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Essay / Shintoism and the Islamic response
To understand Japan, its people and its culture; is to understand Shintoism. Shintoism is the ancient religion of Japan. It is rooted in Japanese culture and traditions and is therefore synonymous with Japanese identity. The Shinto religion focuses primarily on ancestral and natural spirits. It is a religion considered polytheistic, animistic and also pantheistic, although it is not considered a "religion" in the same sense as the Abrahamic religions. In this essay we will mention the belief system, worship and worldly system of Shintoism as well as the Islamic perspective and response to Shintoism in the light of the Quran and Sunnah. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essay “The Way of the Gods” Shintoism has an unknown date of origin and was known only through tradition and practice oral. Originating perhaps as early as 1000 BCE and its main tenants as early as 4 BCE. All written sources on Shinto only came into existence once writing was introduced to Japan by the Chinese, and with the intention of distinguishing this indigenous belief from Buddhism and Confucianism when they were imported from China and the Korean Peninsula in the 6th century (Hirai, 2019). The core of Shinto belief lies in the veneration of Kami (singular and plural), best translated as sacred/revered guardian spirits, a spiritual essence, loosely like divine beings or gods. But this is an “oversimplification of a complex concept”, because there is a great diversity of types of Kami (“Kami”, 2009). Kami can be “human kami and natural “animist” kami, and ancestral kami”. The Kami in the animist sense are phenomena, forces of nature like the wind, components of the environment like the mountains. The Kami, whose main place of worship is at Shinto shrines, are equally present in everything – living and non-living. Thus the Kami are immanent; in and of this world, between humanity and nature, and between humanity and nature itself, neither separate nor transcendent. Amaterasu, the sun goddess, is the major and most important "deity" and rules over all the Kami. It is important to understand that the Kami are not "worshiped" or considered supreme beings in the same sense that Muslims worship and see God, but the Kami are offered prayers, praises and offerings, rituals are executed and are believed to somewhat influence human events. . Although they are revered, they are not considered omnipotent or omniscient. This fundamental belief of Shintoism, namely the nature of Kami, is in complete opposition to the monotheistic Islamic belief of the unity of God – Tawheed. Allah is the Supreme Deity, “Say: “He is Allah [who is] One. Allah the Eternal Refuge”, who is Almighty and All-Controlling, without partner or associate on earth among the creation: “Or have they other deities who ordered them a religion to which Allah did not consent?...". Allah rejects all inanimate objects and abstract concepts to which we attribute some kind of power: “Do they associate with Him things which create nothing and which are themselves created? ". Ancestral reverence is vehemently obliterated in Islamic belief, as is believed once a person dies. , they cannot return to wander and dwell among humans on earth as spirits. They enter the kingdom of Barzakh, an impassable separation: “…behind them is a barrier until the day they will be resurrected” (Quran, al-Mu'minūn: 100). Therefore, it contradicts logic that they can.