Three Abrahamic Religions

Alibay Jamalov

Reading and Writing V

Free Pattern – Classification Essay – Final Draft

09.05.2015

3 Abrahamic Religions “Religion is a part of the human make-up. It is also a part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.” Despite of the fact that Christopher Hitchens was one of the strict anti-theists of the world, he acknowledged the great influence of religions in the history of humanity. Academics of Oxford University did international studies and they proved that belief in religion is one of the essential

Religious Jews describe their religion as the expression of the compatible link between God and the Sons of Israel. Judaism came from polytheistic beliefs of ancient Jews and since the 7th century BC it has become monotheistic. The main characters in the history of Judaism are the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the prophet Moses. Sacred texts of Judaism refer to the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh in its original name. Other sacred books are Talmud, Midrash, Mishnah, and Torah, which is believed to be received by Moses from God at Mountain Sinai. Jewish people believe in uniqueness and solitary of the Hebrew God – Yahweh and His relationship with the human beings He created. Today Judaism has several religious ideologies such as Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism, and Reform Judaism. These ideologies distinct from each other due to their perspectives to the Jewish rules, the authority of the Rabbinic tradition, and the importance of the State of Israel. In spite of different religious views, people from all communities pray on Saturdays in temples called synagogues. The number of the Jewish is approximately 14 million and they mainly reside in Israel, the U.S. and

Islam is the last one of the Abrahamic religions that were sent by God. The religion was established by Prophet Muhammad in 610 AC when the angel Gabriel firstly appeared to him. During 20 years the Gabriel conveyed messages of God to Muhammad and those messages were included in the holy book of Muslims - the Quran. According to the Islamic beliefs, all of earlier prophets were messengers of God – Allah. However their messages were misunderstood and distorted. So Muhammad, the last and the greatest prophet, was sent to the world to invite people to the idea that there is only one God and human born to worship Allah. There are two main movements of Islam that were founded because of schism after the death of Muhammad in 632. Disagreement about choice of the caliph, who was considered to be successor of the prophet, triggered conflicts between two sides: Sunni and Shia. In addition, both sides have distinctive practices, traditions, and customs. Approximately, 75-90% of 1.62 billion Muslims is Sunni and 10-20% of them is Shia. Main day of praying in Islam is Friday and a house for worship is called