Here, in the ongoing observation of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2020 at Mark’s Text Terminal, is an independent practice worksheet on Muhammad, the prophet of Islam.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“The New Year festival has Zoroastrian roots and is associated principally with Iran, but it is celebrated from Syria to India and across all of Central Asia, the Caucasus, Kurdistan, and Turkey. Its rituals vary widely but most are based on around a twelve-day succession of events. This can begin with great bonfires, fed all night to symbolize the victory of light over winter darkness, then the spring cleaning of the house, the bringing into the house of something green (like a palm tree or a fir tree—depending on latitude) around which a vigil or candles may be lit, then the making of a splendid feast full of special seasonal foods, including displays of dried fruits and nuts, an exchange of gifts between close family members, followed by an exchange of visits between neighbors and cousins. In some regions, there followed a traditional ‘period of misrule,’ where men would dress as women, and woman as men, children would lord it over adults and the poor would be served by the rich and the powerful would be publicly mocked by licensed fools. On the thirteenth day, the festival concludes with a family picnic, with music and dance and the quiet contemplation of the beauties of nature and some thought for future marriages and the exchange of such symbols of fertility as colored eggs.
Many of these Zoroastrian practices were mirrored in the festival of the winter solstice of the Roman-era cult of the unconquered sun. They would get absorbed wholesale into the Christian Easter and Christmas festivals, for Christ’s birthday was fused with the winter solstice, just as his death was tied to the spring festival.”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
Here is an independent practice (i.e. homework) worksheet on Islam. It’s a short reading with a few questions. While I wrote it to send home as homework, it could be used as the basis for a lesson on the many conceptual aspects of Islam students should probably understand: monotheism, prophets and prophecy, obligation, religious and otherwise, intellectual and religious lineage, and sectarianism, just to name a few.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Bunraku: Japanese puppet theater. Developed during the Tokugawa period, the most important bunraku plays were written by Chikamitsu Monzaemon. The dolls, about three feet in size, are remarkably lifelike; they are operated by their puppet masters who sit on stage and move about with their puppets. The musical narrative (joruri) is chanted by a reciter (gidayu) to the accompaniment of instruments. Many of the same plays have been adapted to kabuki drama.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged asian-pacific history, drama/theater, readings/research
Here is an independent practice worksheet on Shinto. Incidentally, if you are a fan of Marie Kondo, you may find in this worksheet the basis of her approach to simplifying life by exercising some discipline over the accumulation of possessions. I actually read her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, which I found helpful. I recognized immediately its underlying Shinto principles; so I wasn’t terrible surprised when Ms. Kondo mentioned her time as a Shinto shrine maiden.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Days and months are travellers of eternity. So are the years that pass by.”
The Narrow Road to the Deep North (translation by Nobuyuki Yuasa)
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
OK: here is an independent practice worksheet on samurai. This material is fundamental to understanding feudal Japan, as well as one of the greatest films of all time, Akira Kurosawa’s masterful (I was going to say masterpiece, but Kurosawa produced many masterpieces) Seven Samurai.
If you’ve seen The Magnificent Seven, than you’ve seen Seven Samurai–though arguably a lesser version of it.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Bushido: (Japanese, ‘way of the warrior‘) At first an unwritten code of ethics, devised for the moral and spiritual guidance of the entire military class by military leaders during the Kamakura period, bushido was codified during the Tokugawa regime. Emphasis was always placed upon personal and reciprocal loyalty and duty, both among and between samurai and lord. By the Tokugawa period, the code had evolved to incorporate both the aesthetic and ascetic elements that are contained in Zen discipline.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
OK, last but not least this morning, this week’s Text, in this blog’s ongoing observation of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2020, here is a reading on Zen along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“The Satanic Verses: A novel (1988) by Salman Rushdie (b.1947). Questions of faith and doubt underlie this panoramic vision of the clash of cultures between East and West, which encompasses Britain during the Thatcherite era, India, and the mystical landscape in which the Prophet Mahound does battle. The ‘satanic verses’ are whispered by Shaitan in the ear of Mahound, who then repudiates them:
‘The devil came to him in the guise of the archangel, so that the verses he memorized…were not the real thing but its diabolical opposite, not godly, but satanic.’
The novel gave offense to Muslims for certain remarks put into the mouths of its characters. As a result, a Muslim fatwa (legal ruling) was issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, the religious leader of Iran, declaring Rushdie and apostate who should be killed for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. On 24 September 1998, after Rushdie had spent the intervening period in hiding, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran announced that it had no intention, nor would it take any action, to threaten Rushdie’s life or anybody associated with his work, or encourage or assist anybody to do so.”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
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