On page 27 of his book, Ernst writes, “The image of the oppressed Muslim women can all too often serve as another self-righteous reason for Europeans to congraulate themselves on their superiority.” Then, on page 28 he writes, “Muslims are considered to have dysfunctional roles for women, yet that emblam of Western technological superority, the Internet, is saturated with pornographic images, and the sexualization of women in omnipresent in television, newspapers, and advertising.” By bringing up the use of women’s bodies as a tool of confirming the right the Europeans believed they had to enter Muslim countries and take over, as well as showing how modern day treatments of women in the West are not what we believe them to be, what is Ernst trying to do?
On page 76-79 in Ernst, we learn that Muslims generally consider it inappropriate to depict Muhammad in picture form. Instead, some Muslims would hang artful papers with calligraphy describing the physical appearance of Muhammad from the way his face shines to his eloquent speech (page 77).
The descriptions I read in the book reminded me of a video I saw on YouTube where a Muslim teacher describes what it would be like to meet Muhammad. I discussed this video with my group, and how it is a different picture of devotion from what I would normally expect. If you are interested, it is embedded below. In your opinion, do you think words or pictures are more powerful when it comes to aiding religious devotion? And do you think the answer could vary depending on the person, religion, and/or culture? Lastly, what role, if any, do you think that Arabic plays into the conception of Islam’s religious artifacts?
Last week in class, we briefly discussed political involvement within any religious group. In Ernst’s reading, there was a section about how the IRS decides how much money religious groups are given, and they also decide if some religious groups are actually legitimate or not. This completely surprised us because we never before realized what role politics plays in religion. This post will be more so opinionated, rather than factual, because we are interested to see if anyone agrees, disagrees, or can’t decide whether or not they side with the link below. The website gives statistics about what political topics people think religion should/ should not be affiliated with.
http://www.apnorc.org/projects/Pages/The-Role-of-Religion-in-Politics.aspx
In our own opinion, we were surprised at how many people think that we should have religion involvement in political matters. Anything political should not regard one’s own opinion, it should regard what is best for society itself. Religion does not benefit everyone since everyone has different religious beliefs.
Madi Palat
After learning that Ernst is actually not a follower of the Islamic faith from class discussions, it really gave me a new perspective and respect for Ernst himself. As a scholar and author, it seems that he tends to give readers the “factual” information about the religion, as well as put it into perspective for others who don’t practice themselves. For example, I thought it was interesting when he said “we have to understand the actors, the time, the place and the issues in order to avoid making serious mistakes.” (Ernst 38). This specifically reminded me of when people refer to things they see on the news and just automatically categorize a certain “type” of people in a negative way without any background information about them at all. I think Ernst is trying to highlight that even people, and scholars like himself that don’t specifically follow a practice can still gain insight and knowledge about something or some “type” of people to knowledgeably generate their own thoughts and beliefs. For the class-Do you guys know of any instances where this commonly happens? Or to a certain “type” of people?
In the last paragraph on page 44, Ernst seems to present two extremes… either a religious Muslim or Christian accepts the legitimacy of beliefs contrary to his or her own, or he or she is one of the “diehard fanatics” intent on “suppressing or eliminating everyone who holds a different view.”
In your opinion, is the author correct in assuming that the “postmodern approach” is the only other option to fanaticism and bigotry? Is it inherently intolerant for a Muslim, Christian, or other religious person to assert his or her beliefs and actions are the only correct ones? And is it possible for people of different religions to hold to fundamentalist beliefs and still have a respectful discussion, even with the intent of converting the other?
Let’s make sure this is a class from which you get what you want. What are you really interested in learning about?