Understanding Islam

1) What are the main points of contention regarding the strained relationship between the Christian West and Muslim world? 

Christianity and Islam are the largest religions in the world, with more than one billion adherents for Islam and two billion for Christianity. The strained relationship between the Christian west and the Muslim world is primarily due to misinterpreting each other’s religion.

Besides that, we have this idea of how Muslims are seen as extremists and violence-seekers in the Christian West. The Christian west also say how Muslims have not done enough to oppose terrorism and violence. Also because it is contended that Islam’s emphasis on a strong relationship between religion and state opposes the views of the Christian west where they consider secularism and pluralism.

The opposing ideas between the Christian West and the Muslim world were given throughout the article. Initially they mentioned how wearing the “niqab” (veil) brought up controversy, where the westerners thought the veil seemed inappropriate and affected teaching. This brought attention from Leader of the House of Commons and the Chairperson of Lancashire council of mosques.

Points like the one mentioned above show disagreement between the Christian West and the Muslim World.

2) Does Islam encourage violence? Explain. 

“In regards to the statistical data by CBS polls in 2006, 46% of Americans view Islam as a violence-encouraging religion among its adherents. Non-muslim public officials, commentators and experts say Muslims have not done enough to speak out against terrorism committed in the name of their religion.” Critics have also said

“Mainstream Muslims insist Islam is a peaceful religion and that terrorist organizations distort its tenets and teachings in justifying attacks against the West or other Muslims. But Islamic doctrine and history sometimes seem to justify the use of violence in propagating or defending the faith.”

From this what I understand is that both types of Muslims believe Islam is not a religion that encourages violence, they say that it is a peaceful religion whose attacks are done only to defend the faith of their religion. The term “Jihad” is also repeatedly mentioned in the Quran, which means, “to strive” or “make an effort”. Now the extremists and rest of the Muslims interpret this term itself differently. Where the Muslim Scholars view it as a personal and spiritual thing the other view this as a self-defense or protection of their religion and faith.

 Taking all these into consideration we can say that it is very subjective, violence being associated with Islam is generalized, when a certain group practices violence to defend their religion Islam as a whole is seen as a religion that encourages violence. So according to this I personally do not feel Islam encourages violence.

3) Is Islam Compatible with secular, pluralistic societies? 

According to what is mentioned in the article in page 9, a pluralistic and intolerant interpretation of Islam can be found. The Islamic Law named “Sharia” prohibits the modern laws/western laws to be integrated in the Islamic societies. Hence this law is also criticized by the western Societies. So even nations and Islamic societies that are liberal are forced to follow this law and are compelled to prevent modern forms of humanity such as women’s rights.

Although Islam and some Islamic states have tried their best to compromise, their attempts have been criticized by the west.

4) Does Islam need a "Reformation?" Explain.

The westerners believe that Islam religion needs a reformation. In terms of gender equality, clothing and the pluralistic ways of life. Since violence is created in the modern societies by the extremists, non-Muslims or non-believers say that Islam needs to reform its way of thinking and its ideas. But a religion cannot be reformed whatsoever, what they need is instead “progressive” thinking and Islam or the Muslims have since then tried to minimize the tension and their not so realistic laws by giving a more reasonable interpretation.

On the other hand the Western Society should also be equally willing to understand Islam’s cultural beliefs in an unbiased manner and compromise with the Islamic Laws. Both the Christian west and the Muslim world should try to maintain a harmonious relationship by stopping each others extreme beliefs and bias.

How Cooking Frees Men

(1) How did the cooking of food allow our ancestors to reconstruct the working day?
~ When we cook the raw meat(food) it makes the food softer resulting in less time spent on chewing it. Thus it helped our ancestors spent less amount of time chewing and more on hunting and gathering. Since foraging was an important part of their lives, spending more time on it was better as it resulted in better chances to find game.

(2)What is the sexual division of labour and why does its evolution center on hunter-gatherers?
~ Sexual division of labour is the delegation of different tasks between male and females. Its evolution centers on hunter-gatherers as it is said that sexual division of labour existed long time ago before the modern humans started spreading across the globe. It is also centered on hunter-gatherers because almost 99.9% of the human societies have originated as hunter-gatherers.

(3) What are the two major feature of sexual division on labour represented by the Hadza?
~ Amongst the Hadza, mostly men go hunting and women go gathering. They return back and stay together to share the days work between themselves. Now this was uncommon specially amongst the nonhuman primates.

(4) How has the division of labour by sex been thought to have affected society as a whole?
~ The division of labour by sex encouraged bonds and values amongst the sexes due to their sharing of what they gathered and hunted. It made the females more effective in what they did along with the males in hunting.

(5) Why does the author believe that cooking food was an essential factor in allowing for the sexual division of labour?
~ Cooking was an essential factor in allowing for the sexual division of labour as now the due to fire the people could eat even during the night, as mentioned earlier, it made the food softer which resulted in less time taken to chew the food and more time spent in hunting for the males and gathering for the females. And this would result in more understanding and emotional connect between the sexes as they shared their food.

Patterns of Subsistence.

Anthropologists have been trying to classify different cultures around the world, most of the classifications they earlier came up with had an ethnocentric approach. Hence, recently during the 1930's the anthropologists had collected enough data to properly classify these cultures into different categories. They classifies the cultures as:

• Foraging (dealt with gatherers and hunters )
• Pastoralism ( large domestic animals were looked after)
• Horticulture (a small scale low intensity farming)
• Intensive agriculture (a large scale intensive farming)

Foraging:

Basically foraging deals with hunting and gathering, it is one of the oldest form of human subsistence where these foragers depend on what the environment they live in provides. They do not grow plants or keep animals but they do use dogs. Likewise, the male go for hunting while the women gather. They are not permanent residents of a certain area, due to many factors such as food and water these foragers have to move from one place to the other. There are three types of foragers:

• Pedestrian (they hunt and gather on foot)
• Equestrian (hunting large animals on horsebacks)
• Aquatic (hunt fish and marine usually on boats)

Out of these Equestrian and Aquatic follow the specialized subsistence pattern and the pedestrian is the most common form of foraging.

Pastoralism:

The people who follow this pattern of subsistence usually have large herds of animals to look after. The animals can be horses, cattle, sheep, goats, camels and reindeer. Pastoralism is also divided into two sections that is the Nomadism and Transhumance. Between these two section nomadism includes migration where there are no permanent settlements and they are self sufficient. On the other hand Transhumance includes the people along with their herds shifting between two settlements as the season changes. They also practice farming but on a small scale. Although the people interchange between villages the settlements are permanent, they do not depend on animals as much as the Nomadic Pastoralists do.

But due to factors such as food and environmental conditions even Pastoralists interchange between Nomadic Pastoralists and Transhumance Pastoralists.

Horticulture:

Horticulture deals with small scale farming by farmers with low intensity. Subsistence wise they also occasionally go hunting and gathering. These farmers do not use insecticides, pesticides or any other mechanical support. Hence they do not have irrigation, but are more productive. Population density is more in these settlements as compared to pastoralism and Foraging. Besides farming these farmers also help in buying, selling and exchange in local markets.

Intensive Agriculture:

It is the pattern of subsistence where the people involve in large scale farming, specially in populous societies. It is the primary food production pattern in most developed countries besides the countries where the land is too arid or cold. The spread of Intensive Agriculture has increased due to the widespread use of fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation and machines. They usually have permanent settlements with new jobs that have appeared due to Intensive Agriculture.

XXX

Definition

"A ritual or ceremony signifying an event in a person's life indicative of a transition from one stage to another, as from adolescence to adulthood."

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language. Fourth Edition ed. Houghton Mifflin., 2000. Print.

Doing fieldwork among the Yanomamö

Napoleon Chagnon conducted his fieldwork amongst the Yanomamö society going from one Yanomamö village to the other from 1964 to 1991.In the first chapter of his book he explains and paints an interesting picture of the society they live in as compared what to has come from. Like any other tribal society we imagine to be living in the Amazon, the Yanamamö people had their own lifestyle, which was, gave Chagnon a ‘cultural shock’.

He goes on to explain his encounter with the Yanomamö people, how unlike the other societies where they go on to live near the rivers and stayed in large groups, the Yanomamö people did the opposite. How aggression played an important role in the society and how the people never took ‘no’ for an answer. At first Chagnon had a rather tough time fitting into their society, that was obvious but unlike what he expected that the people would actually help him, they did the opposite. Expoiting him and his goods as much as they could. But as seen later on Chagnon was able to keep this under control. Another part which I found interesting was when Chagnon goes to visit a village where a ‘foreigner’ or ‘non-yanomamö’ has never encountered them. Their initial reaction to him was how everyone surrounded him and speculated his appearance. Although they had heard of him they had never seen him, and when they did they realized how similar they were,yet different.

He had to go through instances when the entire village played a “joke” on him. This way the yanomamö people were different ye similar to him.

One Hour Observation

            Lama, 1

Divina

SCA

Vincent Giannotti

21^st September 2014

                                    Observing Glenary’s Bakery for an hour.

For my hour-long observation I decided to observe The Glenary’s Bakery, which is also known by the name, Glenary’s Cake shop is situated in Darjeeling India. Located in “Nehru” road the ground floor of a white two-storied building, Glenary’s has a huge wooden framed glass door entrance. As you walk in through the door the first thing you see is a counter showcasing the various bakery items. On the left is a lounge and an Internet café on the right.

As you cross the counter serving the various bakery items, there is a wonderful seating area. The huge glass windows give the view of the mountains and the valley; the tables and chairs are laid out, a single table consisting of 2 to 3 chairs. There are 11 tables laid out all together. I sat on the left corner so as to get a clear view of my observants I started my observation from 3:30 pm and ended it at 4:30 on 21^st September. The sky was slowly clearing out since it had been raining continuously for the past 3 to 4 days. When I started my observation the people mostly occupied the tables.  Soft Nepali music played softly throughout my time there.  I ordered a cup of coffee and started jotting on my note pad and observing.

I observed that the two tables in front were vacant but the rest were occupied. A mother and a daughter were seated although they were not audible from where I sat it was noticeable that they were speaking in Nepali. The mother ordered some items and was busy checking her cell phone whilst her daughter sat down with a cup of iced coffee trying to get her mothers attention, hovering in front of her, they left after 10 minutes. Next to their table sat a middle aged Indian pair. Both of them were busy eating and checking their cell phones but were making conversation, shaking their heads and mumbling as they swallowed their meal. A single fellow who must’ve been a tourist was seated beside them who was busy drinking a hot beverage whilst going through papers that must’ve been his receipts. There was another tourist and he on the other hand was reading a book. Two tourists seated beside them looked like they were having a serious conversation. One of them had his feet curled in his chair. Another tourist seated in the next table was talking to one of the waiters, a cup of coffee placed in front of him and was later seen gazing through the window with his cellphone in his right hand. The woman glanced towards me, stood up and took a few pictures of the man who accompanied her. The waiters who were dressed in white shirts and black pants walked in and out of the room, taking and bringing in orders. The Indian pair left the room leaving their tables vacant just to be occupied by 2 men, who were huge, went through the menu and gave their orders. Towards my left sat two teens. Since they were close to me, they were audible and I could make out that they were conversing in Hindi. As I was glancing towards the room observing my last table the waiter who came to take his orders glanced at my note pad. I gave him a quick smile and he smiled back. The last table had two ladies, foreigners of course, both of them were eating but one had a cellphone and was looking at it, giving me glances as well. Everyone was dressed up in warm attire since it was a bit chilly outside due to the rain.

  The two teens besides me finished their meals and took pictures. A family walked in gave in their orders occupied the table in front of mine and they quickly left. The foreigners who were reading and going through their receipts were now fiddling through their food and gazing through the windows. Since it seemed like the sun was setting most of the people there stood up to take pictures of the scenery.

Reading the Qur’ān.

Qur’ān is central religious text of Islam, which is believed by the Muslims to be a revelation from Allah. The literal meaning of it being,  “The recitation”. The Qur’ān consists of Surah (chapters) and Ayah (verses).

Surah At-Takwir consists of Twenty-nine Ayahs and it is the 81^st surah of the Qur’ān.  Surah At-Takwir, which means “The Overthrowing”, talks about the signs of the coming of the Day of Judgment. The signs include: “when the sun is shrouded in darkness” “when the stars loose their light” “when the mountains are maid to vanish” “when the seas boil over” “when the she camel about to give birth is left untended” .

The verses which stood out for me was Ayah 8 and 9 where the condemnation of female infanticide was revealed and is a strong topic which was mentioned and till date we have discussion related to this topic. The talk about female infanticide can be related to even in the world we live in right now.  The dowry system, the shame bought into the family if a girl is born can all be related to what I read whilst reading Indian History. Even now, Female Infanticide is practiced in rural areas in India. So what the Surah is trying to say according to me is that on the day of Judgment Allah will listen to all the victims and will not turn to the killers.