just want you to cheek my paper with the prompt and see everything in the prompt is in the paper also i want you to simplify the paper use simple word and simple sentence

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE JUST RELIGIOUS WARS

 

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INSTITUTION AFFILIATION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Religious Wars

There has been a trend that has been sweeping in America and beyond, an inclination to blame the Islamic religion for most of the ills that are taking place in the USA and beyond. Interestingly, there has been an outbreak of demonstrations in America that have been pushing to keep the Muslims away from America because they are being perceived as a threat to the American values and tradition. It would be challenging to try and come up with a logical and objective understanding on how one religion, which surprisingly is not the most dominant in the USA can wipe out the tradition and culture that has been in existence for centuries.

 It is more intriguing to view the sentiments that are being promoted by the demonstrators, that the Muslims in the USA need to go back to the Middle East or Syria, or other predominantly Islamic countries, which raise the question what happened to America, the land of diversity. Of importance, what happened to the American dream, in which all people irrespective of their color, social status or even religion have the chance to make it in the country? Perhaps, Islam is not to blame but rather the evolution or the intolerance that is being seen as being on the rise with each day, with the political decisions being at the forefront of this reflection.

The introduction of the essay was just a way of bringing into focus the modernity, the subjectivity of understanding and interpreting religion, the ignorance of this age. When one looks at the religions that have been existence for ages, there is a commonality that is shared by them. Most of the religions trace their origin from conflict, chaos, and killings. It is not an aspect that is directly unique to Islam as has been propagated for ages. When one looks at Judaism which is practiced by the Jews, it has been one of the religions that have been at loggerheads with Islam, with the incessant conflict in the Middle East being traced directly to religious conflict. What of Christianity? It would be hard to come up with a tangible understanding of Christianity, but when one looks at the origin of Christianity, from the days of Moses in which the sinners were stoned to death, to the days of the Roman Empire, Alexander the Great, Constantinople and all other people who have been instrumental in the Christian religion.

They all have been related to some form of violence, and whether people want to accept that or not, the historical events showed what has been overlooked in other religions but highlighted in the Islamic faith. So, the big question that should be on the mind of all scholars is, why is it that there have been inclinations that when violence is associated with religion, Islamic faith is always the first culprit to be mentioned. The reality, on the other hand, shows a shared destiny of violence, evil and oppression that was used to conquer and start the religions. There are political and religious ethics that are involved, a clear agenda by the elites, the political class and other influential figures to try and discredit a religion that has been steadfast amidst all these insinuations.

It should not be interpreted that Islam has not had its fair share of challenges, and the relation that it shares with violence are overly analyzed in a world that has been led to believe, and judge Islam through the lens of being violent and against the world order, unlike other religions that stand for peace (Kelsay, 2007). It is a paradox of this generation, an inclination that objectivity has been overlooked and instead, the political class has made the role of religion to be intertwined to the extent that there is no clear difference between what true religion is all about. What is true Christianity? What is true Judaism? Rarely are these questions asked, but rarely does a day pass without question ‘true Islam’ being mentioned and interpreted to suit a particular context.

It would on this historical context that one needs to understand the teachings of Osama Bin Laden. If history is anything to go by, he is the man who has been instrumental in reshaping the perception that the world has towards religion, especially Islam since the infamous 9/11 events. So, it should be understood that most people did not even have a basis for looking down upon or questioning Islam until the 9/11 events took place. In one of his famous quotes, Osama Bin Laden is said to have pushed for a position that ‘Muslims, and especially the learned among them, should spread sharia law to the world–that and nothing else. Not laws under the “umbrella of justice, morality, and rights” as understood by the masses. No, the sharia of Islam is the foundation. They say that our sharia does not impose our particular beliefs upon others; this is a false assertion. For it is, in fact, part of our religion to impose our particular beliefs upon others’ (Kelsay, 2007). The point that is being made by these words is that those who do not follow the sharia law, the Islam are under obligation by their faith to impose the sharia law, and hence the justification of terrorism and jihad, the holy war.

It is the teachings of Osama that first led to the question of true Islam and what it stood for. A brief history of the religion shows divisions, with the Shia and the Sunni having ideological differences on who stands for the true religion. Surprisingly, there is little to show that much progress has been made to come up with an objective understanding of the true religion as the differences have become more and more severe as time progresses. Perhaps, it raises the first question on what is Islam, do the teachings of Muhammad show the true inclination of the religion, or do opposing groups have a right to the interpretation of the faith? It is a question that very few people could give an accurate answer without coming to a conflict r appearing subjective, or discriminative to one group over the other.

It raises the political question of Osama Bin Laden. He is a man who is a product of his religious beliefs. It implies that he practiced his politics based on what he viewed from a religious perspective. For ages, even before the emergence of Enlightenment and democracy, religion was very instrumental in the political sphere. As a matter of fact, before the enlightenment, the people perceived the clergy as bearers of God’s will and whatever they said was followed without any questions. The same can be said about Osama bin Laden, he believed that people had to follow the sharia laws, and those who did not would be termed as unbelievers (Miller, 2016).

The philosophy that Osama followed was that those who did not believe had to be made believers, even if it would involve killing them. As such, he found a religious justification to achieve a political means, one that lacked ethics as it did not uphold the rights and freedom of all the individuals. The right to kill, whether to implement a right or law, irrespective of it being political or religious does not count if it questions the sanctity of human life.

Well, there could be people who can express their opinion on the death penalty, bit what should be understood that the death penalty is more of a political decision rather than any merits or demerits that are attached to the death penalty, but for whatever reasons that it continues to be in existence, it is more out to settle political points to gain political mileage for those who have the authority to give such decisions. The inclination being that the focus on jihad, of killing those who refused to convert to Islam or uphold sharia would be killed was a religious undertone to serve a political goal. When people argue that Islam is a religion that promotes violence and stifles democracy, perhaps they could be buying into the ideas that were started by Osama bin Laden, which did not view religion as an aspect of tolerance but rather as a tool for settling political goals, whether it was ethical or not.

It brings the ideas that are propagated by Hauerwas that ethics are ‘’determined by the particularities of a community’s history and convictions’ (Hauerwas, 1991). Thus, the question that Hauerwas addresses is not about ethics, but rather the understanding of ethics. When people study ethics, they share a commonality through aspects such as differentiating good from bad, freedom from oppression among other shared virtues of the society. The difference arises when there is a practical application of these ethics because the culture and history of the societies always play a role in coming to a perspective on what should be interpreted as being ethical or not. Which means that ethics are seen to be subjective, though they have a shared objectivity by having a common thematic area that they explore. Thus, ethics are a result of ‘unchanging principles’ that human beings stay steadfast to, and thus do not have to worry of the relativism that the society may try to create through their ethical inclinations. As such, would Osama bin Laden be justified to be held accountable for the fact that Prophet Muhammad taught about the holy war, talked about the need to convert the unbelievers? The major flaw in this understanding is that there are no grounds under which the Quran teaches that killing of unbelievers is ethical. What if times have changed? There have been attacks in Iraq that have only emboldened the need to engage in jihad, is that ethical? It would be challenging to understand how the killing of those who do not comply with the sharia law could be ethical, and whether it holds the political ethics of a particular group, that does not still qualify it as being ethical.

Do Christianity and Islam share any ethical foundations? As has been mentioned earlier, there is a common ground upon which ethics are understood. They seek to define certain features in the society which are common, but the interpretation is what raises the differences. The history of Islam is very much different from the history of Judaism though there could be some shared similarities. Cross-ethical evaluation of the religions is not possible because of the history that has shaped each religion. There are share beliefs that believers should be taught what is right and wrong, what freedom is, how to relate with neighbors and one another, but the evaluation cannot hold because of the historical difference in ideology. The Christians will condemn killing, any form, whether in jihad or not, while the same ethics may not apply to the Muslims. In short, it is not possible to try and bring religions that do not share an origin and make them have an origin, illogical. The religions can only be compared depending on the ethics that they promote, and subjectivity is likely to be the major issue of contention during this process.

Conclusively, as people go all over the world condemning Islam as a religion of violence, it makes the world more and more ignorant of the religion. There needs to be a paradigm shift in the interpretation of the religion. Those who use the religion to promote violence have to be branded as believers or non-believers, but not jihadists. There should be an absolute shift of trying to create religion as a focus of violence. If Osama bin Laden did not present Islamic faith with his ideology, then the world needs to know. The scenario of mentioning terrorists and Islam in the same breath has to stop, so that true religion, whatever religion, can be achieved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Hauerwas, S. (1991). The peaceable kingdom: A primer in Christian ethics. University of Notre Dame Pess.

Kelsay, J. (2007). Arguing the just war in Islam. Harvard University Press.        

Miller, R. B. (2016). Friends and Other Strangers: Studies in Religion, Ethics, and Culture. Columbia University Press.

 

 

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