I tried madina, madinah, madeena, and madeenah, but none of them worked! Please correct the word or add those, since in Arabic this is how it is pronounced.
People have started sticking an h on the end of Medina? There's no h in Arabic. That is somewhat weird. Almost as if to emphasise that it's a long vowel at the end, which it isn't. Hmm
Wow... I was expecting to see a bunch of dumb anti-muslim comments. But... none. I guess the Jetpunk community is actually pretty mature/ well-informed. Cool!
The amount that people get excited about this is inversely proportional to the amount that it actually matters. Pronunciations of words change from place to place, language to language, dialect to dialect, accent to accent, and time to time. Stop being parrots.
Indonesia?! Wow, I wasted 2 minutes trying to type in Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, etc. ^_^
Yes I always find that intriguing, this massive Muslim country quite a long way away from any others (except Malaysia of course).
I suppose it's just one of those accidents of history that Indonesia, despite being spread across hundreds of islands, is one country, whereas the Middle East and North Africa are generally contiguous but are lots of small and middle-sized countries.
@Malbaby, yes of course in the context of this quiz it doesn't matter.
In terms of religion however it's quite an important distinction. It is a constant reminder to the faithful: no matter who you think you are, forget not that "Allah is greater". No matter what occupies your mind right now, forget not that "Allah is greater".
Arabic is a language where if you get a vowel in the wrong place or stick the odd letter on, you often accidentally end up with a linked but different word. "Allahu takbir" is, I think, grammatical, and means "You, Allah, are getting older" - which may not be theologically sound :-)
Lol, you obviously don't know Arabic well. Allahu takbir(un) would mean Allah is a takbir, not what you say. It would not make any sense, since takbir means making something greater or declaring its greatness.
The only verb that comes close is takabbara which means "behaved arrogantly", but the consonants are too different to get mixed up.
And there is a "h" sound at the end of Madinah. The ة is not silent. There is a reason it has that shape, it is a ه with the dots of a ت. If you stop on this letter, you read it like an English "h", but if you continue speaking you read it like a "t". In a middle of an Arabic sentence, you would hear al-madinatu, al-madinata or al-madinati (depending on the grammatical case), and you would hear al-madinah if it is at the end of the sentence, or in isolation. In English, it is only normal to use Madinah as we are not in an Arabic sentence.
eh... future population growth trends are hard enough to predict on their own. It's even harder to predict the growth of religions as you have to make assumptions of rates of retention between generations and rates of conversion and de-conversion, as well as make assumptions about the sincerity of people's professed religious beliefs.
Personally I think Christianity will probably still be #1 by 2050. But it's very hard to say. The most optimistic prediction I've seen on the subject is that by 2038 the majority of people in the world will be either atheist, agnostic, non-religious, or only nominally religious. It's not really correct to call any of these things a religion, but still it would be very nice to see "none" at the top of a list of world's largest religious traditions by number of adherents.
It certainly doesn't mean "holy war" all of the time, but its wrong to think that it never means holy war. The question is written in a way that reflects this.
First i want to say sorry, because my english is horrible. ( English is the third language i learned)
Please provide your information before you make this quiz. Dschihad (jihad) can also mean that you only go to school or pray for allah. Its by the way haram ( forbidden) to kill people in islam. A many people also say that there is a small dschihad and a big dschihad. And the big Dschihad mean to kill kefīr, but thats wrong everything what you do for allah ( go to school, pray for allah, don’t eat and drink at ramadan) is dschihad. So please remove this question or provide your information. And btw in shiā its haram to do Dschihad, so when you talk about „holy war“ you only talk about sunnā.
I am living now for 15 years in lebanon, so i have a bigger idea than you
"holy war" is the most traditional and accurate translation of the term, lately insinuated or stated to be wrong by western Muslim apologists and sympathizers who feel that this accuracy is damaging to their efforts to paint Islam as an inherently peaceful religion. It definitely does not mean "personal spiritual struggle for self-improvement," or whatever else you've heard, at least not most commonly, or in any way other than in a non-literal metaphorical sense, or to the exclusion of other meanings. Muhammad used the term frequently to talk about the struggle to expand and perfect Islam, and while he did speak of doing this by pursuing moral rightness, he also explicitly used to term, many times, to talk about making war against, subjugating, and exterminating the infidels and those he saw as religious hypocrites (those who didn't accept him as a prophet or do what he said); the man was primarily a warlord, according to Islam's own traditions.
There is some truth to what you say. The Qur'an doesn't use the noun al-jihad, it uses al-qital, fighting, but you find the verbal form jahhada, often accompanied by "in Allah's path", almost always meaning struggling to defend and expand the dominion of Islam, whether by fighting or by giving suppoprt with your assets. You find the form al-jihad in hadiths, always this same meaning.
Other meanings also exist in the Qur'an, like preaching or doing good deeds, but they are rare. The meaning of struggle against one's inner soul is also found in some hadiths, it's not a recent interpretation, but it's true that some recent apologists paint it as being the primary meaning of jihad, which is wrong.
There is no such thing as "exterminating the infidels" and go read the definition of hypocrite in a dictionary. According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad was primarily a prophet. Being a political leader was secondary, and he waged war as a prophet, to expand Islam, not as a warlord.
The hint of Shariah is wrong. Shariah is the set of rules given by God to Muhammad, it is unique (one may use "a shariah", but only to talk about a set of rules given to a specific prophet). People try their best to extract Shariah rules from the texts, but what they extract is not called a shariah, it's their own understanding that more or less conforms with the abstract Shariah. Also, Shariah in not really a law, as it contains many rules and exhortations that deals with personal matters (as opposed to public ones).
Historically speaking, Muslims didn't have written laws, the rulers would appoint judges that judged according to their own interpretation. The Ottomans were the first to have a code of law in the Western sense, which they called kanun (from Greek kanon) and then the word qanun entered in Arabic and Islamic litterature. Instead of calling their law shariah, countries call it qanun and claim it is fully compliant with the Shariah.
Thank You.
I suppose it's just one of those accidents of history that Indonesia, despite being spread across hundreds of islands, is one country, whereas the Middle East and North Africa are generally contiguous but are lots of small and middle-sized countries.
In terms of religion however it's quite an important distinction. It is a constant reminder to the faithful: no matter who you think you are, forget not that "Allah is greater". No matter what occupies your mind right now, forget not that "Allah is greater".
The only verb that comes close is takabbara which means "behaved arrogantly", but the consonants are too different to get mixed up.
And there is a "h" sound at the end of Madinah. The ة is not silent. There is a reason it has that shape, it is a ه with the dots of a ت. If you stop on this letter, you read it like an English "h", but if you continue speaking you read it like a "t". In a middle of an Arabic sentence, you would hear al-madinatu, al-madinata or al-madinati (depending on the grammatical case), and you would hear al-madinah if it is at the end of the sentence, or in isolation. In English, it is only normal to use Madinah as we are not in an Arabic sentence.
Personally I think Christianity will probably still be #1 by 2050. But it's very hard to say. The most optimistic prediction I've seen on the subject is that by 2038 the majority of people in the world will be either atheist, agnostic, non-religious, or only nominally religious. It's not really correct to call any of these things a religion, but still it would be very nice to see "none" at the top of a list of world's largest religious traditions by number of adherents.
It certainly doesn't mean "holy war" all of the time, but its wrong to think that it never means holy war. The question is written in a way that reflects this.
Please provide your information before you make this quiz. Dschihad (jihad) can also mean that you only go to school or pray for allah. Its by the way haram ( forbidden) to kill people in islam. A many people also say that there is a small dschihad and a big dschihad. And the big Dschihad mean to kill kefīr, but thats wrong everything what you do for allah ( go to school, pray for allah, don’t eat and drink at ramadan) is dschihad. So please remove this question or provide your information. And btw in shiā its haram to do Dschihad, so when you talk about „holy war“ you only talk about sunnā.
I am living now for 15 years in lebanon, so i have a bigger idea than you
Other meanings also exist in the Qur'an, like preaching or doing good deeds, but they are rare. The meaning of struggle against one's inner soul is also found in some hadiths, it's not a recent interpretation, but it's true that some recent apologists paint it as being the primary meaning of jihad, which is wrong.
There is no such thing as "exterminating the infidels" and go read the definition of hypocrite in a dictionary. According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad was primarily a prophet. Being a political leader was secondary, and he waged war as a prophet, to expand Islam, not as a warlord.
Historically speaking, Muslims didn't have written laws, the rulers would appoint judges that judged according to their own interpretation. The Ottomans were the first to have a code of law in the Western sense, which they called kanun (from Greek kanon) and then the word qanun entered in Arabic and Islamic litterature. Instead of calling their law shariah, countries call it qanun and claim it is fully compliant with the Shariah.