Week 5 Blog Entry

Posted by: daisysimple on: February 15, 2012

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In class, we began discussing the aspects and goals of religion. I thought it was interesting to see how the opinions varied in the class. Once we begin applying those questions to Islam, in particular, I’ll be curious to see what the outcome is. I have a sense of what I might vote for at this point, just based on the story of Muhammad that we continued last thursday. I also thoroughly enjoyed seeing the comparison between Mozaffar and Uncle Phil.

The reading was helpful this week because it showed me that I had been spelling Quraysh wrong for the past two weeks. But, I’m beginning to put all the pieces together. I really enjoyed reading some of the poems in “The Story of the Qur’an” because they felt very similar to that of the Christian wisdom literature. In the first paragraph, it said that women find their happiness in other areas of life. In another one of my classes, we’re studying women in various religions, and the areas of importance to women in traditional Islam is very similar to Fundamentalist and traditional Israeli Jewish women.

I read an article in the New York Times about how the NYPD was being shown “The Third Jihad” as a study on Muslims. People are very concerned about this methodology because it could cause the police to view all Muslims suspiciously. I think this is a larger problem in our country. People see movies and was TV and get an idea of what they think a whole group of people is like and uses that “knowledge” negatively.

In response to Wiseguy17, I think the negative outlook on interfaith marriages is disgusting. I learned in a class last semester that in Judaism, the concern around interfaith marriage is centered around the idea that Judaism is a fading religion. However, I think that interfaith marriage is a part of what makes our country so wonderful.