Questions on Islam

Please post any questions you might have for Zeyneb here (and bring them with you to class).

"Islam" by Richard Foltz

"Islam" by Richard C. Foltz was a fascinating article. Seeing that my research paper is on Islam, I found a lot of interesting and useful information in this essay. Seeing that 1.2 billion people around the world today identify with Islam on some level immediately shows that it is a global religion followed by many. Most people don't identify Islam as a religion that seems to be in touch with the environment, but this essay presently proves otherwise; Islam is very much an ecologically oriented religion. I like how Foltz made sure to define how he was going to use the word "Islamic" in his essay. The way he chose to define words gave me a lot of guidance on how I should be clear to use certain words in my essay and how I should make sure to define these words in the right context. Foltz described Islamic environmentalism as "an environmentalism that can be demonstrably enjoined by the textual sources of Islam". And then he went on to describe Muslim environmentalism, which "draws its inspiration from a variety of sources possibly including but not limited to religion." Foltz explores a lot of different aspects of ecology in Islam throughout his essay in an interesting and fascinating way so it was pleasant for me to read.

Zoya

Islam: An Overview

The entire reading was so interesting to me because I am doing Islam for my paper and because even though I grew up hearing various things about Islam, this article taught me numerous things that I have never heard before. In regards to the environment, I liked how Fazlur Rahman stated how, in Islam, the entire universe and its content are declared by the Quran to be Muslim, but whereas nature obeys God’s law automatically, humanity ought to obey it by choice. This brings up many issues about the complexity of the human mind and human action. I like how he said that nature doesn’t have a choice but humanity does. I guess this is why we have “good” and “bad” people and why heaven and hell also exist in this religion. Another very interesting fact I learned was how Rahman makes the statement about how Islam originated out of Arab roots, not Judeo-Christian roots. This is intriguing to me because I feel that most people, including myself, would say that because Islam is the third monotheistic, Abrahamic, religion that it originated out of the religions before it. According to Rahman, “Islam grew out of the problems existing in an Arab Meccan society.” The reading did a good job in discussing Sufism, which is very foreign to me. I liked how they were basically credited the spread of Islam because many were merchants and spread the religion in their travels. Also contributing to the spread of Islam was the Islamic acceptance of the Iranians. As an unrecognized nationality, acceptance of the Iranians was a huge thing for them, and many converted to Islam. One of my favorite parts about the article was the brief explanation about the expansion of Islam and the treatment of Muslims to non-Muslims. Rahman uses the word “jihad” here to describe how the Muslims just established Islamic rule. Muslim rule in conquered territories was generally tolerant and there was no policy to convert non-Muslims, “the purpose of jihād was not conversion but the establishment of Islamic rule.” Nowadays, we think of jihad as a religious war, mass killings of people because they aren’t Muslims, or suicide bombing in the name of God. That is obviously not how the word was originally intended to be used. Overall, I really enjoyed the article and all the information it had to offer.

Soraya