For this assignment, a series of stories of Syrian refugees across Greece, Hungary, Croatia, and Austria was chosen, which shed light on sociological issues in religion. One of the stories tells of a man being bullied by ISIS militants because he shaved off his beard and allegedly was an atheist. Macionis (2018) notes that according to structural-functional theory, religion supports political systems. Thus, the terrorist political organization ISIS claims to promote the ideas of Islam. In fact, ISIS militants distort the true essence of Islamic values, incorrectly explain the concepts of jihad and caliphate, and also violate Sharia norms, which categorically prohibit the killing of civilians and prisoners of war even during the war. ISIS militants have committed murders, tortured hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and destroyed the holy places of worship and graves of Sunnis, Shiites, and Sufis. Thus, ISIS is a policy that has mixed or attributed religion to its goals and objectives.
There are certain religious trends in the United States. Macionis (2018) describes the growth of a remarkable religious diversity associated with the constitutional prohibition of religion and the historically large number of immigrants from all over the world. Indeed, this is borne out by the story of Iraqi refugees who were forced to leave their homes because of death threats. A Christian priest gave them a prayer carpet and said, ‘We have the same God’ (Refugee Stories, n.d.). Another religious trend is the rise of fundamentalism, a conservative religious doctrine that opposes intellectualism and worldly accommodation in favor of restoring traditional, otherworldly religion. According to Macionis (2018), fundamentalists reject religious pluralism. ISIS, which suffered many people who shared their stories, can be cited as an example again. The man says that ISIS punished people for having a shaved face or wearing jeans. Hanafi (2019) states that even for Islamic fundamentalism, these are absolutely horrifying radicals who cut off people’s heads on live television, destroyed almost all Mosul’s Christian monuments, and expelled the entire Christian and Yazidi population. Thus, the series of refugee stories are connected with such sociological issues in religion as the relationship between religion and political systems, as well as the growth of religious diversity and fundamentalism.
References
Hanafi, H. (2019). The origin of modern conservatism and Islamic fundamentalism. Islamic dilemmas: Reformers, Nationalists and Industrialization, 94-103.
Macionis, J. J. (2018). Society: The basics (15th ed.). Pearson Education
Refugee Stories. (n.d.). Humans of New York. Web.