- Harrisonburg, VA
M. Afzal Upal
James Madison University, School of Integrated Sciences, Faculty Member
- Defence Research and Development Canada, Socio-Cognitive Systems Section, Faculty MemberMercyhurst University, Computing & Information Science (CIS), Department MemberUniversity of Wisconsin-Platteville, Computer Science & Software Engineering, Department Memberadd
- A cognitive scientist who works on developing a truly integrated science approach to understand changes in shared bel... moreA cognitive scientist who works on developing a truly integrated science approach to understand changes in shared beliefs of various types of groups. I draw from a variety of social science approaches (such as social identity theory) as well as computer science-based approach of agent-based social simulations to understand changes in social beliefs of artificial societies of various configurations. My work focuses on the role of social identity entrepreneurs in driving changes in social identity beliefs of their ingroups.edit
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With an increasing number of Western Muslims falling prey to violent extremist ideologies and joining Jihadi organizations such as Al-Qaida and the ISIS, Western policy makers have been concerned with preventing radicalization of Muslim... more
With an increasing number of Western Muslims falling prey to violent extremist ideologies and joining Jihadi organizations such as Al-Qaida and the ISIS, Western policy makers have been concerned with preventing radicalization of Muslim youth. This has resulted in a number of government sponsored efforts (e.g., MyJihad, Sabahi, and Maghrebia (Briggs and Feve 2013)) to counter extremist propaganda by arguing that extremist violent tactics used by Jihadist organizations are not congruent with Islamic tenets of kindness and just war. Despite the expenditure of significant resources since 2001, these efforts have had limited success. This article argues that in order to succeed we need to better understand Muslim core social identity beliefs (i.e., their perception of what it means to be a good Muslim) and how these beliefs are connected to Muslims perceptions of Westerners. A better understanding of the interdependent nature and dynamics of these beliefs will allow us to design counter...
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Thispaper presents thearchitecture ofamultiagent society (MAS)designed tostudy thedynamics ofbelief change in natural andartificial societies. Italso presents amultiagent domain called Multiagent WumpusWorld(MWW) designed totestthe... more
Thispaper presents thearchitecture ofamultiagent society (MAS)designed tostudy thedynamics ofbelief change in natural andartificial societies. Italso presents amultiagent domain called Multiagent WumpusWorld(MWW) designed totestthe capabilities oftheproposed MAS. Italsoreports ona setof experiments designed tostudy theformation offalse social beliefs. Ourresults indicate that morefalse beliefs arelikely tobegenerated aboutobjects/events whosepresence isharder toconfirm or disconfirm.
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The Influence of Integration and Counterintuitiveness on Memory for Text M. Afzal Upal Influence & Effects Research Group Adversarial Intent Section Defence Research & Development Canada Toronto Mary Harmon-Vukic Psychology Department... more
The Influence of Integration and Counterintuitiveness on Memory for Text M. Afzal Upal Influence & Effects Research Group Adversarial Intent Section Defence Research & Development Canada Toronto Mary Harmon-Vukic Psychology Department Providence College Abstract: Recent studies suggest that counterintuitive ideas embedded in stories facilitate their subsequent recall, thus increasing the likelihood that such stories survive time and space. However, it could be that structure of coun- terintuitive stories affects memory rather than the distinctiveness of their contents. Indeed, Harmon-Vukic and Slone (2009) demonstrated that integration of story information eliminated the counterintuitiveness effect. The purpose of the present experiment was to further explore the influence of integration on memory for counterintuitive concepts. Participants were presented with a story containing elements that were either intuitive, minimally counterintuitive, or maximally counterintuitive. In additi...
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We carried out two category norming studies (repeating MacRae 2005) to empirically examine Barrett’s (2008) notion of intuitive expectation sets as a coherent set of categorical expectations that are strongly correlated with each other.... more
We carried out two category norming studies (repeating MacRae 2005) to empirically examine Barrett’s (2008) notion of intuitive expectation sets as a coherent set of categorical expectations that are strongly correlated with each other. The studies validate some aspects of Barrett’s handcrafted list of intuitive sets and suggest removal as well as addition of some properties. The revised table of intuitive expectation sets is presented below: Solid Objects (a) are hard, rigid, and firm (b) are heavy (c) have a mass (d) are tangible (e) are visible Living Things (a) breathe (b) eat food (c) reproduce (d) move (e) grow (f) vulnerable to injury & death Animals (a) have limbs (b) have blood & heart (c) have a mind (d) have a mind (e) have emotions Mental Beings (a) think (b) are human (c) are animals (d) are intelligent (e) perceive (f) self-aware (g) talk to others (h) understand language.
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Traditional cognitive scientists of religion (CSR) have argued that memorability for minimally counterintuitive concepts is a distinct phenomenon unconnected with distinctiveness effect and the von restorff effect. I argue that this... more
Traditional cognitive scientists of religion (CSR) have argued that memorability for minimally counterintuitive concepts is a distinct phenomenon unconnected with distinctiveness effect and the von restorff effect. I argue that this assumption flies in the face of cognitive science bias towards unified theories of cognition which dictates that we should assume that two similar seeming behaviors arise from the same cognitive processes unless we have strong evidence to believe otherwise. Furthermore, the traditional CSR approach is unable to explain the success of some of the most widespread religious beliefs such as the belief in God or spread of religious concepts (such as NRM beliefs) in the modern world. The context-based model not only redeems the historical and sociocultural study of religion as an essential complement for a cognitive science of religion, but it also provides a systematic way of integrating the two in developing a truly scientific approach to the study of religion.
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The Aḥmadiyya Muslim Jamāʿat with its belief in prophethood for its founder Mirzā Ghulām Aḥmad, has long been considered an enigma by scholars of South Asian Islam. This chapter complements recent attempts to understand various influences... more
The Aḥmadiyya Muslim Jamāʿat with its belief in prophethood for its founder Mirzā Ghulām Aḥmad, has long been considered an enigma by scholars of South Asian Islam. This chapter complements recent attempts to understand various influences on Aḥmad’s thoughts. It explores the influence of rationalistic reform movement led by Khan. I perform a careful comparison of their writings to explore the similarities and differences and analyse why Aḥmad employed rationalistic techniques sometimes but not at other times and why. Taken in conjunction with recent work, such as that of Friedman (1992) and Khan (2015) that explains that Aḥmad’s claims about a high spiritual status were not entirely out of line with those made by Ṣūfis such as Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindi, and that Aḥmad’s anti-taqlīd beliefs were not entirely out of line with those of Ahl-e-Ḥadīth (Upal 2016), I argue here that Aḥmad’s rationalist beliefs were not entirely out of line with those of Khan’s naturalism. Aḥmad was certainly unique in his combination of these strands and Aḥmadiyya Jamāʿat is certainly in a unique position among Islam inspired movements as fiercely clinging to their identity as Muslims while believing in a prophet after Muḥammad. Despite these claims or perhaps because of them, Aḥmadiyya Muslims are persecuted in many Muslim majority countries around the world. This is especially true in Pakistan where the movement was based until 1984 (it has been based out of London, UK since 1984). Pakistan’s constitution was modified twice (in 1974 and 1984) to make propagation and practice of Aḥmadiyya beliefs a punishable offense. The anti-Aḥmadiyya hostility is not limited to the government but is widespread among Pakistani public. This means that they also face widespread discrimination in the private job market, admissions to educational institutions, as well as in public service.
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students to read a culturally unfamiliar Native North American folk tale called “the war of the ghosts ” and retell it to others in writing who then retold it to others. Over
Automated Extraction of Weighted Semantic Maps From Texts to Study Cultural Differences M. Afzal Upal Effects & Influence Research Group Socio-cognitive Systems Section Defence Research & Development Canada-Toronto Abstract: Semantic maps... more
Automated Extraction of Weighted Semantic Maps From Texts to Study Cultural Differences M. Afzal Upal Effects & Influence Research Group Socio-cognitive Systems Section Defence Research & Development Canada-Toronto Abstract: Semantic maps are a graphical knowledge representation scheme in which nodes represent concepts and edges between them represent connections between concepts. Weighted semantic maps are semantic maps that have weights assigned to edges to correspond to the strength of the connection between two concepts. The objective of the work reported here was to investigate the feasibility of automatically extracting weighted semantic maps of various concepts from writings of two different cultural groups to see if they can help in understanding cross-cultural differences. We used a modified version of ICAN algorithm to create weighted semantic graphs of concepts such as Jihad and God from Quran and Hamas postings on the web. We found interesting differences between the sem...
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Thispaper presents thearchitecture ofamultiagent society (MAS)designed tostudy thedynamics ofbelief change in natural andartificial societies. Italso presents amultiagent domain called Multiagent WumpusWorld(MWW) designed totestthe... more
Thispaper presents thearchitecture ofamultiagent society (MAS)designed tostudy thedynamics ofbelief change in natural andartificial societies. Italso presents amultiagent domain called Multiagent WumpusWorld(MWW) designed totestthe capabilities oftheproposed MAS. Italsoreports ona setof experiments designed tostudy theformation offalse social beliefs. Ourresults indicate that morefalse beliefs arelikely tobegenerated aboutobjects/events whosepresence isharder toconfirm or disconfirm.
Introduction Cultures are dynamic realities. Human societies are continuously experiencing waves of fashions, fads, crazes, revivals, new religious movements, and political ideologies. Not all such trends are equally successful at... more
Introduction Cultures are dynamic realities. Human societies are continuously experiencing waves of fashions, fads, crazes, revivals, new religious movements, and political ideologies. Not all such trends are equally successful at transforming the beliefs and behavior of the ...
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Recently, there has been considerable work on mechanisms for maintaining and updating agent reputations to discourage deception among agents engaged in some form of commerce. Information is a special commodity not like any other economic... more
Recently, there has been considerable work on mechanisms for maintaining and updating agent reputations to discourage deception among agents engaged in some form of commerce. Information is a special commodity not like any other economic commodities. This paper presents a ...
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Does Narrative Transportation Facilitate Memory for Counterintuitive Concepts? M. Afzal Upal Leader of Effects & Influence Research Group Defence R & D Canada Toronto Abstract: A series of studies carried out over the last two decades... more
Does Narrative Transportation Facilitate Memory for Counterintuitive Concepts? M. Afzal Upal Leader of Effects & Influence Research Group Defence R & D Canada Toronto Abstract: A series of studies carried out over the last two decades have shown that those people who allow themselves to be immersed in a story are more likely to experience its persuasive effects (Green, Sasota & Jones 2010). A number of studies carried out by cognitive scientists of religion have shown that people better remember counterintuitive ideas embedded in stories (Upal et al. 2007). This paper reports on a study carried out to test the hypothesis that narrative transportation facilitates memory for counterintuitive concepts i.e., more someone is transported into a story, the better memory they will have for counterintuitive concepts embedded in the story. Participants read 3 stories (each containing 6 counterintuitive concepts) with different narrative transportation levels and completed the narrative transp...
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Previous work suggests that minimally counterintuitive concepts (i.e., those with one or two domain violations) are more memorable than concepts that are either intuitive or overly (i.e., maximally) counterintuitive (Boyer 1994; Boyer and... more
Previous work suggests that minimally counterintuitive concepts (i.e., those with one or two domain violations) are more memorable than concepts that are either intuitive or overly (i.e., maximally) counterintuitive (Boyer 1994; Boyer and Ramble, 2001). However, little research has specifically investigated memory for maximally counterintuitive concepts. The current study was designed to examine memory performance for maximally counterintuitive stories. The results showed that context appears to play an important role in memory for counterintuitive ideas. Such results are consistent with Upal’s (2005; 2009) context-based view of memory for counterintuitive ideas.
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This paper presents an agent-based social simulation model of the emergence of fashion-like collective behavior designed to explore the role of individual interest and ability to adopt a fashion trend in the spread of a fashion trend.... more
This paper presents an agent-based social simulation model of the emergence of fashion-like collective behavior designed to explore the role of individual interest and ability to adopt a fashion trend in the spread of a fashion trend. Results of our simulations show that taking these factors into account leads to more predictive models of fashion-like behavior in populations in a variety of environmental conditions. Fashion as Collective Behavior Ramya Alexander & M. Afzal Upal Fashion, variously defined, has held the interest of a number of social scientists over the years. Young (1930) defines it as a style is adopted by a crowd. Style is defined to be a characteristic or dominant "mode or method of expression, presentation or conception in the field of some art" [Nystrom 1928]. Styles appear and disappear in clothes, ornamentation, architecture, vehicles, conversation, vocabulary, music, literature, art, religion, and philosophy. Simmel [1904] argues that there are two ...
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This paper presents a step-by-step process that can be used by information operation specialists to design memorable messages for a target audience.
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This paper reports on a study designed to investigate how people understand superhuman concepts that are of interest to cognitive scientists of religion. Similar to findings of previous studies of surprising social conceptual... more
This paper reports on a study designed to investigate how people understand superhuman concepts that are of interest to cognitive scientists of religion. Similar to findings of previous studies of surprising social conceptual combinations, we found that people generated numerous emergent properties for such concepts. These results support the knowledge-based models of conceptual combination.
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In this chapter we argue against the assumption – common among security offi cials and laypeople alike – that narratives are just stories and ideas that people readily accept and are thus equally willing to dismiss. Through narrating,... more
In this chapter we argue against the assumption – common among security offi cials and laypeople alike – that narratives are just stories and ideas that people readily accept and are thus equally willing to dismiss. Through narrating, people actively construct, negotiate, and experience identity. With this view, attacking a person’s stories and ideas is the same as attacking their sense of self, both personally and in terms of the groups with which they identify. The realization of this has signifi cant implications for policies such as the US “war of ideas.”
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Stories containing counterintuitive concepts are prevalent in a variety of cultural forms including folktales, TV and radio commercials, and religious parables. Cognitive scientists such as Boyer [2, 3] suggest that this may be because... more
Stories containing counterintuitive concepts are prevalent in a variety of cultural forms including folktales, TV and radio commercials, and religious parables. Cognitive scientists such as Boyer [2, 3] suggest that this may be because counterintuitive concepts are surprising and more memorable for people and therefore are more likely to become widespread in a culture. How and why people remember such concepts has been subject of some debate. This paper presents studies designed to test predictions of the context-based model of counterintuitive story understanding.
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This chapter will critically review existing approaches to the modeling transmission of cultural information and advocate a new approach based on a new generation of agent-based social simulation systems. It will outline how such systems... more
This chapter will critically review existing approaches to the modeling transmission of cultural information and advocate a new approach based on a new generation of agent-based social simulation systems. It will outline how such systems can be useful for studying the formation of patterns of widely shared cultural beliefs.
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... Effect of Communication on Belief Dynamics in Multi-Agent Systems by Ravikanth Sama Wednesday, November 28, 2007 11:00 AM EECS Conference Room (NI 2004) Committee Members Dr. Kami Makki (advisor) Dr. Devinder Kaur Dr. Hilda Standley
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Counterintuitive concepts have been identified as major aspects of religious belief, and have been used to explain the retention and transmission of such beliefs. To resolve some inconsistencies in the literature concerning... more
Counterintuitive concepts have been identified as major aspects of religious belief, and have been used to explain the retention and transmission of such beliefs. To resolve some inconsistencies in the literature concerning counterintuitiveness, we conducted three experiments to study the effect of context on recall. Five types of items were used: intuitive, minimally counterintuitive, maximally counterintuitive, minimally counterintuitive with contradictory context, and intuitive with contradictory context. Items were presented with context or without context and participants were asked to recall them. Maximally counterintuitive concepts were found to have the poorest recall in both immediate and delayed recall conditions and regardless of the presence or absence of context. No significant differences were found in the recall rates of minimally counterintuitive concepts and intuitive concepts, although delayed recall affected minimally counterintuitive concepts less than intuitive ...
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Recent research has shown a memory advantage for minimally counterintuitive (MCI) concepts, over concepts that are either intuitive (INT) or maximally counterintuitive (MXCI), although the general result is heavily affected by context.... more
Recent research has shown a memory advantage for minimally counterintuitive (MCI) concepts, over concepts that are either intuitive (INT) or maximally counterintuitive (MXCI), although the general result is heavily affected by context. Items from one such study were given to subjects who were asked to create novel stories using at least three concepts from a list containing all three types. Results indicated a preference for using MCI items (as in the recall studies), and further disclosed two styles of usage, an accommodative style and an assimilative style. The results extend recent memory research and suggest extensions to recent theories intended to explain the prevalence of counterintuitive religious concepts.
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Traditionally cognitive scientists have had little to say about religion (and even less to say about new religious movements (NRMs)) partly because religion is arguably a social phenomenon (Bainbridge et al. 1994) and partly because of... more
Traditionally cognitive scientists have had little to say about religion (and even less to say about new religious movements (NRMs)) partly because religion is arguably a social phenomenon (Bainbridge et al. 1994) and partly because of the pervasive scientific bias of relegating religion to the heap of the irrational, the illogical, and 'a fading vestige of the prescientific times' (Lewis 2003). While sociologists of religion have been studying NRMs, their analysis has been limited to the macro-level. Recent trends in sociology and economics focused on the so called rational choice theories (Iannaccone 1998) and in cognitive sciences of religion (Barrett 2000; Boyer 2001) offer the hope of moving in the direction of a more complete explanation of emergence of new religious movements by providing both macro and micro level analyses. I believe that a closer interaction between these two developments is possible, indeed necessary, for the development of a scientific theory of N...
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Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, Motor Control, and 12 moreSemantic Memory, Cognitive Science of Religion, Synchronization, Circadian Rhythm, Anticipation, Time Delay, Perception and Action, Cognitive systems, Internal Model, Homeostasis, Dynamic System, and Memory Cognitive Psychology
. This year’s proceedings include 13 papers that have been divided into the following five groups: • Group 1 contains papers that use data science to predict some aspect of human behavior. o Winschel uses it to predict scoring behavior... more
. This year’s proceedings include 13 papers that have been divided into the following five groups:
• Group 1 contains papers that use data science to predict some aspect of human behavior.
o Winschel uses it to predict scoring behavior of NBA players.
o Mahmud uses machine learning to predict American voter’s party affiliations.
o Zacherl and Bohara uses machine learning to predict student behavior.
• Group 2 contains papers that analyze social media messages.
o Bahntge analyzes Twitter messages to understand differences between regional uses of the English language.
o Mincewicz analyzes Twitter messages to understand level of violence in demonstrations.
• Group 3 contains papers that use deep learning.
o Sim uses the deep learning model MelGAN-VC to mimic the voice cloning
o Decker uses the masked R-CNN to predicting the position of keypoints on an electric railroad pantograph.
o Vu employs a deep learning model, among others, to distinguish between illegal money laundering transactions and ordinary financial transactions.
• Group 4 contains papers that address mental health issues
o Chuhan analyzes relationship between mental health and employment status.
o Gonzalez studies factors that predict whether someone is likely to seek mental health treatment or not.
• The final paper develops a machine learning model to distinguish benign software from malware.
• Group 1 contains papers that use data science to predict some aspect of human behavior.
o Winschel uses it to predict scoring behavior of NBA players.
o Mahmud uses machine learning to predict American voter’s party affiliations.
o Zacherl and Bohara uses machine learning to predict student behavior.
• Group 2 contains papers that analyze social media messages.
o Bahntge analyzes Twitter messages to understand differences between regional uses of the English language.
o Mincewicz analyzes Twitter messages to understand level of violence in demonstrations.
• Group 3 contains papers that use deep learning.
o Sim uses the deep learning model MelGAN-VC to mimic the voice cloning
o Decker uses the masked R-CNN to predicting the position of keypoints on an electric railroad pantograph.
o Vu employs a deep learning model, among others, to distinguish between illegal money laundering transactions and ordinary financial transactions.
• Group 4 contains papers that address mental health issues
o Chuhan analyzes relationship between mental health and employment status.
o Gonzalez studies factors that predict whether someone is likely to seek mental health treatment or not.
• The final paper develops a machine learning model to distinguish benign software from malware.
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These are proceedings of the Second Annual Data Science Symposium held on May 4, 2019
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In the mid 1950s, a British taxi driver named George King claimed that Budha, Jesus, and Lao Tzu had been alien “cosmic masters” who had come to earth to teach mankind the right way to live. Sun Myung Moon claimed that Korean people are... more
In the mid 1950s, a British taxi driver named George King claimed that Budha, Jesus, and Lao Tzu had been alien “cosmic masters” who had come to earth to teach mankind the right way to live. Sun Myung Moon claimed that Korean people are descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. Joseph Smith claimed that some lost tribes of Israel had moved to Americas hundreds of years ago. All three people successfully founded new religious movements that have survived to this day. How and why do some people come up with such seemingly strange and bizarre ideas and why do others come to place their faith in these ideas? The first part of this book develops a multidisciplinary theoretical framework drawn from cognitive science of religion and social psychology to answer these critically important questions. The second part of the book illustrates how this theoretical framework can be used to understand the origin and evolution of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at founded by an Indian Muslim in 1889. The book breaks new ground by studying the influence that religious beliefs of 19th century reformist Indian Muslims, in particular, founders of the Ahl-e-Hadith movement, had on the beliefs of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at. Using the theoretical framework developed in part I, the book also explains why many north Indian Sunni Muslims found Ahmad’s ideas to be irresistible and why the movement split into two a few years Ahmad’s death. The book will interest those who want to understand cults as well as those who want to understand reformist Islamic movements.
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Since the Iranian hostage crisis, and particularly since 9-11, Islam has been a topic of increasing interest among politicians, diplomats, journalists, and scholars, among others. Though associated in the public consciousness with... more
Since the Iranian hostage crisis, and particularly since 9-11, Islam has been a topic of increasing interest among politicians, diplomats, journalists, and scholars, among others. Though associated in the public consciousness with fanaticism and terrorism, there is a broad awareness that Islam is a complex tradition which, on the whole, does not promote religiously-motivated violence. Nevertheless, many believe that a deeper understanding of the larger phenomenon of Islam is necessary in order to understand and combat militant Islamism.
As a consequence, the demand for reliable information on Islam has been steadily growing. However, with the exception of entries in general encyclopedias on Islam and encyclopedias of Islamic mysticism (Sufism), there are no reference books on the diverse sects and movements within Islam. Even “Twelver” Shi’a – the dominant form of Shi’a Islam in Iran and Iraq – has no separate reference book (though there is A Shi’ite Encyclopedia being compiled by the Ahlul Bayt Digital Islamic Project Team (https://www.al-islam.org/shiite-encyclopedia-ahlul-bayt-dilp-team).
There is a paucity of books devoted to this topic, primarily because, in contrast to religious traditions like Christianity and Buddhism, Islam appears remarkably uniform. On the surface at least, most of the world’s Muslims are either Sunni or Twelver Shi’a, which is why Islamic sects/ denominations/ movements has not become the subject of monographs or reference books. Yet, beneath this apparent uniformity there is greater diversity than might be anticipated. There are, for example, important movements within Sunni Islam that are, in effect, sectarian – such as Islamic Modernism (on the liberal end) and the Taliban (on the ultra-conservative end). Then there are the various Sufi orders, which often constitute de facto sects. Within Shi’a Islam there is a complex spectrum of Shi’a factions that has largely gone unnoticed, due to the dominance of Twelver Shi’a. There are also syncretistic groups like the Yezidi among the Kurds that mix (nominally Sunni) Islam with pre-Islamic beliefs and practices. Finally, there are splinter groups from Islam, like the Druze and the Baha’i, that have established themselves as separate religions.
As a consequence, the demand for reliable information on Islam has been steadily growing. However, with the exception of entries in general encyclopedias on Islam and encyclopedias of Islamic mysticism (Sufism), there are no reference books on the diverse sects and movements within Islam. Even “Twelver” Shi’a – the dominant form of Shi’a Islam in Iran and Iraq – has no separate reference book (though there is A Shi’ite Encyclopedia being compiled by the Ahlul Bayt Digital Islamic Project Team (https://www.al-islam.org/shiite-encyclopedia-ahlul-bayt-dilp-team).
There is a paucity of books devoted to this topic, primarily because, in contrast to religious traditions like Christianity and Buddhism, Islam appears remarkably uniform. On the surface at least, most of the world’s Muslims are either Sunni or Twelver Shi’a, which is why Islamic sects/ denominations/ movements has not become the subject of monographs or reference books. Yet, beneath this apparent uniformity there is greater diversity than might be anticipated. There are, for example, important movements within Sunni Islam that are, in effect, sectarian – such as Islamic Modernism (on the liberal end) and the Taliban (on the ultra-conservative end). Then there are the various Sufi orders, which often constitute de facto sects. Within Shi’a Islam there is a complex spectrum of Shi’a factions that has largely gone unnoticed, due to the dominance of Twelver Shi’a. There are also syncretistic groups like the Yezidi among the Kurds that mix (nominally Sunni) Islam with pre-Islamic beliefs and practices. Finally, there are splinter groups from Islam, like the Druze and the Baha’i, that have established themselves as separate religions.
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Given the presentation of Islam in popular media, it is not surprising that most Westerners (including some scholars) view the faith as a static, monolithic religion that clings fiercely to its seventh century roots, resisting any attempt... more
Given the presentation of Islam in popular media, it is not surprising that most Westerners (including some scholars) view the faith as a static, monolithic religion that clings fiercely to its seventh century roots, resisting any attempt at change. This is, of course, far from the truth. In common with other faith traditions, Islam has been a dynamic force from the start, with adaptations stemming from individual leaders, diverse ethnic populations, and the cultural contexts in which the religion took root. Christians and Jews, among other representatives of religious traditions, commented on Muḥammad, the prophet and founder of Islam, and identified resemblances between the new monotheistic religion and their own traditions.