The Beggar’s Strike made me think about the links between culture and religion. In the book, I found it interesting how the culture of the characters, even though it contradicts many of the teachings and rules of islam, was incorporated into their religion. Somehow, a link between the culture and Islam was found and developed. In fact, Islam in general cannot exist without a culture. It was given to people within a certain culture. If we look around the world, different muslims have managed to base Islam on their culture. This goes to show how Islam, a religion I once thought was merely a set of rules, is open to multiple interpretations based on the context/culture.
This led me to think about Islam in Sudan, my home country. It feels like Islam has become such an integral part of the Sudanese culture and cannot be distinguished from it. This piece shows a woman and a man, both dressed in traditional attire, with a stamp of the words “muslims” and “muslim” respectively. The idea is to show the religion as part of the culture and an identifier for Sudanese people and our traditional sudanese dress is the best representative of our culture. I also chose the colors black, white, green and red as these are the colors of the Sudanese flag.