Do you think that sometimes people confuse a culture or traditons with religious teachings.
IF so, any examples you would like to share ?
Re: Culture and Religon
:) Thanks for no replies
Re: Culture and Religon
Why do you want confused people to spread more confusion ?
umm Example 
Belly dance is an arab tradition and not an Islamic one ?
Welfare States Like Canada follow Islamic State model and not a cultural one ?
Making liberaries is Islamic Tradition and not Islamic teaching
Enough confusion ?
Re: Culture and Religon
I've asked my husband often in our first years and even occasionally at the present "Is that a religious thing or a cultural thing?" and even he sometimes didnt know.
Many things, like the activities that go on for weddings, the activities surrounding the birth of a baby, the death of a loved one. A couple of things that I can think of offhand, getting clothes at Eid, killing a sheep or cow and giving meat to the poor, shaving a newborn's head, ladies removing all hair except on the head. hmm, there are many more things but i'm not recalling them at the moment but I think you get the idea
Re: Culture and Religon
many people confuse culture with religion
Re: Culture and Religon
And Islam does not allow any sort of cultural activites? Am I riht? There's no room for them in Islam?
Re: Culture and Religon
persian + zorastrian + greek= shiaism
greek+ persian + christianity=some deviated sufia
hinduism + pak-india culture= mehndi...barat...
etc etc...
Re: Culture and Religon
persian + zorastrian + greek + pak-india culture
These are far far older great civilisation of the world than Islam/Arabic culture! The entire world is proud of them!
Re: Culture and Religon
I love Islam........and its culture. I think Islam has its own culture, the most colorful, beneficial and full of peace.
Bcoz of Islamic culture most people can't tell if I'm a pakistani or an iranian or an arab, or even a british(born). I love it.
Re: Culture and Religon
Culture (beliefs, traditions, values, behaviours etc. of a society) is a broad term, culture encompasses both religious-culture (e.g. Islam) and ethnic-culture (e.g. Pashtunwali)...
Sometimes the religious-culture and ethnic-culture of a society clash, e.g. take Sindhi Muslims, Islam says that a chaste women accused of sexual-immorality without evidence should be treated as innocent, whereas Sindhi culture dictates that she is a Kari and should be Karo-Kari'd (stoned) regardless of the facts because the Biradri (tribe) has been shamed by the mere accusation and that is the only way to regain honour in society.
When religious and ethnic culture conflict it varies with each individual, which he gives preference to...
Re: Culture and Religon
persian + zorastrian + greek + pak-india culture
These are far far older great civilisation of the world than Islam/Arabic culture! The entire world is proud of them!
First, "Pak-Indian" is a misnomer, Pakistan and India were united by and part of the same British Empire but they were not one country, Pakistan has it's own distinct heritage and history which is seperate from India but India likes to hijack it and pass off as its own.
What's with the whole world is proud bit? How can somebody be proud of that which is not their own? If by the "Pak-Indian" misnomer you were referring to Hinduism then let me assure you that nobody is "proud of" the discriminatory caste system, the burning alive of widows, the offering of 'low-caste' babies to 'Dark Mother', the use of low-caste girls as temple prostitutes or the treatment of all foreigners and those not fortunate enough to be born into a priestly or imperial caste as filthy and untouchable.
Don't use Islamic and Arabian as interchangable, the former is a religion and religions are international whereas the latter is an ethnicity... The latest version of Islam might only be 1400 years old but Arabs (Ismaelites) have been around as a nation for very long time..
I'm proud to be Muslim but I'm also proud of Ancient Pakistan, it is even mentioned in the Hebrew Bible because the Hebrews had trade with us.
Re: Culture and Religon
And Islam does not allow any sort of cultural activites? Am I riht? There's no room for them in Islam?
If by cultural activities you mean the rituals and traditions of other religions (Vasant-Panchami, Navroz etc.) then no because we have our own from our own religion (Eid ul-Adha, Eid ul-Fitr etc.) which we love and are content with.
Like I've already established ethnic identity and religious identity are two seperate things.
Islam doesn't seek to enforce Arab culture on anyone... Arabic is an international Islamic language for all Muslims as that's practical but all languages, ethnicities and tribes/families/clans are seen as equal and God's creation...
A Chinese Muslim (Hui) can still eat sweet 'n' sour as long as it's not pork, a Hebrew Muslim can still eat Challah bread as long as it's not specificaly on the Sabbath as a religious activity, a Bengali Muslimah can wear a Sari as long as it covers her properly, a Filipino Muslim can speak Filipino, a Rajasthani Muslim can still build and design buldings, houses and mosques in their traditional style, a Punjabi Muslim canwrite in the 'Gurmukhi' (formerly known as Landa) script if he chooses...
Re: Culture and Religon
A Chinese Muslim (Hui) can still eat sweet 'n' sour as long as it's not pork, a Hebrew Muslim can still eat Challah bread as long as it's not specificaly on the Sabbath as a religious activity, a Bengali Muslimah can wear a Sari as long as it covers her properly, a Filipino Muslim can speak Filipino, a Rajasthani Muslim can still build and design buldings, houses and mosques in their traditional style, a Punjabi Muslim canwrite in the 'Gurmukhi' (formerly known as Landa) script if he chooses...
Absolutely - this is the key....there is no such thing as "Islamic culture", rather, Islam allows for all cultures of the ethnicities who become muslims to be brought into it, as long as they do not transgress the limits that Islam has given us. Too often certain cultural traditions (for example the death anniversaries and Quran khanis in Pakistan, or certain Arab customs) are elevated to become part of the religion, when in reality they are traditional customs which belong to a tribe, ethnic group, or area, and were adapted once that region became muslim.
Re: Culture and Religon
...sadly, its at JUST this point that the bashers usually run away.
Re: Culture and Religon
Absolutely - this is the key....there is no such thing as "Islamic culture", rather, Islam allows for all cultures of the ethnicities who become muslims to be brought into it, as long as they do not transgress the limits that Islam has given us. Too often certain cultural traditions (for example the death anniversaries and Quran khanis in Pakistan, or certain Arab customs) are elevated to become part of the religion, when in reality they are traditional customs which belong to a tribe, ethnic group, or area, and were adapted once that region became muslim.
I disagree.......Islam is not just a religion it is a complete way of life. Thats why I believe Islam has its own culture.
Re: Culture and Religon
I love Islam........and its culture. I think Islam has its own culture,.
I dont think so. Culture is local, and it should be .. just like language
Please give examples of activities of what you think as part of 'Islamic culture'
Re: Culture and Religon
I dont think so. Culture is local, and it should be .. just like language
Please give examples of activities of what you think as part of 'Islamic culture'
Jumma'
Tahneek
Eating with right hand
Eidain
Race equality
Others borrowed some aspects from Islam, things like circumscision has been kept up from the covenant of Ibraheem (AS) ... Some cultural things were adopted by the Prophet but modified, these should then be considered part of Islamic culture.
Examples: Art - the imagery from Byzantine and Greek cultures was replaced by caligraphy
And ... shaving the head and pasting head with blood of animal was replaced with shaving
head and pasting with saffron water.
Other cultures afterwards were modified at a few levels:
Islamic culture was brought in, the existing culture was sifted and sorted from acceptable and unacceptable things. Then the last level is to modify some of the cultural activities to become acceptable too.
Things like language was seen as acceptable other things like rituals were abolished ... or atleast they should have been until we brought them back again ... such as with mangni-mehndi etc.
Yes Islam has it's own culture as well as adopts the acceptable cultural activities of other cultures or modifies the unacceptable or leaves them out completely. However, this method of application is part of the implementation of Islam and I see that as all encompassing Islamic culture.
As a Muslim living in the West ... I know that a knife should be in the right hand and fork in the left, but Islam tells us to eat with our right, so I swap them over.
Re: Culture and Religon
^
Culture breaks down into ethnic-culture and religious-culture.
Religious-culture (religious-rituals, values, morals, beliefs) should be the same for Muslims world over but when it comes to ethnic-culture i.e. secular 'cosmetic' things such as language, food, dress, art and architecture there is no standard 'Islamic culture' and all that is required is to bring ones ethnic-culture into the guidelines set by Islaam (e.g. replace the bacon in your English breakfast with goose-breast and get a longer blouse for that sari). I can't see anyone getting more punya/thawab for wearing a kaftan as opposed to shalwar-kamiz or eating musaq'ah instead of saalan or building a Mosque in the mughlo-rajasthani style instead of the victorian/gothic style. Everywhere Islam went the locals maintained their ethnicity and brought the associated culture within Islamic guidelines, our Muslim/Hui brethren in China build Mosques in the traditional Chinese style....
Allaah Ta'aala Himself says in the Noble Koran that He created us into ethnicities, tribes/families etc. that we may get to know (recognise) each other...
Despite our various ethnicities we should be one Nation (political unit) because for us nationality should be based on religion and not ethnicity like with other people of the world...
It is quite beautiful our Muslim Nation, we the Muslims are a 'cosmopolitan' Nation, encompassing all different cultures, it's quite grand..
What is forbidden is to be so proud of ones ethnicity to such an extent that it causes you to look down on fellow Muslims of other ethnicities and it's discouraged to narrow-mindedly stuck with ones own ethnic-traditions because Islaam encourages cultural exchange as is inevitable with all cosmopolitan socities so one day we'd share so many traditions that the only ethnicity-marker will be language..
Re: Culture and Religon
Absolutely - this is the key....there is no such thing as "Islamic culture", rather, Islam allows for all cultures of the ethnicities who become muslims to be brought into it, as long as they do not transgress the limits that Islam has given us. Too often certain cultural traditions (for example the death anniversaries and Quran khanis in Pakistan, or certain Arab customs) are elevated to become part of the religion, when in reality they are traditional customs which belong to a tribe, ethnic group, or area, and were adapted once that region became muslim.
I agree.. Another example is holding the Koran over a girls head when she leaves her parents house on marriage, it's wrong in my opnion as the way to get God's protection is to recite God's word not hold it over your head but it's become a Paki tradition so that the Paki Christians will use a Bible and Paki Sikhs use a Granth.
Re: Culture and Religon
^ (e.g. replace the bacon in your English breakfast with goose-breast and get a longer blouse for that sari). I can't see anyone getting more punya/thawab for wearing a kaftan as opposed to shalwar-kamiz or eating musaq'ah instead of saalan or building a Mosque in the mughlo-rajasthani style instead of the victorian/gothic style. Everywhere Islam went the locals maintained their ethnicity and brought the associated culture within Islamic guidelines, our Muslim/Hui brethren in China build Mosques in the traditional Chinese style....
This is called Mubah in Islam. We can eat anything as long as its halaal, we can wear anything as long as it covers our sittar. So who makes the right and wrong criteria..........of course Islamic Culture.