![\"FullSizeRender\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/aesthcamille\/files\/2016\/05\/FullSizeRender-2-227x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reading Diversity of Islam – Communities of Interpretation F.Daftary<\/p>\n
Farhad Daftary, in his\u00a0essay \u201cDiversity of Islam- Communities of Intepretation\u201d retraces the history of Arabic and Muslim communities and tries to define certain of the differences between the multiples branches of Islam and to explain when and why these differences appeared.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He\u00a0starts by exposing the first steps of Islam. They were years during which most of the Bedouin tribes of Arabia were united by their pledge to Muhammad, seeing him as \u201cthe Messenger of God\u201d (rasul Allah). I tried to represent the union of this newly formed \u201cumma\u2019 (Islamic community) under one leader by writing the name of the Prophet at the top of my drawing. I draw his name in gold to show that he was the light towards which all were turned during the first years of Islamic history.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then, after Muhammad\u2019s death, the \u201cumma\u201d was fragmented in many subdivisions that Daftary calls \u201cCommunities of interpretation\u201d. He argues that these groups took \u201cthe form of religio-political movements or schools of thought\u201d. Depending on the political goals of certain ethnicities or groups and their ideals, the populations within the \u201cumma\u201d interpreted the Qur\u2019an in different ways and hold different fundamental ideas about the values constituting Islam. For this reason, I placed a book within a cracked sphere of glass. The book at the center represent the Qur\u2019an but can also be interpreted as a hadith or any writing that is\u00a0considered essential to the practice and understanding of Islam for a certain community. The sphere has been cracked by two hammers labeled \u201cpolitics\u201d and \u201cideals\u201d. I wanted to show that the differences in interpretation of the Scriptures or of Islam among groups\u00a0stem from these communities\u2019 political views as well as their previous values and beliefs. These variables shape the way they interpret Islam.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 From the crack glass flow three main streams which represent the three main branches of Islam: Sunni, Shii and Murija. Each of these movement emerged from different communities of interpretations and were later on subdivided into even smaller groups which did not agree on things like the \u201cdefinition of true believers\u201d, the \u201csource and nature of authority\u201d (for instance, religious or political authority), \u201cattributes of God\u201d etc. Towards the bottom, thery are plenty of smaller streams; illustrating the diversity of interpretations and communities among Muslims.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I also chose to draw each of these streams in a different color as each of these communities thinks of itself as being on the right path and of the other groups as being \u201cheretics\u201d. For this reason, they are many versions of the \u00a0\u201ctrue Islam\u201d which is reflected by the numerous colors in the drawing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reading Diversity of Islam – Communities of Interpretation F.Daftary Farhad Daftary, in his\u00a0essay \u201cDiversity of Islam- Communities of Intepretation\u201d retraces the history of Arabic and Muslim communities and tries to define certain of the differences between the multiples branches of Islam and to explain when and why these differences appeared. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He\u00a0starts by exposing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7970,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aesthcamille\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aesthcamille\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aesthcamille\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aesthcamille\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7970"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aesthcamille\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aesthcamille\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aesthcamille\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions\/93"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aesthcamille\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aesthcamille\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/aesthcamille\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}