Download The religious faith of Islam, as it was practiced between about 650

ISLAM
The religious faith of Islam, as it was practiced between about 650 and 1500 AD, was
closely related to Judaism and Christianity. Like Jews and Christians, Muslims believed
that there was only one God, whom they called 'Allah'. Muslims believed that Moses and
Jesus had both existed, and that they were important holy men, and that Mohammed was
another in the same line, also holy. Many of the stories in the Koran are the same as the
stories in the Judeo-Christian Bible. After the Islamic Empire was founded, many
Muslims lived in the old Sassanian Empire, and a lot of old Zoroastrian beliefs also
became common among Muslims.
Muslims believed that if you did things which pleased Allah, you would have a good life
on earth, and also a good life after you died. There were five main things Allah liked (the
five pillars of Islam):





Allah wanted you to have no other gods but Allah.
Allah liked you to pray to him five times a day, facing toward his most holy place at
Mecca, in the Arabian peninsula.
Allah liked you to give charity to the poor.
Allah liked you to make a trip to Mecca sometime in your lifetime (the Haj).
Allah liked you to fast (not eat during the daytime) during Ramadan, the holy month.
Also, Allah totally forbade men or women to eat pork, or drink alcohol, or to make
pictures of people. But the most important thing was that a good Muslim should worship
only Allah, and no other gods. "There is no god but God," the Muslims said, "and
Mohammed is His prophet."
Zoroastrianism
Around 1000 BC (probably), about the same time that people in India were writing the
Rig Veda, a man named Zoroaster (also called Zarathustra) was a priest in a small temple
in the eastern part of Western Asia, in an area with a lot of small kingdoms and no major
power. Zoroaster believed that he heard the voice of his chief god, Ahura Mazda,
speaking to him and telling him to start a new religion. He told people that the god was
speaking to him, and what the god wanted, but they didn't believe that the god was really
speaking to him. The other people in the town just thought he was suffering from mental
illness. They laughed at him and made fun of him.
Zoroaster sadly left town and travelled around West Asia looking for somebody who
would believe him. Finally he found a king who did believe him. He started to get some
followers.
The new religion stayed small for five hundred years, but then they had a big success. We
don't know how it happened, but Zoroaster's followers convinced the new king of the
Persians, Cyrus, to support Zoroastrianism (named after Zoroaster). With the support of
the king, Zoroastrianism soon became very popular.
These are some of the main beliefs of Zoroastrianism as the Persians practiced it. There is
one main god, Ahura Mazda. He has twin sons, and one of them is for Truth and the other
is for the Lie. On the side of Truth are Light, Good, Justice, and people who settle down
in cities and farm their land. On the side of the Lie are Darkness, Evil, and people who
travel around and do not farm. You have to choose which one to follow. While you are
alive, if you follow the Truth, you will have a better life: you will find love and money
and victory in battle. After you die, you will go across a bridge to a good place. But if
you follow the Lie, everything will go wrong for you while you are alive, and after you
die you will fall off the bridge and go to a bad place, where it is cold and dark and there is
nothing good to eat.
Iran hostage crisis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Iranian hostage crisis)
Jump to: navigation, search
Iranian militants escort a blindfolded U.S. hostage to the media.[1]
The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States where
52 U.S. diplomats were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20,
1981, after a group of students took over the American embassy in support of Iran's
revolution.[2]
In Iran, the incident was seen by many as a blow against U.S. influence in Iran and its
support of the recently fallen Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had been
restored to power by a CIA-funded coup in 1953 and who had recently been allowed into
the United States for cancer treatment. In the United States, the hostage-taking was
widely seen as an outrage violating a centuries-old principle of international law granting
diplomats immunity from arrest and diplomatic compounds sovereignty in the territory of
the host country they occupy.[3]
The ordeal reached a climax when the United States military attempted a rescue
operation, Operation Eagle Claw, on April 24, 1980, which resulted in an aborted mission
and the deaths of eight American military men. The crisis ended with the signing of the
Algiers Accords in Algeria on January 19, 1981. The hostages were formally released
into United States custody the following day, just minutes after the new American
president Ronald Reagan was sworn in.
In America, the crisis is thought by some political analysts to be the primary reason for
U.S. President Jimmy Carter's defeat in the November 1980 presidential election.[4] In
Iran, the crisis is thought to have strengthened the prestige of the Ayatollah Khomeini
and consolidated the hold of anti-Americanism and Iranian radicals who supported the
hostage taking. The crisis also marked the beginning of American legal action, or
sanctions, that economically separated Iran from America. Sanctions blocked all property
within US jurisdiction owned by the Central Bank and Government of Iran.[5]