Religious Aspects of Ancient Civilizations - Assignment Example

Topic: Teacher: In what ways did the Byzantine, European, and Islamic civilizations resemble and differ from one another? Were their relationships overall based on cooperation or conflict?  Islamic religion and civilization have a very strong impact on other civilizations of the world such as Byzantine and European civilizations due to which, some resemblances and differences can be found out while finding out their matching or contrasting elements. The civilizations obtained similarities by being in contact with one another. It was the event of crusades that combined the three civilizations and strongly left marks on each other’s civilizations and cultures (Duiker and Spielvogel 125). Byzantine and European relationships were good to each other and their cultural matchup can be found on the basis of cooperation while Islamic civilization has a conflicting relationship with the other two civilizations. Byzantine, which had Constantinople as its capital city was regarded as the representative of Christian orthodox religion, which connects it to Europe (Duiker and Spielvogel 158). The technology employed in Islamic civilization became a part of European and Byzantine civilization after the crusades because of their involvement with one another. In addition, European and Byzantine civilizations had Christianity as their principle religion and Islamic civilization had Islam as its principle religion. Both the religions have resembling elements such as consideration of God as one, having all the powers, belief on prophets and belief on the Day of Judgment (Duiker and Spielvogel 132). However, contrast can be found in the religions as well as Muslims regard Jesus Christ as God’s prophet like other prophets while Christians consider him as the son of God. The civilizations of Byzantine and Europe believe in iconography and use visual art for representation of their religious figures while Muslims dislike the representation of religious personalities in idol format (Duiker and Spielvogel 136). However, in Muslim culture as well artistic representations and work can be found out that is without faces. They employ geometric designs and Holy verses in their designs while Byzantine and European civilizations used facial representations for every religious happening (Duiker and Spielvogel 149). The art in Islamic civilization is called aniconic. Calligraphy is the well known skill of Islamic civilization. Islamic, Byzantine and European civilizations all believe in construction of religious buildings and create tem for prayers such as Muslims construct mosques and Christians construct churches. After crusades, the Islamic culture highly influenced the Byzantine and European civilizations as many philosophically, technologically and scientifically developments were copied in each other cultures, which caused the formation of similarities on the whole civilization values (Duiker and Spielvogel 143). In addition, classical educational material developed in Roman culture was banked and translated by Muslims. Initially, European civilization was the weakest of all civilizations but after the additional cultural values and knowledge, which it gained from Byzantine and Islamic civilization, it was known as well developed civilization showing technological and scientific discoveries (Duiker and Spielvogel 154). It is quite clear that the Islamic, Byzantine and European civilizations share a number of cultural and knowledge based elements, however, there are also dissimilarities found in their civilizations. Conflict and cooperation, both can be found while analyzing these three civilizations. The shared values are acquired mostly on the basis of religion and interaction. 2. What effects did the coming of Islam have on African religion, society, political structures, trade, and culture? What role did lineage groups, women, and slavery play in African society? Islam had very profound effects on African religion, society, political structures, trade and culture, which can be observed by looking the African culture and traditions as a whole. African society can be seen majorly as an Islamic society because Islam is the major religion of the region. Previously, African people used to regard the king of the state as having utmost power and authority; however, Islam rejected this consideration and gave the residents of Africa their religion Islam that authorized them to adopt practices according to God’s will and without the interference of the king of the state (Arnold 246). People used to believe in deities and gods before coming of Islam and then started believing in one God. After Islam, Christianity is the second major religion of the region. The African society as a whole used to have accepted slavery and loss of freedom under the king of the state before the advent of Islam in the region. The political structures were all dependent on kings and their rule and no person had the right to exercise freedom. Slaves were traded from Africa to all parts of the world in which, Europe was the major region (Arnold 252). People of Africa were culturally deprived and were barbaric. However, after coming of Islam in African region, there were a lot many changes. People were informed about their rights as God’s creatures, there were proper political structures having groups of people to decide and vote; slave trade was discouraged and because of knowledge acquisition and development, people were able to adopt cultural values other than barbarism (Arnold 249). However, it cannot be said that the African society was fully changed as the presence of lineage groups, women and slavery were such issues that were resolved after much struggle by the locals. Women were deprived of their rights and were required to perform what men wanted them to do. The society was a patriarch society with no rights to women (Arnold 259). Slavery was another major issue. Foreigners used to travel to Africa for the purpose of gathering slaves for their works. Slave trade was common and people of no authority were transported to Europe for the purpose of slavery. Even Africans were not aware that they were not supposed to be slaves. Islam made them realize their position in society and informed them about their freedom. Family systems in Africa that belonged to barbaric society were not able to understand the full values of Islamic religion and continued to be a part of old African society serving under kings and living in jungles. Even their disputes transfer from one generation to other generation. Sufism can also be found in African society as a form of Islam (Arnold 261). However, it is quite evident that Islam changed the shape of Africa and affected the African society to a great extent due to which, the cultural values of Africa show indication of Islamic traditions such as construction of mosques, saying of prayers, freedom of rights, knowledge acquisition and believe in one God (Arnold 257). Works Cited Arnold, Thomas Walker. The preaching of Islam: a history of the propagation of the Muslim faith. London: Westminster A. Constable & Co, 1896: pp. 246 – 261. Duiker, William J. and Spielvogel, Jackson J. The Essential World History. Washington: Cengage Learning, 2006: pp. 125 – 158. Read More