Download Practiced religions in the United States and Turkey

Elaine Bouie
Betty Laface
English1101
November 27th 2011
Practiced religions in the United States and Turkey
There are many religions in this world so it’s easy for many cultures to coincide in different
religions. Religions are often spread through the migration of its people, resulting in the sharing
of cultural traditions in the new countries after immigration. The earliest Muslim immigrants
came as slaves from Africa beginning perhaps as early as 1501. Their absolute numbers are open
to substantial disagreement, with one foremost scholar, Allan D. Austin, putting their number at
40,000 (for the United States alone) and another, Sylviane Diouf, estimating 2.25 and 3 million
(for the Americas as a whole). The slave-owners sometimes appreciated and rewarded their
literate Muslim slaves but they despised the religion of Islam and did what they could to prevent
it from passing from one generation to the next. As a result, except in vestigial forms (one group
of Trinidadian Baptists engage in practices to the present that recall Islamic ritual), the religion
disappeared by the 1860s, or two generations after the import of slaves ceased. Since there is
immigration it’s easier for the United States and turkey to share some of the same religions. This
paper will be focusing on the shared religions of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism between the
United States and Turkey.
What is Religion? Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews
that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values.
Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give
meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality,
ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human
nature. The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system, but
religion differs from private belief in that it has a public aspect. Most religions have organized
behaviors, including clerical hierarchies, a definition of what constitutes adherence or
membership, congregations of laity, regular meetings or services for the purposes of veneration
of a deity or for prayer, holy places (either natural or architectural), and/or scriptures. The
practice of a religion may also include sermons, commemoration of the activities of a god or
gods, sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services,
meditation, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture. The development
of religion has taken different forms in different cultures. Some religions place an emphasis on
belief, while others emphasize practice. Some religions focus on the subjective experience of the
religious individual, while others consider the activities of the religious community to be most
important. Some religions claim to be universal, believing their laws and cosmology to be
binding for everyone, while others are intended to be practiced only by a closely defined or
localized group. In many places religion has been associated with public institutions such as
education, hospitals, the family, government, and political hierarchies
Although the main religion in turkey is Islam the country does have a rich past in terms of other
religions. The religion of 99% of the population of Turkey is Islam; however Turkey is a secular
state without any official religion. After the demise of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey, which
claimed legitimacy from religion, the founders of modern Turkey decided it best to separate
religion from politics in Turkey and in 1937 secularism were made a constitutional principle.
The Ottoman Sultan who ruled through religion was replaced by the chairmanship of religious
affairs that is responsible for only matters of the Muslim religion in Turkey. The united states
have many citizens who practice this religion. from the 1880s to 1914, several thousand Muslims
immigrated to the United States from the Ottoman Empire, and from parts of South Asia; they
did not form distinctive settlements, and probably most assimilated into the wider society. Once
very small, the Muslim population of the US increased greatly in the 20th century, with much of
the growth driven by rising immigration and conversion, and a comparatively high birth rate. In
2005, more people from Islamic countries became legal permanent United States residents nearly
96,000 than in any year in the previous two decades. American Muslims come from various
backgrounds, and are one of the most racially diverse religious groups in the United States
according to a 2009 Gallup poll. Native-born American Muslims are mainly African Americans
who make up about a quarter of the total Muslim population. Many of these have converted to
Islam during the last seventy years. Conversion to Islam in prison, and in large urban areas has
also contributed to its growth over the years. The immigrant communities make up the majority,
with mainly people of Arab and South Asian descent. The word “Islam” is Arabic word which
means “submission to the will of God”. This word comes from the same root as the Arabic word
“salaam”, which means “peace”. As such, the religion of Islam teaches that in order to achieve
true peace of mind and surety of heart, one must submit to God and live according to His
Divinely revealed Law. The most important truth that God revealed to mankind is that there is
nothing divine or worthy of being worshipped except for Almighty God, thus all human beings
should submit to Him. Islam is not a new religion because “submission to the will of God”,
i.e. Islam, has always been the only acceptable religion in the sight of God. For this
reason, Islam is the true “natural religion”, and it is the same eternal message revealed
through the ages to all of God’s prophets and messengers. Muslims believe that all of
God’s prophets, which include Abraham, Noah, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, brought
the same message of Pure Monotheism. For this reason, the Prophet Muhammad was not
the founder of a new religion, as many people mistakenly think, but he was the final
Prophet of Islam. By revealing His final message to Muhammad, which is an eternal and
universal message for all of mankind, God finally fulfilled the covenant that He made
with Abraham, who was one of the earliest and greatest prophets. Sufficient is it to say
that the way of Islam is the same as the way of the prophet Abraham, because both the
Bible and the Quran portray Abraham as a towering example of someone who submitted
himself completely to God and worshipped Him without intermediaries. Once this is
realized, it should be clear that Islam has the most continuous and universal message of
any religion, because all prophets and messengers were “Muslims”, i.e. Those who
submitted to God’s will, and they preached “Islam”, i.e. submission to the will of
Almighty God. All practicing Muslims accept belief in the ‘Six Articles of Faith’ and are
obliged to follow the ‘Five Pillars.’ They are: 1. Muslim profession of faith or shahada.
2. Ritual Prayer or salah. 3. Obligatory Charity or zakah. 4. Fasting or sawm. 5.
Pilgrimage or hajj.
Christianity is the most practiced religion in the United States. The majority of Americans (60%
to 76%) identify themselves as Christians, mostly within Protestant and Catholic denominations,
accounting for 51% and 25% of the population respectively. Non-Christian religions (including
Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism etc.), collectively make up about 3.9% to 5.5% of the adult
population. Another 15% of the adult population identifies as having No religious belief or no
religious affiliation. When asked, about 5.2% said they did not know, or refused to reply.[4]
According to the American Religious Identification Survey, religious belief varies considerably
across the country: 59% of Americans living in Western states (the "Unchurched Belt") report a
belief in God, yet in the South (the "Bible Belt") the figure is as high as 86%. Christianity tends
to take beliefs quite seriously. The early fathers and councils carefully distinguished between
"orthodoxy" from "heresy" in an effort to preserve what they saw as the true Christian message.
In the middle Ages, established doctrine was carefully safeguarded, and in the 16th century,
reformers called for the stripping away of superfluous doctrines and emphasized true faith as the
only requirement for salvation. And Christian beliefs remain important today: the many
denominations within Christianity center primarily around matters of doctrine rather than
practice. Given the great historical attention that has been devoted to it, the 2,000 years' worth of
available writing on its many subjects, and its sometimes complex philosophical arguments,
Christian doctrine can be an intimidating subject to tackle, especially for the beginner. The
following articles therefore attempt to summarize the general consensus of Christian beliefs on
everything from God to the afterlife, with historical development and denominational differences
taken into account as much as possible.
American Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith
and/or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly
of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born
descendants. A minority from all Jewish ethnic divisions are also represented, including Sephardi
Jews, Mizrahi Jews, and a number of converts. The American Jewish community manifests a
wide range of Jewish cultural traditions, as well as encompassing the full spectrum of Jewish
religious observance. Depending on religious definitions and varying population data, the United
States is home to the largest or second largest (after Israel) Jewish community in the world. The
population of American adherents of Judaism was estimated to be approximately 5,128,000
(1.7%) of the total population in 2007 (301,621,000); including those who identify themselves
culturally as Jewish (but not necessarily religiously), this population was estimated at 6,489,000
(2.2%) as of 2008. As a contrast, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics estimated the Israeli Jewish
population was 5,664,000 in 2009 (75.4% of the total population) There is a small community of
followers of the Jewish religion in Turkey who live mainly around Istanbul and the west coast.
These Sephardic Jews had lived in Spain until they fled to Turkey after being persecuted in
Europe because of their religion. The followers of the Jewish Religion in Turkey number
between 5-10,000 although they are free to practice their religion freely in Turkey without any
trouble. Judaism is one of the oldest religions still existing today. It began as the religion of the
small nation of the Hebrews, and through thousands of years of suffering, persecution,
dispersion, and occasional victory, has continued to be a profoundly influential religion and
culture. Today, 14 million people identify themselves as Jewish. Modern Judaism is a complex
phenomenon that incorporates both a nation and a religion, and often combines strict adherence
to ritual laws with a more liberal attitude towards religious belief. Follow a link below to learn
more about Judaism. Jewish rituals and religious observances are grounded in Jewish law
(halakhah, lit. "The path one walks." An elaborate framework of divine mitzvot, or
commandments, combined with rabbinic laws and traditions, this law is central to Judaism.
Halakhah governs not just religious life, but daily life, from how to dress to what to eat to how to
help the poor. Observance of halakhah shows gratitude to God, provides a sense of Jewish
identity and brings the sacred into everyday life. The Mitzvoth The Hebrew word mitzvoth
means "commandments" (mitzvah is its singular form). Although the word is sometimes used
more broadly to refer to rabbinic (Talmudic) law or general good deeds ("It would be a mitzvah
to visit your mother"), in its strictest sense it refers to the divine commandments given by God in
the Torah. The 613 Commandments The important Jewish philosopher Maimonides made a list
of the 613 commandments he found in the Jewish Bible, and here they are. Rabbinic Law In
addition to the 613 mitzvoth, Jewish law incorporates a large body of rabbinical rules and laws.
These are considered just as binding as the mitzvoth, although the punishments for violating them
are less severe. Another difference is that it is possible, though unlikely, for the rabbinical laws
to be changed, but no rabbi can change the Torah mitzvoth. The rabbinical portion of halakhah
falls into three groups: a gezeirah, takkanah, and minhag. The Synagogue The Jewish house of
worship is a synagogue. The synagogue predates the destruction of the Second Temple, but it
became central to religious life after the Temple was lost. The synagogue replaces ritual sacrifice
with Torah readings, prayer and teaching.
From my research all of the religions are practiced the same way regardless of where that person
stays whether it is in Turkey or the United States. They all have different beliefs, but all of them
believe in there God.
Works Citied
By Daniel Masters, Abdurrahman Squires, and I. Kaka
Published on 21 Apr 2008 - Last modified on 24 Apr 2010
By IslamReligion.com
Published on 13 Feb 2006 - Last modified on 29 Mar 2011
Anonymous. "Christian Holidays." ReligionFacts. 8 February 2007. Accessed 8
December 2007 18 November 2011
<http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/holidays.htm>.
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 8 November 2011 Main article: History of the Jews in
the United States
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc 10 November 2011. History of religion in the United
States
No Author Country facts The World at Your Fingertips. No date.