Islamic Religion and Culture - Admission/Application Essay Example

Islamic Religion and Culture Introduction In these days, those countries where Islam is the dominant religion are facing various challenges in different fields of life. These challenges include technological, educational, industrial challenges and violence. In these critical and serious conditions, all governments of the Islamic world should take proper measures to root out those issues which are acting as obstacles to the advancement of the Islamic world without having clashes with the western countries and maintaining brotherly relationships with all governments of the western world. Islam Before going into the issue of determining the challenges which are faced by the Islamic world these days and then finding out those factors which are to be explored by the Islamic countries to sort out those challenges and problems, let’s first describe the religion ‘Islam’. Islam is a sacred religion followed by its adherents or believers and is regulated by a sacred holy book ‘Quran’. “Islam is the worship of Allah alone and the avoidance of worship directed to any person, place or thing other than Allah” (Philips, 2008). The people who follow this religion are known as ‘Muslims’ which means by those persons who have a perfect belief in Allah and His prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H). Muslims believe that Islam is the perfect religion to be followed and we should all submit our wills to Allah. The religion Islam is comprised of various rules and regulations which act as a law for its believers and followers. Those persons who have a proper faith on the guidance set by the holy book Quran are said to be as followers of Islam. Islam educates its followers to live their lives according to the set of rules given in the holy book. Islamic world Islamic world, also known as Muslim world or Muslim community, comprises of sixty three countries in which the religion of Islam is followed as the main religion and where all the rules and regulations are set according to the teachings of Islam. Total community of the Islamic world falls some where between fourteen to fifteen billion people that may be called one-fifth of the total population of the world. This huge number of Muslim community is spread in all parts and all continents of the world and the major and religious association between them is Islam. Islam is that source of binding which keeps all the Muslims from all over the world together. When we are talking about the Muslim world spread around different parts of the world, we must say that there is a difference between the culture, ethnicity and civilization of all Muslim countries of the world. But despite of the fact that there is a difference, it should be noted that that difference doesn’t involve the religious factor. Religious activities and rules are same all over the world. Muslims in all parts of the world are adherent to same rules and regulations which are mentioned in the holy book of Islam. Having described the Muslim world in cultural aspect, let’s now discuss the critical period which Muslim world is going through in the present era. Critical phase and surge of clash In these days, Muslim world is not as stable and established as it was in its golden age. Today, Muslim world is facing a lot of challenges and difficulties in almost every field of life. These hurdles and difficulties are preventing the Muslim countries from any major advancement in any field. Due to no high progress level, the self-assurance level of the Muslim world is also unstable. Gone are the days when Muslims had their name in almost all departments of life including technological, political and economical departments. Now they are far behind in all these fields due to involvement of extremism and fanaticism. Today Muslims are focusing more on extremism and fundamentalism rather than focusing on development and progression of their countries. Terrorism is one of the major factors which are affecting the progressive phase of the Muslim countries. Muslim world is not able to fully root out the foundation and source of terrorists and are getting more and more affected day by day. So when there is so much extremism and terrorism involved in any country, it’s very difficult to maintain the economic and financial stability of that specific country. While talking about the critical phase of today’s Muslim world, we should first sort out what are the main issues which today’s Muslim world is facing and what steps should be taken to resolve these issues and make the Muslim world come out of this critical period. Some of these issues are lack of knowledge of religion, lack of political stability, inability in dealing with terrorism, inability to cop with modernism and lack of quality educational institutes. These were some of the issues which today’s Muslim world is facing. Let’s now discuss those measures which should be taken in order to bring programmatic changes and development in above specified factors. If we talk about religious studies factor, in these days Muslim community has diverted its focus from original religious teachings to fundamental sort of teachings. Islam doesn’t teach the persons to go become extremist and fundamentalist rather it is the religion of peace and harmony. Muslim community should make proper arrangements for preaching of real spirit of Islam instead of promoting extremism and fanaticism. Lack of spirituality in Muslims can never be helpful in progressiveness of their country. Another important factor of Muslim world’s decline is political instability. Almost in every Muslim country, political stability level is doesn’t seem to be in balance. When there will be no stability and consistency in any government, concentration will be diverted from development of the country. All Muslim countries should make and apply appropriate political laws to ensure stability of any political government in order to ensure attentiveness towards the development of the country. These days, one of the major threats to any country is of terrorism. Terrorism in any part of the world has deep impact on economic stability of whole world. Wherever any terrorist activity takes place, the impact is on whole world and investors stop their money from investing it in the market which results in economic instability. It is commonly known that the foundations of terrorists lie in Muslim countries like Afghanistan. Afghanistan, being an important Muslim country, should take proper measures to root out the causes of terrorism and make their country and whole world safe from this danger. Another factor is lack of ability to deal with modernism. Modernism is the propensity of matters of spiritual belief to harmonize or match the customs and rituals with the modern consideration. Modernism believes in the power of reasons and rejects or denies every authority which is not able to confront proper reasoning. Muslim world should focus on modernism and innovation because modernism always focuses on rational way of thinking which helps in understanding the reality of the issues which is needed to confront the challenges of this world. Lack of quality in educational institutes is also playing a critical role in downfall of the Muslim world. There is no major educational institute which can help Muslim students get deeper knowledge of latest technologies. Muslims have developed a mindset of just using pre-built technologies instead of getting knowledge of how to prepare and engineer those technologies so that they can be helpful to their countries. There must be quality educational and technological institutes in Muslim countries so that their children learn about latest technologies and be able to participate in development of their countries in order to come out of this critical phase of the Muslim world. Now let’s discuss whether the Islamic world is at the surge of clashes with the west or not. In my perspective, Islamic world is rushing towards the clash with the western world because of religious, security and terror factors. And that clash will not be favorable for either Muslim world or western world. The world has totally changed its direction from friendly relations to hatred feelings between Muslim and the western world. It all has changed after 9/11 in which an extremist group ‘Al-Qaeda’ made terrorist attacks on the world trade center in United States in the result of which the U.S.A attacked Afghanistan in order to chop out the terrorist group so as to ensure the safety of the world. But Muslim world saw it as a war between them and the western world. Muslims countries are not able to root out the terrorism themselves and when the western world tried it, they started to go against the acts of the western countries which resulted in hatred feelings for the western world which is a disgraceful act. So, I would say that in the present era, instead of having brotherly and friendly relations, Muslims are really on the surge of clashes with the western world. Conclusion Summing it up, it can be said that in this critical period on the Islamic world, Muslim countries should try to strengthen their educational, technological, economical and political powers in order to cop up with the challenges of 21st century. They should take proper measures to ensure safety and security of the while world instead of having clashes with the other countries of the world. When there will be friendly and cooperative relations between the Islamic and the western world, only then peace will prevail and critical phase of the Muslim world will have an end. References Philips, Bilal. (2008). “The True Religion”. Retrieved 03 Dec. 2009, from htttp://www.jannah.org/articles/truereligion.html Read More