Week Number 5 Blog!

Posted by: beatlesbeatlesbeatles on: February 21, 2012

In: Uncategorized
Comment!

In Class: In class this past week we covered a little more of Muhammad’s past. Specifically, we talked about the role his leadership played in warfare against the Quraysh tribe in Medina. This led to a really interesting class discussion about action in the face of danger or moral questioning. The class talked about what they would do if they felt like their life was in danger and many said they would fight back… which I personally think was BS, but whatever. No amount of personal property is worth risking your life, ya know? Then we talked about bribes and what our personal price would be to convert to a different religion. I think the class discussion got slightly out of hand towards the end but it still made me think!

Readings: The Hadith reading this week talked about how important the validity of some Islam teachings are to Muslims. It is important to Muslims to be able to know a narrative or story is true and also to know true followers from fake ones. I think religious validity is important in other faiths as well. In grade school we always talked about strictly or loosely interpreting the Bible and if stories were meant to be taken word for word or more as a metaphorical instructive device.

Islam: I read an article this week about outrage sparked by the news that many top universities in the US monitor their Muslim students more strictly than their non-Muslim students. The article reported that detectives checked Muslim students’ websites. blogs and internet activity on an almost daily basis. This was justified by the fact that 12 known terrorists in the US have come from student organizations in recent years. Universities like Yale, NYU, Syracuse and others have been noted for this discriminatory police work.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h4LbJ-H0_D6CeomVVcvFe8iztx-Q?docId=b78d918dc3e2429b84f51f1f5755034f

Response: to snowmakesmehappy. Your blog mentioned this years Islam Awareness Week, which I’d never heard of! I think it’s a great idea because Islam and Muslim practices are so, so, so severely misunderstood and even more misrepresented in our society today. I don’t know what kind of activities LUC’s Islam Awareness Week will entail but I hope there would maybe be some talks on campus about the different aspects of the Islamic faith that would be open to the public. Spreading knowledge is a great step that Loyola is making!