History Of Religion In Malta
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History Of Religion In Malta
This article details the history of religion in Malta. The Republic of Malta is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, 80 km south of Sicily, 284 km east of Tunisia and 333 km north of Libya, with Gibraltar 1,755 km to the west and Alexandria 1,508 km to the east. Malta covers just over 316 km2 in land area, making it one of the world's smallest states. It is also one of the most densely populated countries worldwide. Catholicism is the official religion in Malta as declared by the Maltese constitution. Prehistory and the classical era Starting from around 3600 BC, Malta passed through a "temple period" which saw the construction of structures tied with religious beliefs such as the Ggantia temple Gozo (the "Ggantia phase" between 3600 and 3200 BC), the Hypogeum (the "Saflieni phase" between 3300 and 3000 BC) and the Tarxien temples, Hagar Qim and Mnajdra (the "Tarxien phase" between 3150 and 2500 BC). Fertility ...
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Religious Conversion
Religious conversion is the adoption of a set of beliefs identified with one particular religious denomination to the exclusion of others. Thus "religious conversion" would describe the abandoning of adherence to one denomination and affiliating with another. This might be from one to another denomination within the same religion, for example, from Protestant Christianity to Roman Catholicism or from Shia Islam, Shi'a Islam to Sunni Islam. In some cases, religious conversion "marks a transformation of religious identity and is symbolized by special rituals". People convert to a different religion for various reasons, including active conversion by free choice due to a change in beliefs, secondary conversion, deathbed conversion, conversion for convenience, marital conversion, and forced conversion. Religious conversion can also be driven by practical considerations. Historically, people have converted to evade taxes, to escape military service or to gain political representation ...
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Comino
Comino () is a small island of the Maltese archipelago between the islands of Malta (island), Malta and Gozo in the Mediterranean Sea, measuring in area. Named after the cumin seed, the island has a permanent population of only two residents and is part of the municipality of Għajnsielem, in southeastern Gozo, from where one priest and one policeman commute. The island is a bird sanctuary and nature reserve (Natura 2000 marine protected area). Environment The island has a karst landscape supporting sclerophyllous shrubland. Some limited afforestation with pine trees has been carried out. The dune, sand-dunes at Santa Maria bay retain some native vegetation, including ''Vitex'' and ''Tamarix'' trees. The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports fifty to eighty breeding pairs of yelkouan shearwaters. History Formerly called Ephaestia (Ἡφαιστεία in Ancient Greek), Comino is known to have been inhabited ...
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Sicily
Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4.7 million inhabitants, including 1.2 million in and around the capital city of Palermo, it is both the largest and most populous island in the Mediterranean Sea. Sicily is named after the Sicels, who inhabited the eastern part of the island during the Iron Age. Sicily has a rich and unique culture in #Art and architecture, arts, Music of Sicily, music, #Literature, literature, Sicilian cuisine, cuisine, and Sicilian Baroque, architecture. Its most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe, and one of the most active in the world, currently high. The island has a typical Mediterranean climate. It is separated from Calabria by the Strait of Messina. It is one of the five Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with s ...
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Abraham Abulafia
Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia () was the founder of the school of "Prophetic Kabbalah". He was born in Zaragoza, Spain, in 1240, and is assumed to have died sometime after 1291 following a stay on the small and windswept island of Comino (the smallest of the three inhabited islands that make up the Maltese archipelago). Biography Early life and travels Very early in life he was taken by his parents to Tudela, Navarre, where his aged father, Samuel Abulafia, instructed him in the Hebrew Bible and Talmud. In 1258, when Abulafia was eighteen years old, his father died, and Abulafia began a life of ceaseless wandering shortly thereafter. His first journey, in 1260, was to the Land of Israel, where he intended to begin a search for the legendary Sambation and the Ten Lost Tribes. He got no further than 'Akko, however, because of the desolation and lawlessness in the Holy Land stemming from the chaos following the recent Crusade. The battle that year between the Mongol Empire and Mam ...
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Kabbalah
Kabbalah or Qabalah ( ; , ; ) is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. It forms the foundation of Mysticism, mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal (). List of Jewish Kabbalists, Jewish Kabbalists originally developed transmissions of the primary texts of Kabbalah within the realm of Jewish tradition and often use classical Jewish scriptures to explain and demonstrate its mystical teachings. Kabbalists hold these teachings to define the inner meaning of both the Hebrew Bible and traditional rabbinic literature and their formerly concealed transmitted dimension, as well as to explain the significance of Jewish religious observances. Historically, Kabbalah emerged from earlier forms of Jewish mysticism, in 12th- to 13th-century Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, al-Andalus (Spain) and in Hakhmei Provence, and was reinterpreted during the Jewish mystical renaissance in 16th-century ...
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Roger I Of Sicily
Roger I (; ; ; Norse: ''Rogeirr''; 1031 – 22 June 1101), nicknamed "Roger Bosso" and "Grand Count Roger", was a Norman nobleman who became the first Grand Count of Sicily from 1071 to 1101. As a member of the House of Hauteville, he participated in several military expeditions against the Emirate of Sicily (beginning in 1061). He was later invested with part of Sicily by his brother, Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia, in 1071. By 1090, he had conquered the entire island. In 1091, he conquered Malta. The state he created was merged with the Duchy of Apulia in 1127 and became the Kingdom of Sicily in 1130. His descendants in the male line continued to rule Sicily down to 1194. Early life Roger was born in Normandy, probably in the village of Hauteville-la-Guichard, of which his father was ''seigneur''. He was the youngest son of Tancred de Hauteville and his second wife Fressenda. Through his mother he was possibly grandson of Richard the Fearless. Little is known abou ...
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Normans
The Normans (Norman language, Norman: ''Normaunds''; ; ) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norsemen, Norse Viking settlers and locals of West Francia. The Norse settlements in West Francia followed a series of raids on the French northern coast mainly from what is now Denmark, although some also sailed from Norway and Sweden. These settlements were finally legitimized when Rollo, a Scandinavian Vikings, Viking leader, agreed to swear fealty to Charles the Simple, King Charles III of West Francia following the Siege of Chartres (911), siege of Chartres in 911, leading to the formation of the ''County of Rouen''. This new fief, through kinship in the decades to come, would expand into what came to be known as the ''Duchy of Normandy''. The Norse settlers, whom the region as well as its inhabitants were named after, adopted the language, Christianity, religion, culture, social customs and military, martial doctrine of the Wes ...
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Jizya
Jizya (), or jizyah, is a type of taxation levied on non-Muslim subjects of a state governed by Sharia, Islamic law. The Quran and hadiths mention jizya without specifying its rate or amount,Sabet, Amr (2006), ''The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences'' 24:4, Oxford; pp. 99–100. and the application of jizya varied in the course of Islamic history. However, scholars largely agree that early Muslim rulers adapted some of the existing systems of taxation and modified them according to Islamic religious law.online Historically, the jizya tax has been understood in Islam as a fee for protection provided by the Muslim ruler to non-Muslims, for the exemption from military service for non-Muslims, for the permission to practice a non-Muslim faith with some communal autonomy in a Muslim state, and as material proof of the non-Muslims' allegiance to the Muslim state and its laws. The majority of Muslim jurists required adult, free, sane men, males among the dhimma community to pay ...
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Freedom Of Religion
Freedom of religion or religious liberty, also known as freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the right not to profess any religion or belief or "not to practice a religion" (often called freedom ''from'' religion). The concept of religious liberty includes, and some say requires, secular liberalism, and excludes authoritarian versions of secularism. Freedom of religion is considered by many people and most nations to be a fundamental rights, fundamental human right. Freedom of religion is protected in all the most important international human rights treaty, conventions, such as the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, United Na ...
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Palermo
Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old. Palermo is in the northwest of the island of Sicily, by the Gulf of Palermo in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The city was founded in Isla Palermo 734 BC by the Phoenicians as ("flower"). Palermo then became a possession of Ancient Carthage, Carthage. Two ancient Greeks, Greek ancient Greek colonization, colonies were established, known collectively as ; the Carthaginians used this name on their coins after the 5th centuryBC. As , the town became part of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire, Empire for over a thousand years. From 831 to 1072 the city was under History of Islam in south ...
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Pope Gregory I
Pope Gregory I (; ; – 12 March 604), commonly known as Saint Gregory the Great (; ), was the 64th Bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 until his death on 12 March 604. He is known for instituting the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome, the Gregorian mission, to convert the then largely pagan Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Gregory is also well known for his writings, which were more prolific than those of any of his predecessors as pope. The epithet Saint Gregory the Dialogist has been attached to him in Eastern Christianity because of his '' Dialogues''. English translations of Eastern texts sometimes list him as Gregory "Dialogos" from the Greek (''dialogos'', conversation), or the Anglo-Latinate equivalent "Dialogus". He is the second of the three Popes listed in the ''Annuario Pontificio'' with the title "the Great", alongside Popes Leo I and Nicholas I. A Roman senator's son and himself the prefect of Rome at 30, Gregory lived in a monastery that he establish ...
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