Panel for Islam

Basic articles of faith

Muslims have six main beliefs.

• Belief in Allah as the one and only God
• Belief in angels
• Belief in the holy books
• Belief in the Prophets…
  • e.g. Adam, Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), Dawud (David), Isa(Jesus).
  • Muhammad (peace be upon him) is the final prophet.
• Belief in the Day of Judgement…
  • The day when the life of every human being will be assessed to decide whether they go to heaven or hell.
• Belief in Predestination…
  • That Allah has the knowlege of all that will happen.
  • Muslims believe that this doesn’t stop human beings making free choices.

Allah

Allah is the name Muslims use for the supreme and unique God, who created and rules everything.

The heart of faith for all Muslims is obedience to Allah’s will.

• Allah is eternal, omniscient, and omnipotent…
  • Allah has always existed and will always exist.
  • Allah knows everything that can be known.
  • Allah can do anything that can be done.
• Allah has no shape or form…
  • Allah can’t be seen.
  • Allah can’t be heard.
  • Allah is neither male nor female.
• Allah is just…
  • Allah rewards and punishes fairly.
  • But Allah is also merciful.
• A believer can approach Allah by praying, and by reciting the Qur’an.
• Muslims worship only Allah…
  • because only Allah is worthy of worship.

The one and only God

All Muslims believe that God is one alone:

• There is only one God.
• God has no children, no parents, and no partners.
• God was not created by a being.
• There are no equal, superior, or lesser Gods.

Information from the BBC Religion-Islam

Entry #8- Islam

Since ISIS is an issue of modern society, I researched about the belief of Islam that ISIS distorted.

Jihad

The literal meaning of Jihad is struggle or effort, and it means much more than holy war.

Muslims use the word Jihad to describe three different kinds of struggle:

• A believer’s internal struggle to live out the Muslim faith as well as possible
• The struggle to build a good Muslim society
• Holy war: the struggle to defend Islam, with force if necessary

Many modern writers claim that the main meaning of Jihad is the internal spiritual struggle, and this is accepted by many Muslims.

However there are so many references to Jihad as a military struggle in Islamic writings that it is incorrect to claim that the interpretation of Jihad as holy war is wrong.

Jihad and the Prophet

The internal Jihad is the one that Prophet Muhammad is said to have called the greater Jihad.

But the quotation in which the Prophet says this is regarded as coming from an unreliable source by some scholars. They regard the use of Jihad to mean holy war as the more important.

• Information from BBC religions- Islam

Entry #7- Christianity

God

Christians believe that there is only one God, whom they call Father as Jesus Christ taught them.

Jesus

Christians recognise Jesus as the Son of God who was sent to save mankind from death and sin.

Jesus Christ taught that he was Son of God. His teachings can be summarised, briefly as the love of God and love of one’s neighbour.

Jesus said that he had come to fulfil God’s law rather than teach it.

Justification by faith

Christians believe in justification by faith – that through their belief in Jesus as the Son of God, and in his death and resurrection, they can have a right relationship with God whose forgiveness was made once and for all through the death of Jesus Christ.

The Trinity

Christians believe in the Trinity – that is, in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Some confuse this and think that Christians believe in three separate gods, which they don’t.

Christians believe that God took human form as Jesus Christ and that God is present today through the work of the Holy Spirit and evident in the actions of believers.

Life after death

Christians believe that there is a life after earthly death.

While the actual nature of this life is not known, Christians believe that many spiritual experiences in this life help to give them some idea of what eternal life will be like.

The Saints

These days, the word saint is most commonly used to refer to a Christian who has lived a particularly good and holy life on earth, and with whom miracles are claimed to have been associated after their death.

The formal title of Saint is conferred by the Roman Catholicand Orthodox Churches through a process called canonisation.

Members of these Churches also believe that Saints created in this way can intercede with God on behalf of people who are alive today. This is not accepted by most Protestants.

In the Bible, however, the word saint is used as a description of anyone who is a committed believer, particularly by St. Paulin the New Testament (e.g. Ephesians 1.1. and 1.15).

• Information from BBC religions- Christianity

Panel for Daoism

It is one of the goals that our class should fulfill.

It is founded and researched by Lao tzu. Daoism emphasizedd about the balance between yin and yang. Usually those two values are expressed by negative and positive, male and female, darkness and brightness. Those are opposite values but they contain each other.

It was interesting to study how two values are different but also at the same time, share some similarities.