Religion

human beings’ relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, absolute, spiritual, divine, or worthy of especial reverence.

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  Christmas
  Christian festival celebrating the birth of Jesus. The English term Christmas (“mass on Christ’s day”) is of fairly recent origin. The earlier term Yule may have derived from the Germanic jōl or the Anglo-Saxon geōl, which referred to the feast of the winter solstice. The corresponding terms in other languages— Navidad in Spanish, Natale in Italian,...
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  Mahatma Gandhi
  Indian lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer who became the leader of the nationalist movement against the British rule of India. As such, he came to be considered the father of his country. Gandhi is internationally esteemed for his doctrine of nonviolent protest (satyagraha) to achieve political and social progress. In the eyes of millions...
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  Hanukkah
  Hebrew “Dedication” Jewish festival that begins on Kislev 25 (in December, according to the Gregorian calendar) and is celebrated for eight days. Hanukkah reaffirms the ideals of Judaism and commemorates in particular the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the lighting of candles on each day of the festival. Although not mentioned in...
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  Muhammad
  founder of the religion of Islam, accepted by Muslims throughout the world as the last of the prophets of God. Methodology and terminology Sources for the study of the Prophet The sources for the study of Muhammad are multifarious and include, first and foremost, the Qurʾān, the sacred scripture of Islam. Although the Qurʾān is considered by Muslims...
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  Islam
  major world religion promulgated by the Prophet Muhammad in Arabia in the 7th century ce. The Arabic term islām, literally “surrender,” illuminates the fundamental religious idea of Islam—that the believer (called a Muslim, from the active particle of islām) accepts surrender to the will of Allah (in Arabic, Allāh: God). Allah is viewed as the sole...
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  Jesus
  religious leader revered in Christianity, one of the world’s major religions. He is regarded by most Christians as the Incarnation of God. The history of Christian reflection on the teachings and nature of Jesus is examined in the article Christology. Name and title Ancient Jews usually had only one name, and, when greater specificity was needed, it...
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  Epiphany
  epiphaneia manifestation Christian holiday commemorating the first manifestation of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, represented by the Magi, and the manifestation of his divinity, as it occurred at his baptism in the Jordan River and at his first miracle at Cana in Galilee. Epiphany is one of the three principal and oldest festival days of the Christian...
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  Bob Marley
  Jamaican singer-songwriter whose thoughtful ongoing distillation of early ska, rock steady, and reggae musical forms blossomed in the 1970s into an electrifying rock -influenced hybrid that made him an international superstar. Marley—whose parents were Norval Sinclair Marley, a white rural overseer, and the former Cedella Malcolm, the black daughter...
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  Buddhism
  religion and philosophy that developed from the teachings of the Buddha (Sanskrit: “Awakened One”), a teacher who lived in northern India between the mid-6th and mid-4th centuries bce (before the Common Era). Spreading from India to Central and Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan, Buddhism has played a central role in the spiritual, cultural, and...
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  Hinduism
  major world religion originating on the Indian subcontinent and comprising several and varied systems of philosophy, belief, and ritual. Although the name Hinduism is relatively new, having been coined by British writers in the first decades of the 19th century, it refers to a rich cumulative tradition of texts and practices, some of which date to...
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  Christianity
  major religion, stemming from the life, teachings, and death of Jesus of Nazareth (the Christ, or the Anointed One of God) in the 1st century ad. It has become the largest of the world’s religions. Geographically the most widely diffused of all faiths, it has a constituency of more than 2 billion believers. Its largest groups are the Roman Catholic...
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  Zoroastrianism
  the ancient pre- Islamic religion of Iran that survives there in isolated areas and, more prosperously, in India, where the descendants of Zoroastrian Iranian (Persian) immigrants are known as Parsis, or Parsees. The Iranian prophet and religious reformer Zarathustra (flourished before the 6th century bce)—more widely known outside Iran as Zoroaster,...
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  Sigmund Freud
  Austrian neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis. Freud’s article on psychoanalysis appeared in the 13th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Freud may justly be called the most influential intellectual legislator of his age. His creation of psychoanalysis was at once a theory of the human psyche, a therapy for the relief of its ills, and an optic...
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  Christmas tree
  an evergreen tree, often a pine or a fir, decorated with lights and ornaments as a part of Christmas festivities. Christmas trees can be fresh cut, potted, or artificial and are used as both indoor and outdoor decorations. While the trees are traditionally associated with Christian symbolism, their modern use is largely secular. Many families place...
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  Shīʿite
  member of the smaller of the two major branches of Islam, distinguished from the majority Sunnis. Early development Early in the history of Islam, the Shīʿites were a political faction (Arabic shīʿat ʿAlī, “party of ʿAlī”) that supported the power of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (the fourth caliph [khalīfah, successor of Muhammad]) and, later, of his descendants....
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  Martin Luther
  German theologian and religious reformer who was the catalyst of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. Through his words and actions, Luther precipitated a movement that reformulated certain basic tenets of Christian belief and resulted in the division of Western Christendom between Roman Catholicism and the new Protestant traditions, mainly Lutheranism,...
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  Sharīʿah
  the fundamental religious concept of Islam, namely its law, systematized during the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Muslim era (8th–9th centuries ce). Total and unqualified submission to the will of Allah (God) is the fundamental tenet of Islam: Islamic law is therefore the expression of Allah’s command for Muslim society and, in application, constitutes...
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  Judaism
  the religion of the Jews. It is the complex phenomenon of a total way of life for the Jewish people, comprising theology, law, and innumerable cultural traditions. The first section of this article treats the history of Judaism in the broadest and most complete sense, from the early ancestral beginnings of the Jewish people to contemporary times. In...
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  Ten Commandments
  list of religious precepts that, according to various passages in Exodus and Deuteronomy, were divinely revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai and were engraved on two tablets of stone. The Commandments are recorded virtually identically in Ex. 20: 2–17 and Deut. 5: 6–21. The rendering in Exodus (Revised Standard Version) appears as follows: I am the Lord...
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  Sunnite
  member of one of the two major branches of Islam, the branch that consists of the majority of that religion’s adherents. Sunni Muslims regard their sect as the mainstream and traditionalist branch of Islam, as distinguished from the minority sect, the Shīʿites. The Sunnis recognize the first four caliphs as the Prophet Muhammad ’s rightful successors,...
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  Yoga
  Sanskrit “Yoking” or “Union” one of the six systems (darshan s) of Indian philosophy. Its influence has been widespread among many other schools of Indian thought. Its basic text is the Yoga-sutra s by Patanjali (c. 2nd century bce or 5th century ce). The practical aspects of Yoga play a more important part than does its intellectual content, which...
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  swastika
  equilateral cross with arms bent at right angles, all in the same rotary direction, usually clockwise. The swastika as a symbol of prosperity and good fortune is widely distributed throughout the ancient and modern world. The word is derived from the Sanskrit svastika, meaning “conducive to well-being.” It was a favourite symbol on ancient Mesopotamian...
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  zodiac
  in astronomy and astrology, a belt around the heavens extending 9° on either side of the ecliptic, the plane of the earth’s orbit and of the sun’s apparent annual path. The orbits of the moon and of the principal planets also lie entirely within the zodiac. The 12 astrological signs of the zodiac are each considered to occupy 1 12 (or 30°) of its great...
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  Qurʾān
  Arabic “Recitation” the sacred scripture of Islam. According to conventional Islamic belief, the Qurʾān was revealed by the angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad in the West Arabian towns Mecca and Medina beginning in 610 and ending with Muhammad’s death in 632 ce. The word qurʾān, which occurs already within the Islamic scripture itself (e.g., 9:111...
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  Shiva
  Sanskrit “Auspicious One” one of the main deities of Hinduism, whom Shaivites worship as the supreme god. Among his common epithets are Shambhu (“Benign”), Shankara (“Beneficent”), Mahesha (“Great Lord”), and Mahadeva (“Great God”). Shiva is represented in a variety of forms: in a pacific mood with his consort Parvati and son Skanda, as the cosmic...
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  Roman Catholicism
  Christian church that has been the decisive spiritual force in the history of Western civilization. Along with Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, it is one of the three major branches of Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church traces its history to Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Over the course of centuries it developed a highly sophisticated theology...
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  Bahāʾī Faith
  religion founded in Iran in the mid-19th century by Mīrzā Ḥosayn ʿAlī Nūrī, who is known as Bahāʾ Allāh (Arabic: “Glory of God”). The cornerstone of Bahāʾī belief is the conviction that Bahāʾ Allāh and his forerunner, who was known as the Bāb (Persian: “Gateway”), were manifestations of God, who in his essence is unknowable. The principal Bahāʾī tenets...
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  religion
  human beings’ relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, absolute, spiritual, divine, or worthy of especial reverence. It is also commonly regarded as consisting of the way people deal with ultimate concerns about their lives and their fate after death. In many traditions, this relation and these concerns are expressed in terms of one’s relationship...
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  seven deadly sins
  in Roman Catholic theology, the seven gravest sins. They are classified as “deadly” not merely because they constitute serious moral offenses but also because they spur other sins and further immoral behaviour. First enumerated by Pope Gregory I (the Great) and elaborated in the 13th century by Thomas Aquinas, they are (1) vainglory, or pride, (2)...
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  caliph
  ruler of the Muslim community. When the Prophet Muhammad died (June 8, 632 ce), Abū Bakr succeeded to his political and administrative functions as khalīfah rasūl Allāh, “successor of the Messenger of God,” but it was probably under ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, the second caliph, that the term caliph came into use as a title of the civil and religious head...