Vocabulary

 

  • THE MIDDLE AGES: the period of European history between the Antiquity and the Renaissance, between the Classical and the Modern Age. It began with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and finished with the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453 or the Discovery of America in 1492.
 
  • JIHAD: it means ‘struggle’ in the sense of obligation to defend the faith. Some people interpret this term as a ‘holy war’ to extend the Islam. Others consider that it is a defensive warfare or against the sin.
 
  • ISLAM: (it means ‘voluntary submission to God’) monotheistic religion arisen in the 7th century in the Arabian Peninsula from the lessons of the Prophet Muhammad. The Islamic faith is learned in the versicles of the Quran and their recitation, and also in the sayings and facts of the Prophet, later compiled in the tradition of the Sunnah. A Muslim must profess the Islam and follow its maximum principle: “There is no god except for the God (‘Allah’ in Arabic calligraphy) and Muhammad is his Messenger”.