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Topic Review
Islam and Secularism
Secularism—i.e. the separation of religion from civic affairs and the state—has been a controversial concept in Islamic political thought, owing in part to historical factors and in part to the ambiguity of the concept itself. In the Muslim world, the notion has acquired strong negative connotations due to its association with removal of Islamic influences from the legal and political spheres under foreign colonial domination, as well as attempts to restrict public religious expression by some secularist nation states. Thus, secularism has often been perceived as a foreign ideology imposed by invaders and perpetuated by post-colonial ruling elites, and is frequently understood to be equivalent to irreligion or anti-religion. Especially in the late 19th to mid-20th century, some Muslim thinkers advocated secularism as a way to strengthen the Islamic world in the face of Russian, British and French colonialism. Some have advocated secularism in the sense of political order that does not impose any single interpretation of sharia (Ali Abdel Raziq and Mahmoud Mohammed Taha); argued that such a political order would not/does not violate Islam (Abdullah Saeed); and that combined with constitutionalism and human rights, is more consistent with Islamic history than modern visions of an Islamic state (Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im). Strongly opposed to limiting Islam to matters of personal belief, and strongly advocating an Islam encompassing law, politics, economics, culture and every other aspect of the lives of its citizens, are orthodox Islamic scholars and proponents of Islamism (political Islam). Islamist pioneer Abul A'la Maududi claimed that the goal of secularists was not to ameliorate tensions and divisions in multi-religious societies, but to avoid the "restraints of morality and divine guidance", and thus eliminate "all morality, ethics, or human decency from the controlling mechanisms of society." A number of pre-modern polities in the Islamic world demonstrated some level of separation between religious and political authority, even if they did not adhere to the modern concept of a state with no official religion or religion-based laws. Today, some Muslim-majority countries define themselves as or are regarded as secular. Many of them have a dual legal system in which Muslims can bring familial and financial disputes to sharia courts whose jurisdiction varies from country to country but usually includes marriage, divorce, inheritance, and guardianship.
  • 5.0K
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Vesak
Vesak (Pali: Vesākha, Sanskrit: Vaiśākha), also known as Buddha Purnima and Buddha Day, is a holiday traditionally observed by Buddhists and some Hindus on different days in India , Sri Lanka, Nepal, Tibet, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Mongolia and the Philippines and in China , Japan , South Korea , North Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam as "Buddha's Birthday" as well as in other parts of the world. The festival commemorates the birth, enlightenment (Buddhahood), and death (Parinirvāna) of Gautama Buddha in the Theravada or southern tradition.
  • 4.6K
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Vicar Apostolic
An apostolic vicariate is a form of territorial jurisdiction of the Catholic Church centered in missionary regions and countries where a diocese has not yet been established. It is essentially provisional, though it may last for a century or more. The hope is that the region will generate sufficient numbers of Catholics for the Church to create a diocese. In turn, the status of Apostolic vicariate is often a promotion for a former apostolic prefecture, while either may have started out as a mission sui iuris.
  • 737
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Longchen Nyingthig
Longchen Nyingthig (Tibetan: ཀློང་ཆེན་སྙིང་ཐིག་, Wylie: klong chen snying thig) is a terma, revealed scripture, of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, which gives a systematic explanation of Dzogchen. It was revealed by Jigme Lingpa (1730-1798).
  • 860
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Old Spanish Language
Old Spanish, also known as Old Castilian (Spanish: castellano antiguo; Template:Lang-osp [roˈmantse kasteˈʎano]) or Medieval Spanish (Spanish: español medieval), was originally a colloquial Latin spoken in the provinces of the Roman Empire that provided the root for the early form of the Spanish language that was spoken on the Iberian Peninsula from the 10th century until roughly the beginning of the 15th century, before a consonantal readjustment gave rise to the evolution of modern Spanish. The poem Cantar de Mio Cid (The Poem of the Cid), published around 1200, remains the best known and most extensive work of literature in Old Spanish.
  • 3.0K
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
The Rihla
The Rihla, formal title A Masterpiece to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling, is the travelogue written by Ibn Battuta, documenting his lifetime of travel and exploration, which according to his description covered about 70,000 miles. Rihla is the Arabic word for a journey or the travelogue that documents it.
  • 936
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Causality
Causality is the relationship between causes and effects. While causality is also a topic studied from the perspectives of philosophy and physics, it is operationalized so that causes of an event must be in the past light cone of the event and ultimately reducible to fundamental interactions. Similarly, a cause cannot have an effect outside its future light cone.
  • 485
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Lide 1993, p. 11-217.
Friday the 13th is considered an unlucky day in Western superstition. It occurs when the 13th day of the month in the Gregorian calendar falls on a Friday, which happens at least once every year but can occur up to three times in the same year—for example, in 2015, Friday the 13th occurred in February, March, and November. 2017 through 2020 will all have two Friday the 13ths each, and the years 2021 and 2022 will both have just one occurrence each. Friday the 13th occurs in any month that begins on a Sunday.
  • 831
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Heraldic Visitation
Heraldic visitations were tours of inspection undertaken by Kings of Arms (and more often by junior officers of arms (or Heralds) as deputies) throughout England , Wales and Ireland. Their purpose was to regulate and register the coats of arms of nobility and gentry and boroughs, and to record pedigrees. They took place from 1530 to 1688, and their records (akin to an upper class census) provide important source material for historians and genealogists.
  • 525
  • 25 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Rock–Paper–Scissors
Rock–paper–scissors (also known as paper-scissors-rock or other variants) is a hand game usually played between two people, in which each player simultaneously forms one of three shapes with an outstretched hand. These shapes are "rock" (a closed fist), "paper" (a flat hand), and "scissors" (a fist with the index finger and middle finger extended, forming a V). "Scissors" is identical to the two-fingered V sign (also indicating "victory" or "peace") except that it is pointed horizontally instead of being held upright in the air. A simultaneous, zero-sum game, it has only two possible outcomes: a draw, or a win for one player and a loss for the other. A player who decides to play rock will beat another player who has chosen scissors ("rock crushes scissors" or sometimes "blunts scissors"), but will lose to one who has played paper ("paper covers rock"); a play of paper will lose to a play of scissors ("scissors cuts paper"). If both players choose the same shape, the game is tied and is usually immediately replayed to break the tie. The type of game originated in China and spread with increased contact with East Asia, while developing different variants in signs over time. Other names for the game in the English-speaking world include roshambo and other orderings of the three items, with "rock" sometimes being called "stone". Rock–paper–scissors is often used as a fair choosing method between two people, similar to coin flipping, drawing straws, or throwing dice in order to settle a dispute or make an unbiased group decision. Unlike truly random selection methods, however, rock–paper–scissors can be played with a degree of skill by recognizing and exploiting non-random behavior in opponents.
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  • 25 Oct 2022
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