Muhammad & Mecca Essay Example for Free

Muhammad Mecca Essay Muhammad, whose name was taken from the Arabic word hamada which means â€Å"to praise, to glorify,† was born in Mecca, Western Arabia, in 570 CE to Abd bin Al-Muttalib and Amina bint Wahb. His parents were believed to be descendants of Abraham and Hagar, the Egyptian slave who mothered Abraham’s son, Ishmael. The story goes that Abraham fled to Mecca with Hagar and Ishmael after his wife, Sarah, also gave birth to a baby boy (Isaac) and became extremely jealous of Hagar and Ishmael. It was with the assistance of Ishmael that Abraham later built the Ka’bah, Islam’s holiest sanctuary, in Mecca. It is now the destination of pilgrims during the hajj (Fisher. 2005). Muhammad married at the age of twenty-five to Khadijah, a forty-year-old businesswoman who owned the caravans which he was managing at the time. His wife later became his main source of support when he was experiencing difficulties during the early years of his mission. Muhammad recounted an incident which happened when he was forty years old. As his story went, an angel appeared to him when he was in a cave in Mt. Hira during one of his spiritual retreats and told him to recite something. Because he was illiterate, he reportedly refused three times. However, the angel insisted and when Muhammad, at last, relented, the angel gave him the words that would later become the Qur’an’s first words. That was the first of a series of revelations, the exact words of which had been: Proclaim! (or Recite! ) In the name Of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created – Created man, out of A (mere) clot Of congealed blood: Proclaim! And thy Lord Is Most Bountiful,- He Who taught (The use of) the Pen,- Taught man that Which he knew not (Fisher, 2005). That first revelation undoubtedly referred to the creation. It was followed by more revelations which occurred intermittently. Muhammad described the revelations as follows: â€Å"Revelation sometimes comes like the sound of a bell; that is the most painful way. When it ceases I have remembered what was said. Sometimes it is an angel who talks to me like a human, and I remember what he says. † Initially, Muhammad only shared what was revealed to him with his wife and the few people who believed him. However, after three years had elapsed, he was instructed to start preaching to the public what he had received from the revelations (Fisher, 2005). Although he succeeded in winning converts to Islam, his group was persecuted by the Qurayshites (the aristocrats) in spite of the protection provided by his influential uncle, and exiled to an isolated place where they were forced to eat the leaves of trees and the wild foods they could gather in order to survive. The persecution persisted even after his band of Muslim converts was allowed to go back to Mecca after three years. The darkest period in Muhammad’s life was when he turned fifty. It was called the â€Å"Year of Sorrows† because his wife and his uncle who was protecting him died. The Islamic tradition explained that it was approximately during that period of hardship that the â€Å"Night of Ascension† occurred. It was claimed to be the occasion when Muhammad was supposed to have ascended into heaven and met the earlier prophets like Adam, Abraham, and Jesus Christ in Divine proximity, observed what hell and paradise were, and was later blessed by the Divine Presence (Fisher, 2005). As a consequence of the persistent Qurayshite persecution that they experienced in Mecca, however, Muhammad and his Muslim followers decided to leave Mecca and head for Medina in 622 CE. Their migration, which was referred to as the hijrah, is now considered as the beginning of the Muslim era. (Risher, 2005).

Madness and Insanity in Shakespeares Hamlet - Insanity and Hamlet :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Hamlet and Insanity  Ã‚   The following five paragraphs will cover the point of: What is insainity? How does Hamlet tie in with insainity? What or who is the cause of insainity? While I try to overcome these questions to tackle the true answers, you will be thinking and deciding for yourself if Hamlet is "insane" or not. What does insainity? The Webster's New World Dictionary--Third College Edition defines it as "mentally ill or deranged; demented; mad; senseless." My defintion is not as cruel as the dictionary's definition. My opinion of someone that is insane is they don't necessarily have all of their marbles. The definition in the dictionary kind of explains my definition which is someone that is not paying close attention to those around them. The way people just throw the word insane aroud makes it seem as if it's not a real sickness. But the thing is that people don't realize that it's not something they should joke about. About three or four years ago, there was a song that was titled "Sane" and in one part they said, "...you're insane, got no brain..." So this little line in the song is also part of the true meaning of insainity. Is Hamlet crazy? I personally don't feel that Hamlet is crazy. I think that because the Queen didn't want to face her past with her first "true" husband, she labelled Hamlet as someone that is "mentally ill, or mad." When we had the discussion of what do we think about the topic of your parents paid one of your friends to talk to you to see if you're okay, I think we also covered some good points to defend both sides of the arguement. On one hand people were saying that what the Queen did was wrong because she shouldn't have someone to talk to her son but that she should do it for herself. And on the other side of the arguement, people were saying that they would talk to their friend for the parent but not if they were going to get paid. I don't think that Hamlet is crazy, I feel that he just needed to get his thoughts to gether because he was still trying to comprehend that fact that his mother got married to his uncle and she didn't even seem to care about what he felt. What is the cause of someone being insane or who?

Zurkhaneh

‘The House of Strength’ Before western influence, ancient Iranians participated in numerous sporting events, much like the Greeks and their Olympics. Iranians though prided themselves in a type of wrestling called â€Å"Koshti Pahlavani† or â€Å"Heroic Wrestling†, where they would do graceful but powerful moves to pin their opponents. In order to train for events such as this, they developed a place to go to gain the strength, power, and endurance necessary to master their event. This place was known as the â€Å"Zurkhaneh† or â€Å"House of Strength†.The Zurkhaneh was originally a place to train and get closer to God, through weight training, because strength was seen as something godly. The Zurkhaneh housed the one true Iranian way of weight training, â€Å"Varzesh-e-Pahlavni† or â€Å"The Workout of Heroes†. This workout was a 60-90 minute routine of different lifts and exercises all in alignment to the beat of drums and bell s. Now although there are many technical parts to the Zurkhaneh, like who leads it and different levels and rankings (much like those of Karate and Tae Kwon Do), I am going to focus specifically on the weight training aspect of the Varzesh.These exercises include the warm-ups, â€Å"Takhteh-Shena†, â€Å"Narmesh† (aka Calisthenics), â€Å"Meel† exercises, â€Å"Charkhidan†, â€Å"Pazadan†, â€Å"Kabbadeh Keshidan†, â€Å"Sang† exercises, and â€Å"Shelang-Takhteh†. Each part of the full exercise fully works different parts of the person’s body. In the 90 minute period, the people in the Zurkhaneh start by warming up. They do callisthenic exercises like jumping on one foot and slow walking to achieve a dynamic stretch. They use the dynamic stretch as a way to prepare for the rigorous exercise they have ahead of them. Right after this warm-up, the people start doing pushups with the â€Å"Takhteh-Shena†.The â€Å"T akhteh-Shena† is a wooden plank that elevates you a little bit so that you do incline push-ups instead of flat push-ups. There are a few types of push-ups that they do including a regular push-up with the hip raised, a push-up with the legs spread wide-apart, and push-ups with a twist. These push-ups deliver a good chest and bicep workout, testing endurance as well as flexibility. Once they finish these push-up exercises, they do another round of calisthenics to further stretch their muscles for what is ahead. The next exercise in the lineup is the â€Å"Meel Greiftan† or â€Å"Club Exercises.The â€Å"Meel† is a giant club weighing 10-30 kg (or 22-66 lbs) that is used in a few more exercises. This is the most physically demanding of the exercises because of the sheer weight of the clubs. This workout works power as well as strength, making it a great beginning to a workout. What the people do with these clubs first is put their hands around the handle and then twist the club around their shoulders in a continuous circular motion. This full motion gives an upper body workout, primarily to the triceps, and shoulders (with some bicep workout).Immediately succeeding this exercise is the exercise of juggling these clubs. The lifters throw the clubs in the air and juggle them. They do use smaller weights, and only a specific specialized group of them will do this activity. It is a break for them. The juggling does test hand-eye coordination but also uses biceps and triceps but isn’t as draining as the spinning of the clubs. Once this is completed they move on to the endurance part of their exercise. The â€Å"Charkhidan† is a rotating or spinning dance that they do in the Zurkhaneh. This dance is a constant spin that gets progressively faster.The person is supposed to reach their max speed before the end of the dance. This spinning increases their balance and agility. The more skillful spinners lose complete dizziness and can spin for a lengthy period of time. The time and speed are crucial in this exercise because if the person doesn’t go for a lengthy time and high speed, they won’t work endurance. Endurance is the main reason for this exercise. Following this dance is a set of footwork drills. These set as another break in the workout, with continuing movement being the main motivation. The footwork drills really are what we call warm-ups.They jump on one foot or two feet while moving their arms in different directions. This constant stretching helps the muscles tear and repair faster so that the person will not feel as much pain after the exercise. Now mind you, all of these exercises were meant to train warriors. The next few exercises were aimed towards ancient Persian warriors. The next part of the routine is the pulling of â€Å"Kabbadeh† or iron bow. This bow varies from 10-50kg (22-110 lbs) based on how many weights the bow has on the metallic chain. It is a very difficult exer cise and is only done by those who are masters at it.What you do with the bow is you put it at arm length away from your body, and you shake it violently in a 360 degree motion around your head. You do this until you cannot do it anymore. As you can see, this becomes extremely tiring, working the triceps, chest and shoulders heavily. This trains power and endurance because you are using high weights at a high velocity of shaking while doing it for a long period of time. This exercise is meant to be done in minutes not seconds. To also help balance, some athletes spin in a circle while shaking the bow. What I feel is the most demanding upper body exercises is one of the last ones.This is a unilateral push of shields or â€Å"sang†. These wooden shields are about 20kg a piece, totaling to a 90 lbs. press. Each arm extends with the shield in hand while doing what is widely known as a Russian twist. The athlete may not let the two shields touch and the shields may not touch the g round until they do the minimum of 50 double rotations. This is seen as a major disrespect to the gym. It is clear already that this exercise works endurance and not so much power because there are so many repetitions. The person (with their legs elevated 6 inches above ground) twists their body while simultaneously pushing the latter shield upwards.This unilateral push works out the chest and triceps while the elevated legs work the core. As you can see, this, along with other Iranian exercises stretches the body while simultaneously working the upper body. Another way of lifting them is straight up, just like a dumbbell unilateral bench press, but that is used more with the novices. Immediately following this is a round of â€Å"Koshti† or wrestling. The people in the Zurkhaneh are very tired and must use the rest of their body in the wrestling match, seeing as their upper body is completely worked.This leads into the final exercise. The last exercise, which is part of the warm down, is a walk that gradually increases to a run and finally to a sprint around the room. In no part of this training session do they do a static stretch. This shows how even in the ancient times, they knew that stretching and warming down with movement was beneficial to muscle repair. After the run, the athletes proceed to do jumping activities and sprints. The most enjoyable part of this exercise is at the end where the athletes get in a circle and massage each other down.They tend to focus on the upper body, seeing as most of the workout was aimed towards upper body performance. This massaging helps reduce muscle pain after the training session and in the morning. The training in these â€Å"Houses of Strength† show that there were ancient ways of weight training and that even without modern science, the ideals of strength and fitness remained the same. The Iranian heroic training stresses upper body lifting as well as the importance of core exercises. A heavy traini ng of balance, endurance, and the triceps is used because in wrestling and battle they are essential to victory.Overall this weight training technique is effective because of its effect on the toning and conditioning of humans and their muscles. The â€Å"Varzesh-e-Pahlavani† is a pioneer of modern weight training. Works Cited www. pahlavani. com/ www. zurkhaneh. com Koozehchian, Hashem & Izadi, Behzad, Zoorkhaneh: The Iranian Traditional Gymnasium Amirtash, Ali-Mohamad, Zoorkhaneh and Varzesh-E-Bastani, Video Reference http://resistancetraining. wordpress. com/2006/11/19/traditional-iranian-martial-arts-varzesh-e-pahlavani/

The Kugelmass Episode - 843 Words

Connie Wilson-Prewitt Mr. Pyda MWF 10-10:50 3/8/13 In the story The Kugelmass Episode, Woody Allen takes the reader on an exciting journey through time and literature that keeps you begging for more. Professor Kugelmass is a middle-aged teacher at City College in New York City. He seems to be unfulfilled and bored with his life as a whole. The real world is far too drab for his liking and so he sets out to change his life but ultimately ends up turning his world upside down. Allen uses colorful dialogue to first disconnect the reader from the main character, bring irony and humor to the story, and use that humor to teach the reader a thing or two about being satisfied and happy with what you have. Kugelmass has been married†¦show more content†¦Seriously, how many times does this have to blow up in his face before he learns his lesson? The Kugelmass Episode can be used as an example for how not to live your life. Think about it, if the title character had married for love instead of looks and money, he would have never gotten himself into this mess. Yet the reader still holds out hope that by the end of the story he will have learned his lesson. It is that type of hope that makes this story such a great read. Even though Kugelmass can be described as a sad pathetic man that wouldn’t know happiness if it kicked him in the head, there is still hope that he might learn his lesson. Who knows? Maybe if he ever gets himself out of Remedial Spanish he will finally learn to be happy with what heShow MoreRelatedThe Kugelmass Episode By Woody Allen2537 Words   |  11 PagesThe Kugelmass Episode â€Å"The Kugelmass Episode† is a very amusing short story, with humor resulting from the employment of devices such as satire and irony along with a network of absurdities and incongruities. In the story, Woody Allen takes the reader on a journey through time and literature. Professor Kugelmass is a middle-aged teacher at City College in New York City, who is unfulfilled and bored with his life. Wanting to have an affair to escape his unhappy marriage, he seeks the help of a magician-entertainer