Islamic Global Village
The Islamic Global Village consists of a conglomerate of countries spread throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, and West across Northern Africa. Islamic culture is also dominant in some island regions, but those islands are included in other Global Villages.
The countries shown are said to be under Islamic Law, but many of the countries have constitutions and independent governments, as well as different religions. The Islamic Global Village, in the past, seemed more united than others because of the Muslim religion and heritage, which still survives, in its many facets in spite upheavals, conquests, and historical tribal conflicts. The map above shows the dominant Islamic regions, spreading across a vast amount of territory. One map, however, is not illustrative of this culture region; as it has been dominated by various other countries at various different times in its historical presence.
Perhaps no other Global Village has so many conflicts between cultural rights and human rights. Rights are an issue worth exploring in all culture regions, but in the Islamic region, where religion rules, it is especially pertinent with regards to women. Women’s education and domestic status in the Islamic Global Village is controlled by men and their opportunities for advancement in society are limited. The hijab and burqa are visible restrictions, but there are other issues such as female circumcision, practiced in Northeast Africa and other Muslim countries, and arranged marriages, where girls as young as eight or ten are given in marriage to much older men. These controversial cultural components should be explored, discussed, and investigated in order to gain understanding of the roots and purposes of such traditions.
A recent example of a cultural and technological innovation that has spread across the world, infiltrating almost every corner in one way or another, is the Internet. Internet inroads as far as accessibility in this Global Village have been increasing, but extreme censorship prevents most people from utilizing computers, cell phones, and social media to the extent other populations are able to exercise individual choices for use. This seems very contradictory when you view the following film about historic Islamic contributions to education, and the modern world which they claim. This film is a clip from a PBS documentary film.
Access to worldwide information has been traditionally limited by state governments in this culture region, and those who view regimes critically or express negativity towards Islam are often harshly punished, and in some cases even put to death. We are witnessing these kinds of calamities everyday on the news as we watch the current conflicts going on in this Islamic Global Village.
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