Major Primary Source Paper: The Koran

One day, an old man named Shaul said to his grandson Simeon "It is time you learned the story of our people. I want to tell you about a tragic time for the Israelites, the time we spent in Egypt. Luckily for us we had a great man named Moses on our side. If it weren 't for Moses our people would still be enslaved by the pharaoh . "I was only a boy then, just about your age," Shaul started.

In The Ten Commandments, the Middle East, represented as Egypt, is depicted as literally ancient, because the story takes place in roughly 1300 to 1200 B.C.E. It is a dusty dry desert inhabited by Hebrews and Egyptians, as well as camels and it is portrayed through stereotypical shots of the pyramids, sphinxes, and other Egyptian monuments, many of which were still being constructed, thus dating Egypt as ancient. The fact that slavery was still prevalent in Egypt also presented the region as archaic and backwards. It is also presented as a place of false religion and mysticism.

“SHISHAK THE KING OF EGYPT” Pharaoh Shishak/Shishaq was a powerful Egyptian king that attacked Jerusalem when Rehoboam the son of Solomon was crowned king of Israel. When Rehoboam’s kingdom was fully established and strong, he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him. In the fifth year of his reign Shishak the king of Egypt came against him with 1,200 chariots, 60,000 horsemen, and innumerable African soldiers in allies with the Lubim (Libyans), the Sukkiims and the Ethiopians, and invaded Jerusalem. The Egyptian king Shishak and his African allies took away all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house, and carried away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made. Shishak was a North African

The beliefs and religion of the Sumerians and Egyptians lead to stable conditions for civilizations. The Sumerians were polytheistic, people believing in many gods. There has been over 3,000 gods and goddesses identified. For Sumerians, the most prominent building in the city was the temple. Ziggurats are massive towers dedicated to the chief god or goddess of their city which also stored surplus of food.

Before we can learn from an amazing man, we first need to know where he came from. According to the book Exodus, Moses was born around 1391 BC. During this time; Hebrew’s were slaves for the Egyptians for 400 years, but the population was rising at high levels. An order by the Egyptian Pharaoh, said that all newborn Hebrew males had to be drowned in the Nile River so that no one could grow up and fight against him. As just a newborn, Moses’s life was not going to be easy one.

This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance. . The book of Exodus is one of the best known books of the Old Testament.

I also found very interesting the ten plagues sent by God upon Egypt when Pharaoh did not want to let the Israelis to leave. Pharaoh thought that by his high degree of hierarchy could disobey God. He paid his disobedience with the death of his firstborn child. Obviously, Pharaoh did not know that when God says something is better to obey, otherwise we will pay the consequences. As the scripture tell us, “We must obey God” (Acts 5:29).

Do Muslims Celebrate Christmas? Some people ask why Muslims do not celebrate Christmas? Is that because they do not agree 25th of December as Jesus birthday? Or is that because they say Christians believe in Jesus as son of God, while Muslims do not believe in trinity, as well as they believe that Islam is the religion that is more complete than Christianity and all other religions that came in the past; the same way that Christians believe that Christianity is a more complete religion than Judaism.

The Bible and the the Quran are the basic sources and the core of all later thoughts and ideas in their respective traditions. Each book is an indispensable part of a Christian or Muslim individual since birth. As Seyyed Hossein Nasr, in his introduction to The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary (2015), justly acknowledges “the Quran is the constant companion of Muslims in the journey of life” (35). The book is an active part of the daily lives of men and it serves as a guide throughout people’s existence. In fact, countless phrases of each book have become part of the everyday speech of people.

The early Islamic period has an undeniable impact on shaping the Middle East. In the pre-Islamic age, Sassanid and Byzantine Empires were superior forces in the Middle East, which had their own political autonomy and civilization. However, the emergence of Islamic civilization, the superiority and impact of these two empires broke down, and the Middle East started to be reshaped and ruled by Arab-Muslims. The early Islamic era contributed significant alterations to the Middle East, including the religion of Islam, well-organized administration, urbanism, and social changes. However, according to some scholars, such changes have a pre-Islamic character which implies that reshaping of the Middle East started before the emergence of Islam (Bennison

A Sinner Black Veil In the story “The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the reader can infer that Mr. Hooper teaches his community the lesson that everyone wears a black veil and has secret sins that are hidden from others. The author states that “if I cover it for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?” In addition, Mr. Hooper wearing the black veil puzzles his community. The reason for that is that a priest does not wear a black veil and preaches in front of everyone in an act of betrayal of the belief in Jesus.