They are tied in the sense that the building blocks of the religion dictate how they ought to behave in the political environment. Through this mandatory follow up behavior that the religion delineates, many have come to believe that its teachings are a form of terrorism. Mandaville argues that what has challenged the Islamic link between politics and religion was the emergence of secularism, which went against the belief that politics and religion could go together. Islam has been a religion that has been accused of supporting terrorist activities in the world. Different assumptions have been brought up to understand better the linkages between what really lies behind the Islam religion and politics. Peter Mandaville argues that Islam is dynamic and that it has changed over time; situated within time and politics.
Thomas W. Lippman gives an introduction to the Muslim world in the book Understanding Islam. He has traveled throughout the Islamic world as Washington Post bureau chief for the Middle East, and as a correspondent in Indochina. This gave him, in his own words, "sharp insight into the complexities of that turbulent region." However, the purpose of the book is not to produce a critical or controversial interpretation of Islamic scripture. It is instead to give the American layman an broad understanding of a religion that is highly misunderstood by many Americans. In this way he dispels many myths about "Muslim militants," and the otherwise untrue perception of Islamic violence. In this way the American reader will become more knowledgeable about an otherwise unfamiliar topic. However, the most significant element of Lippman’s book is that it presents Islam in a simple way that makes the reader feels his awareness rise after each chapter. This encourages him to continue learning about the world’s youngest major religion. Understanding Islam dispels many misconceptions about the Muslim world, and presents the subject in a way that urges his reader to further his understanding of Islam through continued study.
The continuous military defeats of the Arab countries against Israel (1948, 1967, and 1973) have caused a heavy burden in the psychology of the Arab Muslims. These defeats confirmed the loss of Muslim power. This led to abandoning the idea of secularism and going back towards the commitment to Islam to regain the former ...
Wright, L. (2006). The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. New York: Knopf.
After 9/11 has induced negative attitudes towards Muslim peoples who tend to be strongly associated with any act of terrorism. The media has played a colossal role in developing such negative association wherein it constantly portrays Muslim people in combination with violent terrorist acts. It does so in a way that they both go hand-and-hand. In other words, it has made it as though the Islamic religion is synonymous with terrorism. The media has perpetuated Muslim stereotypes over the years that followed the 9/11 incident. Because of this, society has developed, and still has developed, this prejudiced mindset about the Islamic religion and the Muslim communities around the world. People immediately assume that any violent act being depicted through the media is the direct result of Muslims. They automatically generate this idea that the act was performed by a Muslim terrorist even when they were not involved whatsoever. Regardless of whether it was true or not, Islamic religion and its Muslim adherents are at the top of societies’ agenda just waiting for the evidence to be generated so that they can then safely blame them for such world affairs. Again, this has led to the attack on the Islamic religion itself wherein people have come to postulate Islam as an act of oppression, violence and hatred towards non-Muslims. Anti-Muslim sentiments and campaigns have resulted from such misinformation the media has been generating and feeding its viewers.
My research has led me to the conclusion that conflict between Muslim groups and the Western societies is purely political, but tinged with misinterpretations of the Quran by Islamic radicals. The false justifications these groups make about the Quran explicitly directing Muslims to attack anyone of a different religion is motivated by a few key instigators political ambitions and want for power. It is because of these few groups of radicals and their own misinterpretation of the Quran that lead Westerners to view Muslims with distrust and suspicion. There is a strong need to practice religious tolerance and identify that the problem lies within a few groups of disgruntled individuals. Islam is a religion that preaches peace among those that follow its guidance and tolerance for peoples of other religions.
In this book , Esposito provides a succinct, up-to-date survey of the Islamic experience, an introduction to the faith, belief, and practice of Islam from its origins to its contemporary resurgence. He traces the emergence and development of this dynamic faith and its impact on world history and politics. He discusses the formation of Islamic belief and practice (law, theology, philosophy, and mysticism), chronicling the struggle of Muslims to define and adhere to their Islamic way of life. Equally important is the essential information Esposito provides on the contemporary world of Islam, from Muslim responses to the challenges of colonialism and modernization to the reassertion of Islam in politics and society.
The Shahadah, or testimony, is the first of the five pillars of Islam. In order to officially convert to Islam, it is required to recite the Shahadah three times, “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God.” This has been a practice within the Islamic faith for hundreds of years. Yet, even within the Islamic faith there are differing versions. Those who practice Shia Islam add, “and Ali is the friend of God” to the end of the Shahadah. This, among many other practices, is an example of the religious plurality that exists within the Islamic world. The Islamic world is home to a large and diversified religious community that, on the surface, seems homogenous in its religious practices. But many religious schools of jurisprudence, schools of theology, and other religious movements exist under the umbrella of Islam, these schools bring religious diversity to Islam that seek to meet the diverse needs and wants of the religious marketplace of the Islamic world. Though the United States is often used as the example to describe religious pluralism, there are many instances in the Islamic world that can even rival the plurality of the American religious market. The Muslim Brotherhood is a prime example of an Islamic organization that has become deeply entrenched in society. Through the extensive use of social services and extreme religious power, the Muslim Brotherhood has been able to enjoy a large membership base, devoted to their cause, and dedicated to its principles. Every year, many Muslims will embrace Sufi Islamic practices into their lives. The Islamic world is not an exception to the religious economies model and is, in fact, a very religiously diverse region of the world.