death

一篇关于宗教的论文~

A lot of things in life can be flexible, but the death cannot be changed. Thus, concerning with death is a key aspect of many religions. According to Tylor, the positing of the soul and subsequent attention paid to it forms the basis of what he calls animistic religion. (1871)

While different religions have different attitudes towards death. For example, as to the question what are good deaths or bad deaths different religions hold different answers. As in the Lugbara case discussed by Bloch and Parry, good deaths take place at the right time and in the right place. (1982) They can be mobilised to re-anchor the social order. And in Hindu good deaths are perceived as a sacrifice that re-enacts the ideological tenets of the religion. In Hindu death rituals, the burning of the corpse is conceptualised as self-sacrifice wherein the person gives up all his/her attachments to the material world. (Blackburn, S. H, 1985) However, Muslims think good death means one can hold faithful belief of Allah on his/her deathbed, so that he/she can go back to Allah where he/she comes from.
Although different religions hold different conceptions about what constitutes a good life, they often have something in common. Ideas about a good life are usually inflected with hopes for what will/should happen after death. In Muslims’ eyes death is an inevitable phenomenon and is the only place for people. (Tolan, J. V., 2008) Muslims believe Allah gives people lives and is the only master of lives. No one has the ability to offend Allah’s arrangement. No matter how rich or honorable a person is, he/she can get the right to live in the heaven forever if he/she believes in Allah and shows his/her mercy to others all his/her lifetime.
When it comes to the relationship between death and time, there are usually two ways of thinking about it-----linear or irreversible; cyclical or recurring. According to Edmund Leach, linear irreversible time can be supplanted by ideas about recurring time by religious ideology. (Leach, E. R., 1960) The focus on recurring time denies the finality of death – ideas such as birth follows death as day follows night or light follows darkness. Muslims think that people only have one chance to live in the secular word, so that they must cherish lives and everyone should try his/her best to pursue happiness as long as he/she is alive. They argue that a person's life is short, while death is eternal. For them, death means an eternal return to Allah and they feel calm, leisurely and philosophical towards death. (Gatrad, A. R., 1994)
To sum up, Muslim only has one criterion to judge good death or bad death. That is having faith in Allah and speaking out his faith at the last moment someone is going to die. Besides, Muslims consider good lives as showing mercy to others which can help them return to Allah which means entering the heaven and ensure them better lives after they die. In addition, instead of being afraid of death, Muslims see death as eternal and they are very calm when faced with death.
Having known Muslim’s thanatopsis, we can observe Pakistan’s north-west frontier area more profoundly. (Marsden, M., 2005).) Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic army defeated the ruling mujaheddin factions and seized control of Afghanistan in 1996. They aim to create the most pure Islamic country and they interpret Islamism in their own ways. However, from many western countries’ point of view Taliban is a terrorist organization which is terrible, bloody and inhumane. Some even try to confuse the distinction between Muslim and Taliban and mislead people that Taliban are Muslims and they are terrorist.
As we know, most people living in Pakistan’s north-west frontier area are Islamic and are suffering from warfare for a long time. News about suicide bombing in this area is easily found in the newspapers around the world. Why do these people want to be suicide bombers? How do their relatives and friends think about their behavior? In order to find the answers, more attention should be paid to the religious ideology about death.
It is true that Taliban has educated and trained children to be suicide bombers and did so many cruel things which horrified the world, but more importantly, we need to future explore the reason why does the Taliban have so many followers and how does Taliban spread its beliefs. Some local residents blame the war on Americans rather than Taliban and their hatred against American inspired them to take part in Taliban. The majority of children being trained by Taliban are orphans who are witnessing the cruelty of war since they get to know the world. Thus, they hold a distorted view of the world and instead of expecting happiness in temporal life, they try to search for happiness after death which means returning to Allah. For them, entering heaven can ensure them an eternal happiness. Taliban bring the children to religious schools and brainwash these children in the name of teaching them the Koran. In addition, Taliban also teach them how to use pistols, kalashnikov, rocket launcher, grenades and various bombs and will teach them how to carry out suicide attacks in the end. These children believe that living in such poor secular world is of no value and the Taliban provide them a shortcut to go to heaven, because killing unbelievers means being loyal to Allah. And other people will consider them as a great hero. Those dead soldiers who carry out suicide bombing successfully would be an role model to the children because they think those soldiers have already went to heaven. In a word, a variety of reasons contribute to the complex situation in Pakistan’s north-west frontier. We need to be cautious and take religious ideology into consideration when analysis cases in relation to this area.
Reference:
Tylor, E. B. (1871). Primitive culture: researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, art, and custom (Vol. 2). Murray.
Blackburn, S. H. (1985). Death and deification: Folk cults in Hinduism. History of religions, 255-274.
Tolan, J. V. (2008). Sons of Ishmael: Muslims through European Eyes in the Middle Ages. Univ Pr of Florida.
Leach, E. R. (Ed.). (1960). Aspects of caste in south India, Ceylon and North-west Pakistan (No. 2). CUP Archive.
Marsden, M. (2005). Living Islam: Muslim religious experience in Pakistan's north-west frontier. Cambridge University Press.
Gatrad, A. R. (1994). Muslim customs surrounding death, bereavement, postmortem examinations, and organ transplants. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 309(6953), 521.
Sheikh, A. (1998). Death and dying--a Muslim perspective. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 91(3), 138.
Bloch, M., & Parry, J. (Eds.). (1982). Death and the Regeneration of Life. Cambridge University Press.