Biruni Misconceptions

The monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have over many thousands of years established many traditions and beliefs. Many of these are from their respective book of scripture such as the Bible, Torah, or Qu’ran. Others are from the interpretation of the religions over the many years from their leaders and the generational stories that have been passed down. Many of these can be seen as quite similar between the religions, but others can be considered unique to each one of them. There are many concepts that can be analyzed across these religions. The goal of this essay will be to focus and to put an understanding to some of the main concepts that include ultimate reality, human beings, community/society and nature (science) and how these influence the believers’ understanding of what it means to religious.

Different methodologies are used between Carl Ernst and Fred Donner as one uses a non-fundamentalist view and textual evidence to describe a broad view of Islamic civilization, which speaks to non-Muslims and explains the concept of Islam better, while the other uses archeological and religious texts to explain a specific time period of the Believers’ movement and how it was solely a religious movement, regardless of what others may say. Fundamentalists are those who believe literally in religious text. Therefore, when Ernst says that he is going to use a non-fundamentalist view he means that he will not be biased while talking about the Muslims and the Islamic civilization. Donner is trying to cancel out the ideas of those who say the Believer’s movement was hardly a religious one. One thought is “the movement that grew into what we know as Islam ‘was produced almost without religious faith’” (Fred Donner, xi). Donner is trying to prove this statement by Ernest Renan wrong with his archeological evidence and religious texts. However, interpretations and materials available to them can all be used to form their arguments. Their interpretations and methodologies show how they portray things of the same topic using different bases to frame their arguments.

A Critical Review of Ali Eteraz's Children of Dust: A Portrait of a Muslim as a Young Man

Chapter 14 in the book Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective of the Past by Herrry H. Bentley and Herbert F. Ziegler is mainly about Muhammad, the prophet, and his world, the expansion of Islam, economy and society of the early Islamic world, and its values and cultural exchanges.

As of today, the world’s two largest religions Christianity and Islam share an estimated 3.6 billion members, more than half of the world’s population. On the surface, they appear to have almost nothing in common, however, as one goes beyond the surface and examines the other factors such as the rituals, beliefs, ethics, founders, and convictions, the two religions share many similarities. However, in order to truly see and understand these similarities and differences, one must date back to the rise and birth of Christianity and Islam.

The Muslim people made many exceptional achievements and great contributions that spread to and affected the entire world, particularly Europe. Several factors encouraged them to pursue experimentations and developments in different fields.

The Islamic Brilliant Age is generally dated from the mid-seventh century to the mid-thirteenth century at which Muslim rulers set up one of the biggest domains ever. Amid this period, specialists, engineers, researchers, writers, savants, geographers and merchants in the Islamic world added to horticulture, expressions of the human experience, financial aspects, industry, law, literature, navigation, theory, sciences, human science, and innovation, both by protecting prior conventions and by including creations and advancements of their own. Likewise around then the Muslim world turned into a noteworthy scholarly community for science, rationality, pre – blocked on and instruction.

A prominent element in regards to oral traditions surviving the testament of time is the simplicity, directness, and concision that such traditions tend to be composed of. This makes it appear as though these early simple teaching can have an endless stream of commentary stem from a small assortment of simple words. Certainly such phrases and sayings by highly revered Islamic revolutionists Imam Ali and Jalal al-din Rumi tend to be simple in design much like these oral traditions, but a careful analysis of their work will depict the true depth of their teachings. Through their teachings, these two men are able to clearly show the distinction between spirituality as their lessons greatly depend on the individual recognizing that faith is

Even among religious scholars, ideologies differ. In the following pages I will employ both Haught and

The book that we have chosen to review is titled “Lost History, the Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers and Artists”. The author of the book is Michael Hamilton Morgan. The book was published in the year 2007 and also holds the same copyright date. The book is a non-fiction. The main subject matter of the book is the history of the Islamic civilization from the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)

During the post-classical period, the religion of Islam was on the rise in many areas that are now the present-day Arabian Peninsula, Northern Africa, and the Iberian Peninsula. Under this religion, many philosophers were born in the Muslim Empire. These philosophers used reason to explain the beliefs of Islam and derive meaning from the Qur’an. One of the most notable philosophers of this time period was Ibn Rushd who advanced the idea of using reason along with the faith of Islam to explain the faith of Islam. Ibn Rushd’s teachings are also relevant today as they were during the post-classical period of world history.

Ibn Sina and the scientific and practical works he wrote played a huge role in the development of medicine (Soucek, page 86). Persian by ethnicity, ibn Sina wrote his works in Arabic. Ibn Sina was familiar with Euclid’s works, Aristotle’s Metaphysics (ibn Sina, page 36), which shows that Islam did not refute science, inversely, it cooperates with it. In addition to his achievements in exact sciences, ibn Sina also studied the Arabic language and poetry in royal Bukhara library (ibid). This opportunity given to ibn Sina to use royal library instead of travelling to Baghdad indicates that Islamic scientists were held in high respect. Ibn Sina’s example demonstrates that being an Islamic scholar in 1000s meant not only knowledge of the Koran, but also familiarity with different scientific views. In general, ibn Sina’s memoirs facilitated the transformation of the Arabic language from just religious language of into the language of science, thus glorifying Islam to world civilization as a religion that welcomes flourishing of science and showing that Islam is not restricted by the teachings of the Koran.

On the surface, Islam and Christianity appear to have very little in common, however, as you get deeper into areas such as rituals, beliefs, ethics, founders, and sacred objects, the two show strong mutual similarities, particularly in the fundamental areas, while being totally different. In this essay I will compare and contrast many of the facets that make up the worlds largest and most recognized religions, Christianity and Islam.

Imam al-Ghazali (d.1111) remains perhaps the most important religious authority in Islam after the first three generations of Muslims. The title, ‘Proof of Islam’, conferred upon him by the majority of Muslims, is a reflection of the complexity of his work, which included jurisprudence, theology, philosophy, psychology, and mysticism. This essay will demonstrate how al-Ghazali synthesised concepts of tawheed (unity of God), islam (ritual worship, virtue, ilham (Godly inspiration) and tasawwuf (Sufism) in a broad ethical theory. His ethics, as illustrated in the Ihya Ulum id-Deen, can be applied by common

It is difficult to find a philosopher both in Muslim and Christian world from Middle Ages onwards who has not been influenced by his views. Ammar al-Talbi (2000) suggests that “Al-Farabi represents a turning-point in the history of Islamic philosophical thought, since he was the true first founder of epistemology which relies upon ‘universal reason’ and the demonstrations he gave”. Education is one of the most important social phenomena in al-Farabi’s philosophical system. Al-Farabi’s concern was to reestablish unity to Islamic thought. He believed the first aim of knowledge was knowledge of God and his attributes (F. Copleston, 1980). Philosophy and religion were for him simply two expressions of a single truth, philosophy explains religion and provides proof of it; it is neither in conflict nor in contradiction with it. According to al Farabi the perfect human being, is the one who has obtained theoretical virtue, thus completing his intellectual knowledge and has acquired practical moral virtues thus becoming perfect in his moral