BOOK REVIEW

Book Review

Book Review

In this book, The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization, Richard W. Bulliet, the notable historian has highlighted range of aspects between Islamo-Christian Civilization. In the review of pages 86-99, one can observed two dominant themes that are clergy system and education in Muslim states.

Clergy System

Religious experts can serve as a nucleus component in both Islam and Christianity, though they do not have any authority on scriptural knowledge. Orthodox and Catholic priests do work out domination over convinced consecrated rituals that are more evidently defined in religious dogma than are the sacrament duties of Imams (head of mosque) and qadis (religious judges) in Islam. However, it is not same case as in Protestantism. If we turn the pages of history for over last two hundred years, we will observe that it has become progressively more ordinary for Christian general population and Muslims in the absence of authentic religious documentations to take active parts in debating, construing, and innovating affairs of faith. Within Islam, this clergy system is expressed by Imam of the mosque, as mentioned earlier. An Imam is, generally speaking, the person who leads the congregational prayer in Islam. In Islam, People often think that Imams are the Muslim equivalent of the priests or rabbis. But not so: Islam has no clergy, and an Imam, in principle, can be anyone who knows the prayer ritual. It is situated in front of the other faithful in the mosques and guides to perform the ritual of prayer, but not required to follow. It is often said that every Muslim can be its own Imam, provided you know pray properly, and that the position of imam exists only for the duration of the sentence. While technically it is, in practice there is some professional. There are people who follow specific studies to devote to this task. The choice of a Imam principle lies in the community that will follow, but often other state powers try to intervene in the appointment of Imams to maintain the mosques under control, especially since we are witnessing a boom in Islam. Nevertheless, the system is highly decentralized as compared to the churches or of Judaism, since, from a strictly religious point of view (the policy is another matter), there is no higher court to be ratified the formation of a community. When it comes to Christianity, movement away from viewing clergy as the moral hub of humanity contributed robustly to the appearance of currents of worldly modernity in European Christianity. This chronological distinctions make clears numerous inharmonious observations that Christians and Muslims have considered of one other recently. Nevertheless in general, Islamo-Christian civilization has it common tradition of believers with each other who respect or defer to the clergy system (or imams in case of Islam) on issues of moral and faith (Bulliet, 2004).

Education System

Americans have put in great endeavors to bring the prevailing education system upto the standards of west but they have failed in a sense that even implementing the same standards, ...