Did a Woman Help Write the Quran?

Professor Ruqayya Khan, chair of Islamic Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California, argues that Muhammad’s fourth wife, Hafsa, may have helped edit early sections of the Quran.  Specifically, according to Vocative, which published the story, "Khan claims Hafsa transcribed and then disseminated some of Muhammad’s verses in the Quran."

It;s a controversial claim. He told Vocative,  "I think, for orthodox Muslims, the view is that Muhammad literally dictated the entire Quran to a scribe and he wrote it down verbatim. So the notion of editing the Quran is one that devout Muslims would dispute."

What does this say about the role of women in Islam?  Here's what Kahn told Vocative. "I take the view of Leila Ahmed, author of Women and Gender in Islam. Theoretically, there’s much in the religion that supports gender equality. Spiritually, if you look at the Quran, it definitely suggests that women and men are equal in the eyes of God, they are created equally, etc."

This is a fascinating story and argument, one that religion students might find interesting. It shows the dynamism of religious research and shows how new arguments can create questions.

Yikes! Robertson Likens Islam to Nazism

Pat Robertson also says that like Nazism and Communism, Islam aims toward world domination!

What Does it Mean to be a Buddhist?

How different is Buddhism from the Abrahamic religions?   What does it mean to be a Buddhist?  What about reincarnation?  And what is the Buddhist doctrine regarding the nature of reality?

These are some of the questions that  Professor Jay L. Garfield answers in an interview with Gary Cutting, a philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame. The interview is part of  a series of interviews about religion that Professor Cutting conducted for the New York Times column, The Stone.

Although Buddhism does not believe in a supreme being, Professor Garfield still sees Buddhism as a religion. He says that "this simply ignores the fact that many religions are not theistic in this sense. Chess is a game, despite the fact that it is not played with a ball, after all."

Garfield tells us that that to be a Buddhist is to take refuge in the three Buddhist refuge objects (often called “the three jewels”): the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. To take refuge is to see human existence as fundamentally unsatisfactory and to see the three jewels as the only solution to this predicament."

As for reincarnation, Garfield prefers the term "rebirth" because it "makes more sense in a Buddhist context. That is because we must understand this doctrine in relation to the central doctrine in all Buddhist schools: that there is no self or soul."

This might be an interesting interview for students to read as part of the unit on Buddhism.

Why Study Religion

Nicholas Kristof, an op ed columnist for the New York Times, makes a strong case for studying the humanities and religion if we want students to understand the world around us and to think deeply about it.

He reminds us of Stephen Prothero's finding that "Americans are both deeply religious and profoundly ignorant about religion.”  And he asks  a number of important questions:

• "How can one understand Afghanistan without some knowledge of Islam?" 
• "How can one understand America without any intellectual curiosity about Evangelicals?"
• "Can one understand the world if one is oblivious to the stunning rise of Pentecostals at home and abroad?"

"Religion,"  Kristof notes, "may not be as indispensable, but the humanities should be a part of our repertory. They may not enrich our wallets, but they do enrich our lives. They civilize us. They provide context."

Varanasi: City of Light and Death

By Jeeheon Cho from Surat Thani, Thailand - Varanasi River BankUploaded by Ekabhishek, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10681661

Here is a fascinating and touching story about Varanasi, the most sacred place for devout Hindus. One of the things that makes it so sacred is that it is a destination for many dying Hindus who believe that they can only reach moksha, or freedom from the cycle of rebirth, by taking God's name and dying in the holy city.

Moni Basu, a practicing Hindu and a reporter for CNN, follows an 80 year old Hindu who wants to take his last breath in the city of Varanasi.  That city is what Basu calls the "epicenter" of Hinduism. It is to Hindus what Mecca is to Muslims and what Jerusalem is to Christians.

But unlike those cities, Varanasi is a destination for many dying Hindus. Basu explains why dying in Varanasi is so important.  And she introduces us to Mukti Bhavan, a "liberation" house where some Hindus spend their eleventh hour. Basu calls it "Hotel Death."  There, she tells us, she saw death in a "new light."  The house lacked warmth, love, or "any other emotions we linked to the process of dying."

But later in the story, we see the house through the eyes of its manager, Bhairavnath Shukla. For him, death is not to be mourned. In fact,  he sees it as mukti, or liberation.  According to Basu "he and everyone else at Mukti Bhavan see death in Varanasi as a marriage of one's soul with God?"

Basu's story helps us to understand Hindu spirituality and the significance of Varanasi in sustaining it.

Does the Hindu view of the afterlife differ from other religions. Basu included a chart of those views which you can see below.

30 Days: Living as a Muslim

Teaching Islam?  Here's an interesting documentary about what it's like for a West Virginia Christian to live with a Muslim family in Dearborn, Michigan for 30 days.

The young man, Dave Stacy, is  an insurance sales executive and must live, eat and pray with his Muslim hosts.

Morgan Spurlock, who directed the documentary, was nominated for an Oscar in 2004 for a movie about McDonalds, called Supersize Me.

This 45 minute documentary dispels many myths about Muslims and reviews Muslim beliefs and practices.

Two More Saints

Here's an interesting biographical review of the two popes who will be canonized this weekend, Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II. You can read the story on the CNN Blog here.

And here's a link to a CNN story called Sainthood Explained. Below, reporters of the PBS News Hour discuss the rules for miracles and why Pope Francis decided to canonize two popes rather than one.

Nine Myths about Hinduism Debunked

Did you know that Hinduism, despite its many gods, is not polytheistic. Or, that Hindus do not worship cows.

Those are two of nine myths about Hinduism that Moni Basu attempts to debunk in an essay for CNN Belief Blog.

This might be an interesting essay for students to read when studying Hinduism.

Virtual Tour of Al Aqsa Mosque

Take a  virtual tour of the Al Aqsa Mosque. It's on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and is the third holiest site to Muslims, after Mecca and Medina.

What is Yoga?

Here is a great animated review of the four major Hindu yoga traditions: Bhakti, Karma, Jnana, and Raja.

Controversy over 9/11 Museum Film

Here's an interesting debate for a religions class.

Should the National September 11 Memorial Museum show an introductory film, called “The Rise of Al Qaeda,” that refers to the terrorists as "Islamist" and “jihadist?”

That's exactly what the National  Memorial intends to do when it opens on May 21st, according to  this fascinating story in the New York Times.

To many, including an interfaith advisory group of clergy members, those words means Muslim. As Akbar Ahmed, the chairman of the Islamic studies department at American University, noted in an interview with the New York Times, when you associate the terrorists' religion with what they did, "you associate one and a half billion people who had nothing to do with these actions and who ultimately the U.S. would not want to unnecessarily alienate."

The Museum does not want to make changes. Should they?  Is it necessary or important to associate religion with the perpetrator of any heinous crime?

Here's a  viewpoint from Ani Zonneveld who  wrote a essay for the the Huffington Post called Museum of Intolerance.

Two Girls Debunk Religious Stereotypes

Here a young Muslim and a young Jew challenge the stereotypes that, as Upworthy (where I found the video) says, " have worked so hard to keep them apart."

Upworthy is right when they call this "an absolutely stunning performance." Thanks to Al Beeson for tweeting the link.

How Young Sikhs Fight Bias

Here's a great story about religious intolerance and how one group of young Sikhs is trying to combat it.

Sikhs face more discrimination than most religious minorities in this country.  And in schools, young Sikhs are often bullied and called names. Harassment increased after the terror attacks in 2001 and seemed to resurface in 2012 when a white supremacist killed six Sikhs in a Wisconsin Sikh temple.

According to this interesting story in the Washington Post, Sikh middle school students in Potomac, Maryland recently formed a Cultural Awareness Club to try to teach their peers their basic beliefs and customs. One Sikh leader in Rockville, Maryland noted that if  "young Sikhs are seen as leaders now, people wearing turbans when they run for office will be more accepted.”

Here is a short video about bulling that the Post ran with their story.

Pope Francis to Hold Double Canonization

Here's a great clip from the PBS News Hour about Pope Francis's decision to canonize Pope John XXIII who served from 1958 to 1963 and Pope John Paul II, who served from 1978 to 2005.

How does a Pope get canonized? Does he really have to have performed two miracles? Don't popes usually canonize only one pope at a time?

News Hour religion reporter, Rachel Zoll, answers all these questions int this short interview.

What Makes Jerusalem so Holy

BBC News has a great map, essay, and even video clips explaining why Jerusalem means so much to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The map above, which is clearer on the BBC site, shows the major sites.

The BBC site has several video clips explaining the different sites. In one, a tour guide gives you a quick trip around the major sites.

al-Aqsa mosque important to Muslims

Western Wall important to the Jewish faith

Church of the Holy Sepulchre, holiest place in Christianity

"How to Meditate in a Moment"

The Many Meanings of Dharma

What does dharma mean?  When we study Hinduism in World History, we define dharma as a Hindu's religious duty. But Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and Donald S. Lopez, Jr in a essay for Tricycle Magazine note that dharma has many meanings, especially as it applies to Buddhism.

For example, Buswell and Lopez note that dharma was important before the birth of the Buddha. "In Vedic literature,"  they say, "it often refers to the ritual sacrifice that maintains the order of the cosmos."

Later, when the British East India Company colonized India, company agents translated dharma to simply mean "law." According to Buswell and Lopez, "this led in turn to the common 19th- and 20th- century rendering of the term as “law” in Buddhist contexts, as in “the Buddha turned the wheel of the law.”

Dharma has other distinct meanings in Buddhism. But the most common usage, Buswell and Lopez note, refers to "teachings" or "doctrines." "This sense of dharma as teaching, and its centrality to the tradition, is evident from the inclusion of the dharma as the second of the three jewels (along with the Buddha and the sangha), in which all Buddhists seek refuge."

Buddhist Superheroes of Peace: Animated Dcoumentary

Here's  an animated feature documentary in which three superheroes of peace use the five Buddhist powers--insight, diligence, concentration, and mindfulness--to change the world.

The three superheroes are,Thich Nhat Hanh,  Sister Chan Khong, and Alfred Hassler. The documentary also released a companion series of comic books featuring the superheroes.

The clip above is a trailer for the documentary and below you'll find another trailer.

Guide to Islamic Veils: Great Visual

Visual.ly has a great visual guide to Islamic veils. I just snagged a few for the image above.

Reza Aslan on Reddit Again

                              

Reza Alan, author of  Zealtot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth was on Reddit last night. Viewers could ask him anything and they did. Some questions and answers were funny like the two exchanges below and many were serious like the third and fourth.

• Question: Who would you save from a burning building? 
• A) Bill O'Reilly 
• B) Glenn Beck 
• C) Rush Limbaugh 
• D) None of the Above 
• Answer: Well I couldn't carry Rush. Beck wouldn't let a Muslim touch him. So I guess it's Bill.

• Question: Hello Reza, I have an excellent start up question for you. You and Pamela Geller are stuck on an island, what happens? 
• Answer:  Are we stuck forever? If so, then I guess it's time to make some hate babies Pam.

But then were more serious exchanges like this:

• Question: Hey Reza, Big Fan. Biggest misconception about Islam? 
• Answer: Biggest misconception about Islam is that it is different, or unique, or extraordinary. That somehow it's not like other religions. That the same historical and cultural factors that have shaped every religion in the world did not shape Islam. FACT: Islam is no more or less special or different than any other major religion in the world. Sorry Muslims.

• Question: Love your books! What do you think needs to happen to overcome the perception on a culture clash between Islam and the West?  
• Answer: The only way to break down the walls between two is thru art, lit, music, culture, entertainment. This is how perceptions are changed. They remind us that we are not symbols of "other," but just people with same likes and dislikes, same dreams and aspirations, same fears and struggles. So all you Muslims out there trying to change the way your society sees you. Stop becoming doctors and start becoming artists instead.

Religious Symbols

Do your students know the religious symbols?  Here's a great site that reviews the major symbols and here's a link to a symbols quiz that I posted earlier this year.

Ganesha Symboism

Studying Hinduism and the popular gods?  Here's a great  graphic showing the symbolism of the various components of the image.

What is Passover?

Teaching Judaism?  Do your students know the story of Passover? Or that it's probably the most practiced Jewish tradition. Vox has a great review of Passover that students might find interesting and readable.

Dara Lind, who wrote the Vox story, notes that Passover has become a big deal not just for Jews in general but for secular Jews too.  That may make it, Lind says, "the most widely observed Jewish tradition among American Jews today."

The chart also shows that "a secular Jew is about twice as likely to attend a Passover seder as he or she is to fast during Yom Kippur, even though the latter is by far the more important holiday."

If you launch the story in cards, you can easily see the different components of the story, which in some ways makes its more readable.

Finally, the History Channel has a good summary of the ceremony

Has Yoga Strayed too Far from Its Hindu Roots

Studying Buddhism? Here's an interesting NPR story (a few year's old) discussing whether American yoga has strayed too far from its Hindu roots and needs standards.

A Hollywood Schindler's List during WWII

Here's a fascinating story students might read about heroism during the Holocaust in the 1940s.

Most everyone knows Oskar Schindler, thanks to the book and the movie, Schindler's List. The German businessman saved over 1100 Jews from certain death in the Nazi concentration camps.

Fewer people know the Hollywood mogul, Carl Laemmle, who is credited with saving over 300 Jews during World War II. That is remarkable because Laemmle is probably the only Hollywood mogul to even get involved with the German Jews. Laemmle was the president of Universal Pictures.

According to this excellent story in the New York Times called "Laemmle’s List: A Mogul’s Heroism," Neal Gabler explains that most Hollywood Jews were just trying to fit in. He notes, "almost from the inception of the American film industry, the Hollywood Jews were dedicated to assimilation, not religious celebration. They had come to America to escape their roots, not embrace them."

Laemmle, like Schindler, was different from his peers. Gabler says that he "was terrified of what Hitler’s ascension would mean for his country, for the village of Laupheim (where he was born), for members of his family — many of whom had remained in Germany — and, perhaps above all, for his fellow Jew."

That concern prompted him to risk his fortune to save as many Jews from his hometown as he could. He furnished the American consul with hundred of affidavits, which "were pledges of support that were required of every immigrant to ensure that the individual would not become a public charge."

The story is fascinating, like Schindler's, with twists and turns.

Gabler notes two recent books about Hollywood during World War II say very little about Laemmle. “The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact With Hitler” by Ben Urwand and “Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939” by Thomas Doherty both deal with the complicity of Hollywood with Nazi Germany.

Spread of Religion over 5000 Years: Animation

Watch how the major religions have spread over the last 500 years. According to the The Mail Online, the map comes from a group called Maps of War who now make maps of religion.

Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture at Met Museum

The Metropolitan Museum  of Art in New York City will open a new exhibition on Monday of Hindu-Buddhist art from the earliest kingdoms of southeast Asia. The exhibit  includes over 160 objects and as you can see from the two sculptures here, some are stunning.

The kingdoms of southeast Asia (Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam) are called "lost kingdoms" because, "identities and sometimes very existence only emerged from the historical shadows in the twentieth century, as a result of pioneering epigraphic and archaeological research, much of it recent."

Writing about the exhibit in the New York Times Holland Cotter noted that the beauty of the exhibit will carry you through.  He noted that "everywhere here, in choirs of Buddhas with self-possessed smiles and hands like flowers, in Hindu gods with stern adult faces and the lithe, barely dressed bodies of teenagers at a beach."

The Times has a nice slideshow of some of the image and you can also view many of them on the exhibit site.  You can watch a short clip below about the exhibit form the Voice of America. And the Huffington Post has a series of great photos worth viewing.

Hindu Nationalism and Narendra Modi

Did you know that a 63 year-old Hindu nationalist with a record of stirring up Hindu-Muslim animosity is likely to be India's next prime minister?` Will tension between Muslims and Hindus increase with his election? Will he whip up Hindu nationalism to such an extreme that non-Hindus feel threatened?

Max Fisher answers all these questions in an easy to read essay for Vox called: Everything You Wanted to Know About Narendra Modi's Rise.

You'll learn, for example, that many Indians believe that Modi can help the economy in the same way he helped India's Gujarat state which he's been running since 2002.  And many like his Hindu nationalism. As Fisher notes, "the thing that makes Modi so worrying is also what makes him so popular."

You'll also learn that Modi and his party have talked about changing the country's "no first use" policy" for nuclear weapons.  

And you'll learn about the 2002 riots in Gujarat that marred Modi's image when he seemed to allow Hindu mobs  to retaliate at will against Muslims. According to Fisher, "many reports indicated that the police of Gujarat state did nothing to stop the attacking mobs, and Modi and his government have long been accused of allowing, and potentially abetting, the riots."

In addition to Fisher's excellent article, BBC News has a good profile of Mr. Modi.

Jewish Art & Artifacts from Muslim Lands

Jews have a strong heritage in the Middle East and parts of North Africa like Morocco. Two new exhibitions in New York focus on that heritage, according to this interesting article in the New York Times.

One exhibition at the Center for Jewish history is called Light and Shadows: The Story of Iranian Jews.  The image above was painted on doors in Iran in the 19th century.

The Museum for Jewish Heritage  has an exhibit which focuses on Iraqi Jewish art called "Discovery and Recovery."

Here is a video clip from the Museum for Jewish Heritage explaining how they are trying to preserve Iraqi art. Saddam Hussein confiscated much of the Jewish archives and stored them in his basement which flooded in 2003. The clip shows how American conservators tried to rescue some of the manuscripts.

The Museum for Jewish Heritage has an excellent online archive. The pages below are from a 1568 Jewish Bible. The description says that it "is one of the earliest printed books discovered in the Mukhabarat headquarters. Printed in late Renaissance era Venice by Giovannidi Gara, the central biblical text is surrounded by rabbinic commentaries." 

The Golden Rule Around the World

How do the different religions see the Golden Rule? This poster shows you the similarities and differences. And Scarboro Missions has a cool flash site that allows you click on each religion and see its treatment of the Golden Rule. But you do have have flash on your device to view it.  Here's what it looks like when it loads.

Bible Gateway: A Great Resource

Studying Christianity? The BibleGateway is a great resource. You can search the Bible using keywords.and you can also search specific passages like "Genesis 1:1-2:10."  Finally, you can search by topic.

How Jesus Became God: New Book by Bart Ehrman

Historian and professor of early Christianity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,  Bart Ehrman explains in his new book, " How Jesus Became God."

In this fascinating  interview on Fresh Air, Ehrman notes that the Christians were not the first to call someone god. They began doing so at the same time Roman's began to deify their emperors.

And they tried to explain the Trinity as monotheistic by calling it modalism.  Ehrman told NPR that "it's called modalism because it insisted that God existed in three modes — just as I myself at the same time am a son, and a brother and a father, but there's only one of me — well these theologians said: That's what God is like."

Erhman argues that the early belief in the resurrection of Jesus "is what initially led the followers of Jesus to believe that Jesus had been exalted to heaven and made to sit on the right hand of god." And, he says, "these beliefs  were the first Christologies--the first understandings that Jesus was a divine being."

Ehrman also wrote several other books about Christianity including Misquoting Jesus and Jesus Interrupted.

Here's a review by Rob Bowman. And just below the NPR interview is Ehrman's interview with Interfaith Voices.

Religious Diversity around the World

The Pew Research Center for the Religion and Public Life Project compares religious diversity in different parts of the world in this map.

You can immediately see, for example, that Canada is more diverse than the United States, as is parts of Asia and the Pacific.

The study focused on the five major religions, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism which, the Pew Center notes, make up over 3/4 of the worlds population.

The chart below shows the degree of religious diversity by region. Asia Pacific is the most diverse while the Middle east is the least.

Five Ancient Flood Stories

The Biblical story of Noah was not the first and certainly not the only flood story ever written. As Ingrid Lilly, a visiting scholar at Pacific School of Religion, writes in an essay for Religion Dispatches, at least five other flood stories predate Noah.

Do you know all the stories? Here are the ones Lilly outlines.

• The earliest flood story comes from the Sumerian creation myth and star the gods An, Enlil, Enki. As Lilly notes, "this story sets the basic elements of the ancient genre: gods try to eradicate humanity, while a flood hero builds a boat to save the animals." 
• The Epic of Gilgamesh, another Mesopotamian story, written between 2750 and 2500 BCE,  tells the story of the historical King of Uruk. The hero builds an ark and as Lilly says he was commanded to “tear down the house and build a boat; abandon wealth and seek living beings; spurn possessions and keep alive living beings.”
• Another flood story that Lilly outlines is found in the Book of Enoch. She notes that while the flood is barely mentioned, it is clearly justified. "The Flood itself is hardly reported, but Enochic readers can rest assured in its justification."  
• The Genesis flood is yet another story. Here, Lilly notes, "God sees human behavior, regrets that he made humans, overwhelms them with a flood, changes his mind about how to manage human behavior, and needs the rainbow as a reminder not to fly off the divine handle at them in the future."
• The Mahabharata, an ancient Indian religious text, also relates a flood story. As Lilly writes, "Manu, the Hindu protagonist of the Flood, does not bring his family; rather he is joined by seven sages."

"With such an ancient and cross-cultural pedigree,"  Lilly concludes,  "among the earliest stories written down by civilized humans, The Flood is less like a fixed tale etched on a tablet and more like an arrow, shooting through time."

You can read about other flood stories from around the world here at Talk Origins. John R. Morris has an interesting short essay called "Why Does Nearly Every Culture Have a Tradition of a Global Flood."

Ajanta Caves: Spirituality & Sexuality

Do westerners and easterners have different ideas about spirituality and sexuality? William Darlymple, who has written a number of books about India, argues that they do in this fascinating story for BBC News Magazine called "A Point of View: The sacred and sensuous in Indian art."  He considers the caves of Ajanta to prove his argument.

Considered one of the ancient wonders of India, the caves at Ajanta are famous for their colorful murals which tell Jataka stories of the lives of the Buddha.  They date from the 2nd century BCE and, according to William Darlymple, who wrote about them in a recent BBC News Magazine, "Ajanta represents the greatest picture gallery to survive from the ancient world and the most comprehensive depiction of civilised classical life that we have." 

Darlymple tweeted recently  that he finds the murals so interesting that he's considering writing a book about them.

Smart History (now part of Khan Academy) has a great history of the caves which are also a UNESCO World Heritage site.   You can also watch the short clip below which explains the  importance of the caves.

The paintings line the walls of 31 caves dug into solid rock and form an amphitheater as the picture below shows.  The darkness of the caves allowed the paintings to survive.

For Darylmple, the paintings and the carvings challenge western ideas "of the relationship between spirituality and sexuality."  That's because many of the murals show women and dancing girls some of whom are nude. Only in the western world, Darylmple suggests, do such sensual images tend to generate irreverent thoughts. 

And that is why, he says, "that the monasteries of Ajanta were filled with images of beautiful women - because in the eyes of the monks this was completely appropriate decoration."

Noting that in the Christian world Lent is all about self discipline and self deprivation but in the Ajanta caves, which were the center of ancient monastic activity, monks made a "deliberate decision to cover the walls of its religious buildings with images of attractively voluptuous women."

Christianity, he says, " in contrast, has always seen the human body as essentially sinful, lustful and shameful, the tainted vehicle of the perishable soul,..."

The New Calvinism

Calvinism is making a comeback today, according to this clip from Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. It's based on the doctrine of predestination which was popular in colonial times. It was formulated  by the Swiss theologian, John Calvin, during the Reformation in the early 1500's. Calvin set up a model community in Geneva that was controlled by the clergy. This church-run government or theocracy included simple services without music.

Here' what Calvin says about predestination. "We call predestination God’s eternal decree, by which He determined what He willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is ordained for some, eternal damnation for others."

It's theology is somewhat divisive, according to some Baptists. Others see the debate as a positive thing. Roger Olson, a Christian theologian has an interesting essay called "What’s Wrong with Calvinism?"

You can read more about Calvin here at the History Learning Site.