Topic: Universalizing Religions • Aim: In what ways are universalizing religions distributed throughout the world?

• Do Now: How would you define a ‘religion’?

3 Religious Traditions:

• Animist Traditions: Various ethnic, tribal forms of nature worship (Native American/Voodoo) • Hindu-Buddhist Traditions: many levels of existence (reincarnation) - began in same geographic region (India) • Abrahamic Traditions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam - similar origin stories, core beliefs/codes of conduct, monotheistic, same geographic area of origin

How do Universalizing and Ethnic Religions Differ?

Universalizing

•Appeal to people everywhere •Individual founder (prophet) •Message diffused widely (missionaries) •Followers distributed widely.

•Holidays based on events in founder’s life.

Ethnic

•Has meaning in particular place only.

•Unknown source.

•Content focused on place and landscape of origin.

•Followers highly clustered.

•Holidays based on local climate and agricultural practice.

• Based on the previous definition, can you list some universalizing and ethnic religions based on your study of global history?

Universalizing Ethnic:

• Branches of Universalizing Religions – Three principal universalizing religions divided into branches, denominations, and sects.

• A branch is a large and fundamental division within a religion.

• A denomination is a division of a branch that unites a number of local congregations in a single legal and administrative body.

• A sect is a relatively small group that has broken away from an established denomination.

Amish Renegades Are Accused in Bizarre Attacks on Their Peers By ERIK ECKHOLM and DANIEL LOVERING Published: October 17, 2011 ---New York Times

Christianity

• 2 billion adherents make it most practiced in the world.

•Originated in Bethlehem (8-4 BC) and Jerusalem (AD 30) with Jesus Christ.

• Spread by missionaries and the Roman Empire (Constantine A.D. 313).

• It is the most practiced religion in Africa today.

Christianity

Christianity: • Hierarchical Diffusion – Emperor Constantine helped diffuse the religion throughout the Roman Empire by embracing Christianity.

• Relocation Diffusion – Missionaries, individuals who help transmit a religion through relocation diffusion, initially diffused the religion along protected sea routes and the excellent Roman roads.

– Migration and missionary activity by Europeans since 1500 have extended Christianity all over the world.

» Permanent resettlement in the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand

DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY: Christianity began to diffuse from Palestine through Europe during the time of the Roman Empire and continued after the empire’s collapse. Paul of Tarsus, a disciple of Jesus, traveled especially extensively through the Roman Empire as a missionary.

• Branches of Universalizing Religions – Branches of Christianity in Europe • Three major branches include… 1. Roman Catholic (51 percent of the world’s Christians) 2. Protestant (24 percent of the world’s Christians) 3. Orthodox (11 percent of the world’s Christians) • Distributions in Europe: – Roman Catholicism dominant branch in

southwestern and eastern Europe.

– Protestantism dominant branch in northwestern

Europe.

– Orthodoxy dominant branch in eastern and southeastern Europe.

*Notice that the Roman Catholic and Protestant areas have sharp, distinct boundaries

– Branches of Christianity in the Western Hemisphere • 93 percent of Christians in Latin America are Roman Catholic.

–40 percent in North America • Protestant churches have approximately 82 million members in the United States.

–Baptist church has largest number of adherents (37 million).

The shaded areas are U.S. counties in which more than 50 percent of church membership is concentrated in either Roman Catholicism or one Protestant denomination. Baptists are concentrated in the Southeast, Lutherans in the Upper Midwest, Mormons in Utah and contiguous states, and Roman Catholics in the Northeast and Southwest. The distinctive distribution of religious groups within the United States results from patterns of migration, especially from Europe in the nineteenth century and from Latin America in recent years.

Islam

•Originated in Saudi Arabia (Mecca and Medina) around AD 600 and remains the dominant religion of the Middle East from Northern Africa to Central Asia •¾ of Muslims live outside the Middle East (Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India) • Spread originally by Muslim armies to N. Africa, and the Near East. Islam: 1.3 billion adherents

Prophet:

Muhammad

Islam

Holy Text:

Koran Five Pillars of Islam Reading the Koran, Brunei 1. There is one God and Muhammad is his messenger.

2. Prayer five times daily, facing Mecca.

3. The giving of alms(charity) to the poor.

4. Fasting during Ramadan for purification and submission.

5. If body and income allow, a Muslim must make a pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca in his lifetime.

Islamic Calendar: • Begins in AD 622 when Muhammad was commanded to Mecca from Medina (Hijra).

•Lunar calendar makes Ramadan move through the seasons (30 year cycle - 19 years with 354 days and 11 with 355).

• Diffusion of Islam: • Muhammad’s successors organized followers into armies and led a conquest to spread the religion over an extensive area of… –Africa (mostly northern) –Asia (mostly central) –Europe (mixed areas) • Relocation diffusion of missionaries to portions of sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia transmitted the religion well beyond its hearth.

DIFFUSION OF ISLAM: Islam diffused rapidly from its point of origin in present-day Saudi Arabia. Within 200 years, Muslims controlled much of Southwest Asia & North Africa and southwestern Europe. Subsequently, Islam became the predominant religion as far east as Indonesia.

The black, cube like structure in the center of the mosque, called al-Ka’ba, once had been a shrine to tribal idols until Muhammad rededicated it to Allah. Muslims believe that Abraham and Ishmael originally built the Ka’ba

Sunni and Shiite (Shia) Muslims:

The Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, is the chief centre of Sunni Islamic learning in the world. After Muhammad, Ali is credited as the first young male to accept Islam

• Sunni (83%) – Arabic for ‘orthodox’, majority throughout the Muslim world – concentrated in Southwest Asia and Northern Africa • Shiite – 16% of all Muslims - Greatly concentrated in the Middle Eastern countries of Iran, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Oman, and Bahrain

DISTRIBUTION OF MUSLIMS At least 80 percent of the population adheres to Islam in Southwest Asia & North Africa and selected countries in Southeast Asia

Islam in North American & Europe:

• 5% of European population are Muslim. France has the largest population with approx. 4 million, a legacy of immigration from predominantly Muslim former North African colonies • North America home to approx. 5 million Muslims, a rapid increase from the 1990’s

Muslim women protesting the legal banning of the burqua in France.

With the exception of their veils, these girls of Barfurush, near Meshed-i-Sar, look, dress, and act like American girls in an Italian district—an interesting sidelight on the New Persia.

The Nation of Islam, or “Black Muslims”: • Founded in Detroit in 1930 and led by Elijah Muhammad who called himself the ‘messenger of Allah’ • Promoter of segregation and black power during the civil rights era • Divisions between Muhammad and Malcolm X split the sect in the 1960’s • Group split into American Muslim Mission and the Nation of Islam after Muhammad’s death

Buddhism

Buddhism: • 300 million + adherents primarily in China and S.E. Asia • Originated near modern Nepal around 530 BC by prince Siddhartha Guatama.

• Spread originally in India and Sri Lanka by Magadhan Empire (250 BC).

• Indian traders brought it to China in 1st century AD.

• By 6th century it had lost its hold on India, but was now in Korea and Japan.

• Diffusion of Buddhism: • Diffused relatively slowly from its origin in northeastern India.

• Emperor Asoka accredited with much of its diffusion throughout the Magadhan Empire (273 to 232 B.C.).

–Missionaries sent to territories neighboring the empire.

• Buddhism introduced to China along trade routes in the first century A.D.

DIFFUSION OF BUDDHISM Buddhism diffused slowly from its core in northeastern India. Buddhism was not well established in China until 800 years after Buddha’s death.

– Branches of Buddhism • Three major branches include… 1. Mahayana » 56 percent of Buddhists » Located primarily in China, Japan, and Korea 2. Theravada » 38 percent of Buddhists » Located primarily in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand 3. Vajrayana » 6 percent of Buddhists » Located primarily in Tibet and Mongolia.

DISTRIBUTION OF BUDDHISTS AND SIKHS At least 40 percent of the population adheres to Buddhism in East Asia and Southeast Asia. At least 40 percent of the population adheres to Sikhism in northwestern India

Four Noble Truths:

1. All living beings must endure suffering.

2. Suffering, which is caused by desires (for life), leads to reincarnation.

3. The goal of existence is an escape from suffering and the endless cycle of reincarnation by means of Nirvana.

4. Nirvana is achieved by the Eightfold Path, which includes rightness of understanding, mindfulness, speech, action, livelihood, effort, thought, and concentration. Karma - your past bad or good actions determine your progress toward Nirvana through reincarnation. You are your own God.

Buddhism

: Buddhism is in large part a rejection of the Indian caste system. It stresses tolerance, humility, and compassion for all.

•In some regions of Japan, more than two-thirds of the people are Buddhists and more than two-thirds are Shintoists (right). This is possible because many people adhere simultaneously to both religions. In most places people are either more likely than average to be both Shinto and Buddhist or less likely than average to be both.

DIFFUSION OF UNIVERSALIZING RELIGIONS Buddhism’s hearth is in present-day Nepal and northern India, Christianity’s in present-day Israel, and Islam’s in present-day Saudi Arabia. Buddhism diffused primarily east toward East Asia and Southeast Asia, Christianity west toward Europe, and Islam west toward northern Africa and east toward southwestern Asia.