What is the diffusion of religion?

Relocation diffusion happens when a group of believers moves to a new location, where they then spread the teachings of a religion that are often not yet widely known or practiced in the region.

What causes diffusion of religions?

Religions spread over time through a process called diffusion. This contact causes the number of believers to increase over time either by direct contact between believers and nonbelievers (contagious diffusion) or by conversion of nonbelievers by missionaries (hierarchical diffusion).

What type of diffusion was Islam?

Islam has diffused through both expansion diffusion and relocation diffusion to become the second most followed religion in the world.

Where is Christianity practiced in the Middle East and by whom?

Cyprus is the only Christian majority country in the Middle East, with Christians forming between 76% and 78% of the country’s total population, and most of them adhere to Eastern Orthodox Christianity (i.e. most of the Greek population).

Why is there conflict between the three major religions of the Middle East?

A major source of conflict in the Muslim Middle East is the divisive nature between the two main sects of Islam: Sunni and Shi’a. Although these two sects agree on the fundamentals of Islam and the teachings of the Quran, they are in conflict about who would lead the Muslim community after Muhammad’s death.

Which religions have spread from the place where they were founded?

The 5 major religions of the world all began in the Eastern Hemisphere. Each grew in its hearth before diffusing to other areas. The Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all began around the same vicinity, in the Middle East, while Hinduism and Buddhism both began in India.

What kind of religion is practiced in the Middle East?

In the modern era, most of the nations in the Middle East also use Islamic law as the basis of their legal system. The two main sects of Islam, Shia Islam and Sunni Islam, are widely practiced in the Middle East with Sunni Islam having a larger following of the two.

How are Islam and Christianity examples of diffusion?

Christianity and Islam. Like Christianity, Islam has diffused globally, but is a classic example of expansion diffusion from its Arabian source, followed by relocation diffusion (Figure 124). Islam achieved its greatest artistic expression, its most distinctive visible element, in architecture.

How does a religion spread through expansion diffusion?

Another way a religion can spread through expansion diffusion is hierarchically, when rulers of a region convert to the religion and decree it as the official religion of their realm; the religion filters down the political chain of command and eventually reaches the masses.

Which is the most diffuse religion in the world?

It has become a global religion and diffused to many areas of the world. Confucianism was founded on the teachings of Confucius in the sixth century B.C. Taoism is believed to have been founded by an older contemporary of Confucius Lao-Tsu, who had great and lasting impacts of Chinese life.