Muslims and the west a never ending conflict Essay Example

Muslims and the west: a never ending conflict Essay When it comes to the relationship between Middle East Muslims and Western Christians, both communities, the Islamic and the Western, divide taking either side. Husain Haqqani in Why Muslims Always Blame the West wrote about how the Islamic communities, particularly in the Middle East, blame many societies, but mostly western, for all of the problems they currently face in their own countries. Haqqani believes that if people in the Middle East solve such problems; conflict between both sides would be minimized. Even though Haqqani has stressed numerous points that people in the Middle East and in the West should ponder upon, his essay does not put into account recent events found in the Muslim world, it helped the reader in envisioning a simplistic picture of West-East political relationships, and in addition, he jumps to several conclusions in which his support is either too little or non-existent. Haqqani misrepresented the recent events in the Islamic world in his essay. Haqqani claims that the conduct and rhetoric of Muslim leaders and their failure to address the stagnation of their societies has also fueled the tensions between Islam and the West (Haqqani, 1). For such conclusions to be made, fair amount of knowledge of both societies must be kept into consideration. On the other hand, Amil Imani, the author of the article of Is Islam Misrepresented? believes that Muslims are misrepresented through the media, especially through the news. She argues that A case in point is the medias portrayal of Islam, articulated by politicians and pundits-the talking heads on television and radio, as well as the analysts who write for newspapers and magazines (Imani). Imani believes that most politicians and media exploit the Islamic communities; however, Muslims have been tolerant towards non-Muslims from the days of Prophet Muhammad up to this very day (Imani). She also mentions that e arly on, Muhammad was meek and proclaimed, For you, your religion, and for me, my religion (Imani). Such a statement made by the Prophet himself shows how much the Islamic community bears with other people and their different religions. Quoting something that has been said by the Muslim prophet proves her credibility and her strong support. We will write a custom essay sample on Muslims and the west: a never ending conflict specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Muslims and the west: a never ending conflict specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Muslims and the west: a never ending conflict specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Furthermore, Haqqani does not provide enough hard evidence and support to his mentioned issues and uses irrelevant pieces of information to support his ideas. For example, Haqqani uses the words generally and usually excessively, showing the audience that his argument is based on implications rather than on hard evidence, which decreases his credibility and shows his lack of support. For instance, the author mentions that instead of hard analysis, which thrives only in a free society, Muslims are generally brought up on propaganda, which is often state-sponsored. This propaganda usually focuses on Muslim humiliation at the hands of others instead of acknowledging the flaws of Muslim leaders and societies (Haqqani). In addition, Haqqani states that the focus on external enemies causes Muslims to admire power rather than ideas. Warriors, and not scholars or inventors, are generally the heroes of common people (Haqqani). This proves that once again, the authors lack of concrete support given to his claims, hence, diminishing his credibility. In addition, the foundation of the whole articles involvement to the topic is leaning more towards emotions rather than the statements of facts which could have given the essay a good and strong foundation. Moreover, Haqqani did not heavily emphasize on the political relationship between Middle Eastern Muslims and Western Christians, implying that Christians living in the west are becoming more civilized and are gradually moving forward, while the Muslim worlds obsession with military power encourages violent attempts to restore Muslim honor, the real reasons for Muslim humiliation and backwardness continue to multiply (Haqqani). Haqqani also states that relations between Muslims and the west will continue to deteriorate unless the internal crisis of the Muslim world is also addressed (Haqqani), implying that he believes that the only way of resolving the conflict between Islam and the west is by tackling the obstacles within the Islamic community itself. On the other hand, the author of the article The Roots of Muslim Rage, Bernard Lewis, disagrees. Lewis believes that Muslims have their problems, but these problems could be traced back to the people in the west. He also believes that the cause most frequent adduced for anti-American feeling among Muslims today is American support of Israel (Lewis). The Islamic community presumes that their main problem is based upon the support to Israel given by America, making them concentrate on destructing their enemies rather than solving problems found in their society. Also, the author of The Roots of Muslim Rage believes that another reason why Islams rage increases throughout the years is because it all goes back to the westerners. Believing that Islamic communities were trying to imitate the west; however, the whole idea backfired. This attempt to imitate the West brought them poverty when they tried to change to the western economic style, tyranny when they tried to utilize the western political institutions, and defeat when they tried to make use of the western-style warfare (Lewis). This strong support by Lewis emphasizes one of the main reasons why Islam blames the west. Overall, the article Why Muslims Always Blame the West is not a strong one mainly because the author does not have firm and solid support to the claims he stated, Haqqani did not put into consideration the recent events that took place in the Islamic community and lastly he did not quite stress on the relationship between Islam and the west. Haqqanis article was mostly based on propositions or implications he made and was more emotional-oriented rather than leaning towards real life facts, thus decreasing his credibility towards his audience.

10 Things You Should Know About Gender in Spanish

10 Things You Should Know About Gender in Spanish Here are 10 facts about Spanish gender that will be useful as you learn the language: 1. Gender is a way of classifying nouns into two categories. Spanish nouns are masculine or feminine, although there are a few that are ambiguous, meaning that Spanish speakers are inconsistent in which gender is applied to them. Also, some nouns, particularly those that refer to people, can be masculine or feminine depending on whether they refer to a male or female, respectively. The grammatical significance of gender is that adjectives  and articles referring to nouns must be of the same gender as the nouns they refer to. 2. Spanish also has a neuter gender that applies to one definite article and a few pronouns. By using the definite article lo, it is possible to make an adjective function as if it were a neuter noun. The neuter pronouns generally are used to refer to ideas or concepts rather than to things or people. They can also be used to things whose identities arent known, as in  ¿Quà © es eso? for What is that? 3. Except when referring to people and some animals, the gender of a noun is arbitrary. Thus, things associated with females can be masculine (for example, un vestido, a dress). And things associated with males (for example, virilidad, masculinity) can be feminine. In other words, there is no way to predict a nouns gender from its meaning. For example, silla and mesa (chair and table, respectively) are feminine, but taburete and sof (stool and couch) are masculine. 4. Although feminine words as a general rule refer to females, and masculine words to females, it is possible to do the opposite. The words for man and woman, hombre and mujer, respectively, are the gender youd expect, as are words for girl and boy, chica and chico. But it is important to remember that the gender of a noun attaches to the word itself rather than to what it refers. So persona, the word for person, is feminine regardless of who it refers to, and the word for baby, bebà ©, is masculine. 5. Spanish grammar has a preference for the masculine gender. The masculine might be considered the default gender. Where masculine and feminine forms of a word exist, it is the masculine that is listed in dictionaries. Also, new words that enter the language are typically masculine unless theres a reason to treat the word otherwise. For example, the imported English words marketing, suà ©ter (sweater), and sndwich are all masculine. Web, referring to a computer network, is feminine, probably because it as a shortened form of pgina web (web page), and pgina is feminine. 6. Many words have separate masculine and feminine forms. Most if not all of these are used for referring to people or animals. In most cases for singular nouns and adjectives, the feminine form is made by adding an a to the masculine form or changing an ending e or o to a. A few examples: amigo (male friend), amiga (female friend)profesor (male teacher), profesora (female teacher)sirviente (male servant), sirvienta (female servant) A few words have irregular differences: tigre (male tiger), tigresa (female tiger)rey (king), reina (queen)actor (actor), actriz (actress)toro (bull), vaca (cow) 7. There are a few exceptions to the rule that words ending in o are masculine and many exceptions to the rule that words ending in a are feminine. Among the feminine o words are mano (hand), foto (photo), and disco (disco). Among the masculine a words are numerous words of Greek origin such as dilema (dilemma), drama, tema (subject), and holograma (hologram). Also, many a words that refer to occupations or types of people - among them atleta (athlete), hipà ³crita (hypocrite), and dentista (dentist) - can be either masculine or feminine. 8. As the culture in which Spanish is spoken changes, so is the way the language treats gender as it applies to people. For example, at one time la doctora almost always referred to a doctors wife, and la jueza referred to the wife of the judge. But these days, those same terms usually mean a female doctor and judge, respectively. Also, it is becoming more common to use terms such as la doctor (rather than la doctora) and la juez (rather than la jueza) when referring to female professionals. 9. The masculine form is used to refer to mixed groups of males and females. Thus, depending on the context, los muchachos can mean either the children or the boys. Las muchachas can refer only to the girls. Even padres (padre is the word for father) can refer to parents, not just fathers. However, the use of both masculine and feminine forms - such as muchachos y muchachas for boys and girls rather than just muchachos - is growing more common. 10. In colloquial written Spanish, it is becoming more common to use as a way of indicating that a word can refer to either males of females. In traditional Spanish, if you were writing a letter to a group of friends, you might open with the masculine form, Queridos amigos, for Dear friends even if your friends are of both sexes. Some writers these days would use Querids amigs instead. Note that the at symbol, known as the arroba in Spanish, looks something like a combination of an a and an o.