Latest news with #Abrahamic
DW
3 days ago
- Politics
- DW
Syria: Who are the Druze? – DW – 07/17/2025
One of the largest minority groups in Syria, the Druze have been the focus of a recent outbreak of violence. Syrian minority, the Druze, were at the center of a new conflict, following another outbreak of violence. What began as fighting between local Bedouin groups and Druze turned into an international conflict that saw Israel bombing the center of the Syrian capital, Damascus, this week. A ceasefire has been declared and the death toll stands at over 300. The Druze have a long history in the Middle East, with communities spread across several countries in the region. The Druze community is a small Middle Eastern religious sect characterized by an eclectic system of doctrines. They practice a unique Abrahamic religion (the Abrahamic group includes Christianity, Islam and Judaism) which developed from a branch of Shia Islam. However the Druze do not identify as Muslim. They believe in reincarnation and do not accept converts. In Syria, they are estimated to number around 700,000 and make up about 3% of the country's population. The other main groups in Syria are Sunnis, who make up about 70% of the population, Alawites who make up about 10% and Shia, 3%. The Druze have pressed the new, interim Syrian government, which is Sunni-dominated, to uphold minority rights. There are around a million Druze worldwide. In Syria, Druze communities are located predominantly in the southern Sweida province, and the Jaramana and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya neighborhoods of the Syrian capital Damascus. Druze communities are also located in Lebanon, Israel and Jordan. An estimated 150,000 Druze in Israel hold Israeli citizenship, regularly serve in the army and they are considered fiercely loyal to the state of Israel. Most live in the north of Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Following the collapse of the authoritarian Assad regime in Syria, there have been mixed responses from the Druze community to the interim government headed by former rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa Some Druze leaders have voiced support for a unified and pluralistic Syria and have expressed willingness to work with the interim government. Others have taken a more confrontational stance. The Druze also operate their own security forces and have resisted centralization under the new government. More than 100 Druze were killed in clashes with government forces earlier in 2025, which also claimed the lives of some 1,700 people, most of them from the Alawite minority. Following the withdrawal of government forces from Sweida this week, al-Sharaa pledged to protect the Druze community from violence, saying he would hold accountable "those who transgressed and abused our Druze people, as they are under the protection and responsibility of the state." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Israel's government says it wants to protect Syria's Druze and there is some support for this position among Israeli Druze. Although there are different factions and opinions within Syria's Druze community, observers say the majority reject Israel's offers of "protection." Analysts see Israel's posture as a pretext to limit Syrian influence in the south of the country. Israel's prime minister has previously demanded "the complete demilitarization of southern Syria." Israeli troops have also been observed moving beyond buffer zones between Israel and Syria, further into the south of Syria.
India.com
20-06-2025
- General
- India.com
Chicken, mutton or...: Which animal meat is preferred by Israeli soldiers? The answer will SHOCK you, it is...
(File) The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which is currently giving a tough time to Iran in the ongoing Israel-Iran war, is ranked among the world's most professional and lethal armies, and it stands to reason that the Israeli Army ensures that its soldiers are well-fed with a protein-rich balanced diet. But which animal meat is the most preferred by the IDF soldiers? No, its not beef or mutton as many would have imagined. The answer is chicken. Here's why Israeli soldiers prefer to eat chicken the most. Favorite meat of Israeli soldiers A majority of IDF troops are staunch followers of Judaism, while a tiny minority consists of Arab Muslims. Both these Abrahamic religions have somewhat similar religious edicts when it comes to food. Thus, any food prepared for Israeli soldiers is strictly Kosher (or Halal for their Muslim troops). The IDF soldiers are allowed to eat beef, chicken, turkey, lamb, goat, and fresh water fish, while pork and shellfish are strictly prohibited in both Judaism and Islam. But the savored meat preferred by Israeli troops is chicken, primarily because it takes less time to prepare, tastes good, and is readily available basically everywhere. What about vegan soldiers? While a major portion of IDF soldiers eat meat, a small yet significant number are vegan. Special vegan food is prepared for the soldiers who do not eat meat or any animal products. These include delicacies like falafel, sabich, and Israeli salad. What do Israeli soldiers eat for breakfast, dinner, and lunch? According to media reports, IDF soldiers are served Tunisian sandwiches, shakshuka, hummus, falafel, muesli, energy bars and cereal for breakfast, while lunch for non-vegetarian soldiers includes protein-rich foods like grilled chicken, shawarma and beef hamburger. Vegan or vegetarian soldiers are served tofu schnitzel, tofu shawarma, vegetarian hamburger, rice, potatoes, yogurt, along with an assortment of fruits and vegetables. Dinner has usually same menu as lunch, but the quantity served is slightly less to ensure soldiers sleep with a light stomach, and become quickly mobile if required. What about alcohol? Unlike many armies around the world, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have strict prohibition on the consumption of alcohol, and no soldier or officer is allowed to consume any alcoholic beverage while on active duty or in the camp. There are no exemptions to this rule.
Spectator
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
How do you exhibit living deities?
The most-watched TV programme in human history isn't the Moon landings, and it isn't M*A*S*H; chances are it's Ramayan, a magnificently cheesy 1980s adaptation of India's national epic. The show has a status in India that's hard to overstate. Something like 80 per cent of the entire population watched its original run; in rural areas entire villages would crowd around a single television hooked up to a car battery. When the show ended, omitting the 'Uttara Kanda', the fairly controversial last book of the original poem, street sweepers across the country went on strike, demanding the government fund more episodes. The government caved. But while every country has its pieces of cult media, in India the cult is literal. Some viewers would take a ritual bath before tuning in. Others would decorate their TV sets with garlands of flowers, or light oil lamps in front of the screen and perform aarti, a devotional rite in which a flame is waved in circles in front of an image of a god. And why not? There was an image of a god on the screen. He might have been played by an actor in a plastic crown, but Ramayan was a representation of Lord Ram. Abrahamic faiths can be quite iffy about this kind of thing. At my maniacally Orthodox Jewish primary school, I was told in no uncertain terms about all the terrible punishments God periodically imposed on those of his followers who tried to make images of Him. At one point, in an art lesson, we were told to draw a picture of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments; one boy who made the mistake of depicting Yahweh as an enormous stick figure had to watch his effort being ripped up in front of the entire class. Christianity has traditionally been more relaxed, but it has its own long history of recurring iconoclasms: Byzantine monks burning images of Christ; black-clad Puritans bursting into English churches to smash all the stained glass. In America, Catholic churches might have deposited heaving busloads of their parishioners outside suburban cineplexes to see The Passion of the Christ, but nobody got on their knees and started worshipping the screen. You could venerate an image of the crucifixion in a church, but Raphael's version in the National Gallery is only a work of art. As it happens, Indian religions used to be fairly similar. The earliest form of Hinduism was the Vedic religion that existed from around 1500 to 300 BC, and which was, as far as we know, firmly aniconic. If they did make any images of their gods, we haven't found them. What we do know, from the writings they left behind, is that their worship was focused around a sacrificial fire. The oldest collection of Hindu texts, the Rig Veda (c.1500-1000 BC), consist of hymns to be sung in front of these fires and extremely detailed descriptions of the sacrifices to be thrown into the flames. From there, the fire-god Agni would share out the sacrifice with the rest of the pantheon. Mostly, Agni was given gifts of ghee, grains and soma. Sometimes there were animal sacrifices. It might have never been actually carried out, but there's one more, the Purushamedha sacrifice, in which you offer the gods human flesh. It's likely that the Hindu tradition of devotional images came about in response to Buddhism, but Buddhism was also, originally, very strict about images. This makes sense, given early Buddhism's focus on nothingness and impermanence. During his life, the Buddha didn't call himself 'me' or 'I', since the self doesn't exist, but Tathagata, which means something like 'the one who has thus gone'. For the first few centuries of the religion, there was a strong taboo on any direct representation of the Buddha as a man. The preferred way to show him in stone carvings was as an absence. You could symbolise the Buddha with the image of an empty crown, or a riderless horse. The most popular image was the Buddhapada, a pair of footprints: the hollow left by something that no longer exists. The familiar smiling, seated figure didn't emerge until more than 500 years after Siddhartha Gautama achieved enlightenment. It's as if we had started depicting Henry VIII in 2025. The preferred way to show the Buddha in stone carvings was as an absence The situation is very different today. Hinduism still has room for interesting abstract forms, like the phallic lingam that represents the god Shiva, but most Indian religions are intensely visual religions. When Hindus visit a temple, they won't usually say they're going for puja (prayer), but for darshan, which means 'vision'. The most important element in worship is to look at the image of the god. But it goes both ways: there's darshan dena and darshan lena, giving and receiving sight. You look at the god, the god looks at you. The murti or idols in Hindu temples often have large, brightly painted eyes. The representation does not have to be exact, but the idea is that any image of a deity will be inhabited by that deity. Sometimes small street-corner shrines in India will consist of a small, roughly carved disc, or even just a corn husk, watching you with painted eyes as you pass. This makes exhibiting some of these objects difficult: how are you supposed to display a historical artefact that is also a living deity? At the British Museum, Ancient India: living traditions tries hard to accommodate their dual status. There's a room dedicated to each of three major Indian religions, Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism, and along with some of the treasures of the British Museum's archives there's also a short video in which a modern-day British practitioner explains their worship. Some of these treasures really are extraordinary. A tiny gold reliquary that contains the first-ever figurative representation of the Buddha ( 1st century). There's a magnificently fluid Ganesh, carved out of volcanic stone a thousand years ago (see below). Stranger are the fierce, grimacing yakshas, teeming nature-spirits that might have evolved into the more stately Hindu gods. But there's also a plasticky Ganesh statue from 2007 owned by an events company called Om Creatives Ltd, and a photo of the god being paraded on the banks of the Mersey in 2014. Many of the figures of gods and sages are displayed on wide plinths, giving visitors space to leave an offering in front of the murti if they want. When I went, none of the visitors had done so. The museum is its own kind of religion, with its own rituals. Statue of Ganesh, made in Java from volcanic stone, 1000–1200. © THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM But if we're considering these works as part of a living religion, and not just objects from the past, it's striking that India's second-largest religion doesn't appear anywhere in the exhibition. Islam has been an Indian faith for more than a thousand years, and in that time plenty of uniquely Indian traditions have emerged. There are Sufi shrines, dargahs, that are also sacred to Hindu deities, where strange new forms of syncretic worship have taken shape over the centuries. Islam tends to be strongly aniconic, but then so does Sikhism, another autochthonous Indian faith that doesn't get a look-in here. Part of the problem is that the curators are a little too eager to make a clear identification between the religions of two millennia ago and their practitioners today. There is no straight line between them; religions, like everything else in the world, constantly change. These objects might have meaning for modern-day Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains, but the people who actually made them are gone. Maybe my favourite object in the exhibit was a tiny first-century copper statuette of a four-armed goddess found in the Deccan, central India. She has flowers in her hair and a girdle around her hips, but we no longer know her name. Whatever cult worshipped her is now extinct. But maybe her presence is still in there, looking out at the new kind of devotee that shuffles around the museum, seeing and being seen.
NDTV
09-06-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
Bangladesh's Muhammad Yunus' "Mutual Respect" Letter To PM Modi
Dhaka: The spirit of mutual respect and understanding will continue to guide India and Bangladesh in working for people's welfare, Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus has said in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Yunus' letter was a response to PM Modi's message conveying Eid-ul-Adha greetings to Bangladeshi people and the interim chief adviser. Yunus posted both letters in an X post on Sunday. In his letter, he said that PM Modi's "thoughtful" message "reflects the shared values" between the two countries. The chief adviser also extended his wishes to the prime minister and the people of India. "I am confident that the spirit of mutual respect and understanding will continue to guide our nations to work together for the wellbeing of our peoples," he said in the letter dated June 6. Yunus added that the festival is a "time of reflection, which brings communities together in the spirit of festivity, sacrifice, generosity and unity, and inspires us all to work together for the greater benefits of the peoples across the world". In his letter dated June 4, PM Modi said the festival is an "integral part of the rich and diverse cultural heritage of India". He said it "reminds us of the timeless values of sacrifice, compassion and brotherhood, which are essential in building a peaceful and inclusive world". Eid-ul-Adha is one of the main Islamic festivals. It commemorates the willingness of Abraham, considered a prophet by Abrahamic religions, to sacrifice his son to obey the command of God.
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First Post
08-06-2025
- Politics
- First Post
Spirit of mutual respect will guide India-Bangladesh cooperation, says Yunus
The spirit of mutual respect and understanding will continue to guide India and Bangladesh in working for people's welfare, Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus has said in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. read more In a letter responding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Eid-ul-Adha greetings, Bangladesh's Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus said that the spirit of mutual respect and understanding between the two neighbouring countries will continue to guide India and Bangladesh in working for people's welfare. Yunus described Modi's message as 'thoughtful' and said it reflected the shared values that bind India and Bangladesh. He also extended his warm wishes to Modi and the people of India. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Both letters were shared by Yunus on social media platform X on Sunday, highlighting the friendly diplomatic exchanges ahead of the Eid celebrations. — Chief Adviser of the Government of Bangladesh (@ChiefAdviserGoB) June 8, 2025 In his letter, he said that Modi's 'thoughtful' message 'reflects the shared values' between the two countries. The chief adviser also extended his wishes to the prime minister and the people of India. 'I am confident that the spirit of mutual respect and understanding will continue to guide our nations to work together for the wellbeing of our peoples,' he said in the letter dated June 6. Yunus added that the festival is a 'time of reflection, which brings communities together in the spirit of festivity, sacrifice, generosity and unity, and inspires us all to work together for the greater benefits of the peoples across the world'. In his letter dated June 4, Modi said the festival is an 'integral part of the rich and diverse cultural heritage of India'. He said it 'reminds us of the timeless values of sacrifice, compassion and brotherhood, which are essential in building a peaceful and inclusive world'. Eid-ul-Adha is one of the main Islamic festivals. It commemorates the willingness of Abraham, considered a prophet by Abrahamic religions, to sacrifice his son to obey the command of God. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD With inputs from agencies
