What makes south asia a cultural region

In some cases, moreover, elements of law from one tradition have been incorporated into one or more of the others, further reducing their distinctiveness.

But this does not mean that present-day Islamic judges kadi and others who interpret or administer the law are bound by centuries-old legal conventions or interpretations. They are, moreover, equipped with various pamphlets and booklets published by the state that provide compilations of relevant enactments and other guidance.

There is much debate, for example, concerning standards of modesty pertaining to girls and women, and whether Islam mandates that females cover their hair and faces in public. That said, in recent decades the wearing of headscarves and other headgear but not complete veiling of the face has become commonplace throughout Muslim Southeast Asia, especially in urban areas, which have seen a revival or resurgence of Islam and the adoption of various standards common in the Middle East.

Other controversial issues concern the acceptability from an Islamic point of view of women serving as judges in secular as well as religious courts, and more generally, whether women should be allowed to hold public office. But many perhaps most others disagree. Indeed, recent decades have seen women serving as judges in secular and religious courts in Indonesia and in secular but not religious courts in Malaysia.

Beginning in , Indonesia had its first female president Megawati Sukarnoputri , thus joining the slender ranks of other Muslim countries Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Turkey where women have held the highest office in the land. Recent advances in medical and other scientific technologies have raised a host of legal and ethical questions for Islamic theologians and jurists, as have new networks of communication and more encompassing processes of globalization.

Some such questions concern the appropriateness for Muslims of contraception and other forms of birth control, blood transfusions, organ transplants, euthanasia, food additives, and certain types of cosmetics and other products used for the care of the body. These dilemmas have given rise to a spate of authoritative rulings or opinions on specific points of law or dogma, which are known as fatwas.

Not generally in dispute, however, are Islamic prohibitions on gambling, pre- and extra-marital sex, as well as the consumption of alcohol, drugs, and pork. Observance of these prohibitions is an important symbol of being a Muslim, analogous in some ways to the performance of daily prayers and the adoption of certain styles of dress and moral demeanor. Western media accounts frequently give the impression that all Muslims share the same values, views, and aspirations, and that they all speak in a single voice.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth! There is a great deal of ethnic, socio-economic, and other diversity among Muslims in Southeast Asia as elsewhere. Such diversity is of considerable significance because it typically entails divergent life experiences.

Divergent life experiences in turn commonly give rise to contrasting views on important issues such as the fundamentals or essence s of Islam; their implications for women and gender; the proper place of Islam in the political process and in public life as a whole; and the role that Islam—and Islamic law in particular—should play in processes of modernization and state policies bearing on the future.

One way to approach diversity in Southeast Asian Islam is to examine the major variants or visions of Islam in the region in relation to the main institutions, organizations, and groups that help support and reproduce them.

Just as each of these institutions, organizations, and groups is associated with one or more distinctive and in some respects mutually contradictory visions of Islam, so, too, does each contribute in its own way to the multifaceted nature of Islam in contemporary Malaysia. Religious landscapes in certain other areas of Muslim Southeast Asia are even more complex. In Indonesia, for example, the range and prominence of national religious organizations such as Nahdlatul Ulamaand Muhammadiyah is far more extensive.

So too is the tradition of religious boarding schools pesantren , many of which promote regionally variable and otherwise distinctive visions of Islam. Feminist groups in Java and other areas of Indonesia, for their part, are highly diverse as well and much more variegated than in Malaysia.

More generally, there are important commonalities among Muslims throughout Southeast Asia that derive from their observance of common rituals, their embodiment of broadly shared values, and their shared identity as Muslims living in an ethnically diverse and rapidly modernizing world.

Unsupported Browser Detected. Buddha offering protection. Buddha Offering Protection. Seated Ganesha. Shiva Seated with Parvati. Hanuman Conversing. Yashoda with the Infant Krishna. Loving Couple Mithuna. Karaikkal Ammaiyar, Shaiva Saint. Citation Dehejia, Vidya. Indian Art.

London: Phaidon, Mitter, Partha. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Second Century B. South Asia, B. South Asia, — A. South Asia, 1— A. South Asia, — B. South Asia: North, — A. At the height of its power between the eighth and fifteenth centuries, a united Muslim Empire included all North Africa, Sicily, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, western Arabia, and southern Spain. From the tenth century CE Islam was subsequently brought to India by a similar moment of conquest and conversion, and its dominant political position was confirmed when the Mughal dynasty was established in the sixteenth century.

From at least the tenth century, Muslims were among the many foreigners trading in Southeast Asia, and a few individuals from Southeast Asia traveled to the Middle East for study. In the early stages of conversion, trade passing from Yemen and the Swahili coast across to the Malabar Coast and then the Bay of Bengal was also influential, as well as the growing connections with Muslims in China and India.

Muslim traders from western China also settled in coastal towns on the Chinese coast, and Chinese Muslims developed important links with communities in central Vietnam, Borneo, the southern Philippines, and the Javanese coast.

Muslim traders from various parts of India e. Bengal, Gujarat, Malabar came to Southeast Asia in large numbers and they, too, provided a vehicle for the spread of Islamic ideas. As a result of its multiple origins, the Islam that reached Southeast Asia was very varied.

The normal pattern was for a ruler or chief to adopt Islam—sometimes because of a desire to attract traders, or to be associated with powerful Muslim kingdoms like Mamluk Egypt, and then Ottoman Turkey and Mughal India, or because of the attraction of Muslim teaching. Mystical Islam Sufism , which aimed at direct contact with Allah with the help of a teacher using techniques such as meditation and trance, was very appealing.

The first confirmed mention of a Muslim community came from Marco Polo, the well-known traveler, who stopped in north Sumatra in Inscriptions and graves with Muslim dates have been located in others coastal areas along the trade routes. A major development was the decision of the ruler of Melaka, on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, to adopt Islam around Melaka was a key trading center, and the Malay language, spoken in the Malay Peninsula and east Sumatra, was used as a lingua franca in trading ports throughout the Malay-Indonesian archipelago.

Malay is not a difficult language to learn, and it was already understood by many people along the trade routes that linked the island world. Muslim teachers therefore had a common language through which they could communicate new concepts through oral presentations and written texts. A modified Arabic script displaced the previous Malay script.

Arabic words were incorporated into Malay, particularly in regard to spiritual beliefs, social practices, and political life. Local heroes often became Islamic saints, and their graves were venerated places at which to worship. Some aspects of mystical Islam resembled pre-Islamic beliefs, notably on Java.

Women never adopted the full face veil, and the custom of taking more than one wife was limited to wealthy elites. Law codes based on Islam usually made adjustments to fit local customs. Pork was forbidden to Muslims, a significant development in areas like eastern Indonesia and the southern Philippines where it had long been a ritual food.

A Muslim could often be recognized by a different dress style, like chest covering for women. Male circumcision became an important rite of passage. Reforming tendencies gained strength in the early nineteenth century when a group known as the Wahhabis captured Mecca. The Wahhabis demanded a stricter observance of Islamic law. Although their appeal was limited in Southeast Asia, some people were attracted to Wahhabi styles of teaching.

There was a growing feeling that greater observance of Islamic doctrine might help Muslims resist the growing power of Europeans. Muslim leaders were often prominent in anti-colonial movements, especially in Indonesia. Vajrayana Buddhism, which is sometimes considered a subset of Mahayana Buddhism, is practiced in the Himalayas and Tibetan Buddhism is a notable example.

Buddhism has around million followers worldwide. Although Buddhism and Hinduism are the most widely practiced, South Asia was also a hearth area for the Jain and Sikh religions. Jainism emerged in India in the first century BCE and emphasizes ahimsa, nonviolence toward all living beings.

Even insects found in the home are gently ushered out rather than killed. Jains also seek to break free from attachments and inner passions, and aim to keep an open mind toward different perspectives.

The teachings of Jainism were influential for Gandhi and his emphasis on nonviolent resistance. Sikhism emerged in the Punjab region of northwestern India and northern Pakistan in the 15th century. It is a monotheistic religion founded on the teachings of Guru Nanak that combines elements of both Hinduism and Islam. Like Hindus, Sikhs believe in reincarnation and karma. But unlike Hinduism, Sikhism prohibits the worship of idols, images, or icons.

Sikhs believe God has 99 names, an adaptation of Hindu polytheistic belief. However, the building is open to everyone and every visitor is offered a free meal. Over , people visit the site every day. These religions, along with other minority religions like Christianity and indigenous belief systems, have not always coexisted peacefully in South Asia. Although India is officially secular, having no official religion, regional religious conflicts have often occurred throughout history.

The difficulty is that in this region, very few people actually are secular, with no attachment to religion. Governments have thus struggled to find ways of accommodating minority religious groups while not offending the majority.

South Asia is the most populous region on Earth, but why is it the most populous, and how do geographers study population? The simplest way to measure population is to count the number of people in an area. India, for example, has a population of over 1. But do raw numbers of people tell the whole story of the human population in an area? If two countries have the same population, but one is far smaller than the other, how could we examine population in a way that explores this difference?

Geographers often use the concept of density to investigate population. Arithmetic density is fairly easy to calculate. It is determined by simply taking the number of people in an area divided by the size of the area.

If a territory was one kilometer square, for example, and was home to people, the arithmetic density would be people per square kilometer.

Although arithmetic density is easy to calculate, it gives us a fairly limited view of population density. What if there are two tracts of land that are the same size and have the same number of people, but one is lush and fertile and has people spread out evenly and the other has a tiny river that everyone lives near?

If you were using arithmetic density, the measurements for these two areas would be the same even though the actual settlement patterns are quite different see Figure 8. Physiologic density takes into account this difference by examining the number of people per unit of arable, or farmable, land. The United States, a fairly large country, for example, has an arithmetic density of 32 people per square kilometer. However, a relatively small percentage of US land is arable, so the physiologic density is people per square kilometer.

Bhutan, by comparison, has a low population density of only 14 people per square kilometer. However, its rugged mountain environment means that only around 2 percent of the land is farmable, so its physiologic density is people per square kilometer.

By most measures, the most densely populated place in the world is Singapore with an arithmetic density of 6, people per square kilometer and a physiologic density of , people per square kilometer. Another way to measure population is agricultural density which is the ratio of the number of farmers to the area of land.

In developing countries where many people work as farmers, agricultural density is very high. South Asia has a high agricultural density.

In developed countries, commercial agriculture and technological innovations have allowed relatively few people to be farmers and agricultural densities are generally low. Geographers can also examine how a population is growing and changing over time. Ages of people are grouped in cohorts with younger people on the bottom and older on the top. Thus, a population pyramid that is very triangular has a lot of young people and is growing rapidly. Typically, the ratio of males to females, known as the sex ratio , is 1 to 1 and population pyramids will have even sides.

However, in populations where males are favored, the ratio may be skewed. Similarly, in countries where men have died in war, such as in World War II Germany, there might be more females. However, the leveling off at the base of the pyramid indicates that population growth may be slowing.

Among children aged zero to four, India has 62 million males and only 55 million females. Nationwide, there are over 47 million more males in India than females. Both abortion and infanticide have contributed to this imbalance.