[BTS] 43 Religions

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Okay, how about this? We still have the original religion techs, but no new ones. When you discover Theology, you discover Catholicism, Prostetantism, etc. But only one. Like, when you start at the ancient age, the CPU usually discovers Meditation before you do. And when you discover Meditation yourself, nothing happens, because those guys already founded it. But, instead, you could still found a faith in the same religion category, just as long as it isn't the one your opponent has.

Another thing we could do with this is diplomacy factions. If you're a Catholic, and you're ally is a Prostetant, it could be a -1 relation, because "you're under the sway of a heathen faith." But, if you're Catholic, and he's Voodoo, then it would be a -3 relation, because "you're under the sway of an alien religion." But the same exact faith gives you a +3 relation!

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Is there any kind and giving soul that will make this for vanilla. Pleeeeassse. I want to try it...!

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Great addiction i hope some1 will help you with this mod.

okok, I tried, but there are just waaaay too many weird files. I'm not an XML person, but I can get something to work from warlords to vanilla if tis not to complicated. as the is BTS I can't do it.... help!

Any way you can make this into a module? So people could include it in other mods?

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THats cool that your doing this. Thankyou.

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religon infos still doesn work.. error parsing xml file ...?

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Here is a quick fix for Civ4 Vanilla. It needs some work still, but it runs with no errors.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112213/Vanilla_47_Religions.zip

It loads, which is good, but all the religions are spawned in one city (an easy fix I can do), but the religion names all show up as TXT_KEY_RELIGION_------ and the main screen has no buttons, or mini map, or interface. there is NOTHING! nada! If you can fix this please do

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Vrenir said:

How about the Kharjites for an Islamic faction. I took an intro to Islam course last Spring, and it was always listed as one of the divisions if more than Sunni and Shiite were covered (you already have the folk-religion Sufis). Kharjite, if you are not acquainted with it, is the radical militant spin-off, condemned early on by both Sunnis and Shiites, even as the Kharjites themselves condemned both of those groups for apostasy. Kharjites have taken several embodiments throughout Islamic history, the latest of which is what we know as Al-Queda.

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Kharijites should be Mutazilism! Do ur homework plz

Disclaimer: I am not a Muslim, so I did not grow up being taught about the divisions or history of the Islamic faith. Most of my knowledge on those topics comes from various history classes and a one-sememester Intro to Islam course that I took at college last Spring. If I am mistaken about anything, I apologize, as my sources and learning are limited. Feel free to offer correction from other sources as you see fit.

The following are most of the relevant bits from "A New Introduction to Islam" by Daniel Brown (my most authoritative and objective-seeming textbook on Islamic history and theology):

"Kharijites - those who withdrew from Ali after the battle of Siffin; a group of political-theological sects which emphasize works over faith." (258)


[At the battle of Siffin, in which members of the army impaled copies of the Qur'an on their spears as an appeal for arbitration] "Ali's Iraqi supporters were split over the morality of the decision and the more rigorous among them withdrew their support from him. By so doing they earned the blame (or credit) for founding a complex of volatile political-theological movements which shared the designation Khawarij (anglicized: Kharijites) because they went out (kharaja) from Ali. A chief distinction of the more extreme Kharijites was a readiness to do away with any leader who failed to live up to rigorous moral standards." (39)


"At the other end of the political spectrum from the Ismaili Shiites, Kharijite leaders could hope for no such unqualified devotion from their followers. Tradition traces the origin of the Kharijites to a battle between Ali and Muawiya at Siffin in 657. When Ali, faced with a military stalemate, agreed to submit the dispute to arbitration, some of his party withdrew their support from him. 'Judgment belongs to God alone' (la hukm illa li-llahi) became the slogan of these secessionists. They also called themselves al-shurat, "vendors," to reflect their willingness to sell their lives in martyrdom.

"The original Kharijites opposed both Ali and Muawiya and appointed their own leaders. They were decisively defeated by Ali, who was in turn assassinated by a Kharijite. Kharijites engaged in guerrilla warfare against the Umayyads, but only became a movement to be reckoned with during the second civil war when they at one point controlled more territory than any of their rivals. Kharijites were, in fact, one of the major threats to Ibn-al-Zubayr's bid for the caliphate; during his time they controlled Yamama and most of Southern Arabia and captured the oasis town of al-Taif.

"The most extreme faction of Kharijites was that of the Azariqa, who condemned all other Muslims as apostates. The Azariqa controlled parts of Western Iran under the Umayyads until they were finally put down in 699. The more moderate Ibadi Kharijites were longer-lived, continuing to wield political power in North and East Africa and in Eastern Arabia during the Abbasid period. The Ibadis are the only Kharijite group to survive into modern times.

"Because of their readiness to declare any opponent apostate, the extreme Kharijites tended to fragment into small groups. One of the few points that the various Kharijite splinter groups held in common was their view of the caliphate, which differed from other Muslim theories on two points. First, they were principled egalitarians, holding that any pious Muslim (even an 'Ethiopian slave') can become caliph and that family or tribal affiliation is inconsequential. The only requirements for leadership are piety and the acceptance of the community. Second, they agreed that it is the duty of the believers to dispose of any leader who falls into error. This second prinicple had profound implications for Kharijite theology, which we will take up in the following chapter.

"...By the time that Ibn al-Muqaffa wrote his political treatise early in the Abbasid period, the Kharijites were no longer a significant political threat, at least in the Islamic heartlands. The memory of the menace they had posed to Muslim unity and of the moral challenge generated by their pious idealism still weighed heavily on Muslim political and religious thought, however. Even if the Kharijites could no longer threaten, their ghosts still had to be answered." (108-109)


"It was clearly possible then to be a Muslim and to perform the outward works identified with Islam without the inner conviction of faith, but was it also possible to have faith apart from works? The Kharijites, of course, vehemently rejected the possibility.

...Uncomfortable with the Kharijite and Murjiite extremes, the Mutazilites tried a compromise position, incorporating works in their definition of faith, which, they argued, consists of three elements: conviction of the truth, confession of the tongue, and confirmation with deeds." (142)


"Muslim Brotherhood attitudes toward jihad and martyrdom were shaped on the battlefield of Palestine. It seemed to Hasan al-Banna that the idea of jihad had been emasculated both by Sufis and modern Muslim apologists. Jihad was a God-given tool which seemed perfectly suited to the modern Muslim situation, but which modern Muslims had abandoned. Thus al-Banna called for a return to militant jihad, directed in the first instance at the British in Palestine. Along with this return to Jihad he revived and restated the Islamic doctrine of martyrdom. 'Muslims,' he said, should learn the 'art of death.' By this he meant that they should deliberately and purposefully plan out how to make their deaths count for the cause of Islam. In all of this al-Banna comes close to reviving an old heresy. The Kharijites had been condemned, in part, for encouraging the 'seeking of martyrdom.'" (216)


"The majority of Muslims and Muslim thinkers have no hesitation in rejecting such calls to violence. In fact, the system of ideas that justifies suicide bombings closely resembles the ideology of the early Kharijite heretics, a connection that more sober Muslim scholars have not been reticent about pointing out." (229)


"Mutazilites - a major Islamic intellectual and theological movement famous for defending freedom of the will, the absolute unity of God, and the createdness of the Qur'an." (262)


"Known as the people of justice and unity, and condemned as 'Zoroastrians of the community' by their critics, the Mutazilites dominated Abbasid court circles under the caliphs Mamun and Mutasim. Their doctrine has been encapsulated in a handy summary, the five points of Mutazilism:
1 - Unity (tawhid). God's oneness is absolute. Nothing else, including God's attributes or God's speech, the Qur'an, is eternal, and God does not resemble his creation in any way.
2 - Justice (adl). God is obligated to act justly, giving out rewards and punishments in strict accordance with each person's performance.
3 - 'The promise and the threat.' When God makes a promise, or issues a threat, he is bound to carry through with it.
4 - The intermediate position. A grave sinner (fasiq) can be considered neither a believer nor an unbeliever.
5 - Commanding the right and forbidding the wrong. It is a duty to oppose injustice (e.g. rebel against an evil ruler) if one has the ability." (136)


"One heresy flows logically into another. The heresy of the Kharijites leads directly to the heresy of the Qadarites, which in turn dows the seeds of the more sophisticated and dangerous errors of the Mutazilites." (148)


"Iqbal is one participant, in other words, in a general reassertion of human freedom and revolt against determinism. Another manifestation of this trend has been the rehabilitation of the Mutazilites. This rehabilitation takes explicit form in some apologetic works, most notably Sayyid Amir Ali's 'The Spirit of Islam' (1922). A more subtle form of what has been called neo-Mutazilism pervades the work of the modern Fazlur Rahman. Although Rahman resists identifying himself with the Mutazila, his opponents have not hesitated to do so, for he consistantly and repeatedly defends human freedom and responsibility and the efficacy of human reason at the moral level." (223-224)


In summary, based upon my "homework," I see Kharijitism and Mutazilism as two somewhat related, but very distinct sects of Islam, both in opposition to the traditional Sunni and Shiite factions. Kharijites are known for pious idealism and a willingness to seek martyrdom in the Islamic cause, very similar in theology to Al-Queda and other radical Islamist factions today. Mutazilites represent a more Rationalist sect of Islam that holds a weaker view of Qur'anic authority (that it isn't eternal) as well as a stronger view of human freedom of the will.

Again, if I am wrong, feel free to cite other sources and correct me. I'd be happy to revise my learning on this subject. However, you can easily now see where my information came from and that as far as I understand it, I have indeed "done my homework." Thank you.

P.S. - To other thread-readers, sorry for the rabbit trail. We can move to PMs or another thread if this goes on much longer.

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