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Learning With: ‘Behold the Beefless ‘Impossible Whopper’’

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Learning With: ‘Behold the Beefless ‘Impossible Whopper’’

Now, read the article, “Behold the Beefless ‘Impossible Whopper’,” and answer the following questions:

1. What is the Impossible Whopper? What makes it so impossible? How does it “validate” a “young industry that is looking to mimic and replace meat with plant-based alternatives?”

2. What is Impossible Foods? Who started the company and why?

3. What is the secret to the Impossible Whopper’s taste? How has Impossible Foods tried to mimic the look and taste of beef hamburgers?

4. What criticism has the Impossible Foods company faced? In your view, has the criticism been fair?

5. How does the production of meat contribute to climate change? What is the impact of the Impossible Whopper in comparison?

6. How does the Burger King version of the Impossible Burger compare nutritionally to the traditional whopper?

Finally, tell us more about what you think:

— What is your reaction to the article? How successful do you think the Impossible Whopper will be? Could plant-based burgers ever replace beef ones?

— Have you ever had a Whopper? How would you rate it against burgers from other restaurants or fast-food chains? Have you ever tried a veggie burger? How would you compare the taste to a beef burger? Would you try the Impossible Whopper?

— In a related article, “No One Is Taking Your Hamburgers. But Would It Even Be a Good Idea?”, Kendra Pierre-Louis writes about the dangers of the production and consumption of beef in America:

In addition to greenhouse gas emissions, the food system has environmental challenges, like overtaxed agricultural lands; the dead zones that form each year in the Gulf of Mexico, fueled by nutrient runoff from Midwestern fields growing animal feed; and the pollution associated with concentrated animal feeding operations, or so-called factory farms.

Consuming lots of meat is also making people in the United States and other affluent nations unwell, according to a recent report on sustainable diets in the medical journal The Lancet. People in the United States would be better off eating much less red meat, the report said, while those in undernourished parts of the world, like South Asia, would benefit from eating more.

The World Cancer Research Fund has said that limiting red meat to 3.5 ounces — a little less than a quarter-pound burger — no more than three times a week reduces cancer risk. Going lower than that, sticking to one 3.5-ounce serving of red meat a week, reduced related greenhouse gas emissions by nearly half, the Lancet report said.

Have you ever considered the ethical dimensions of eating hamburgers, or meat in general? Which of the concerns cited by Ms. Pierre-Louis are most significant and why? Should Americans cut down on or eliminate their consumption of hamburgers?

— Are you, or is anyone you know, a vegetarian? If yes, what are the benefits and challenges of being a vegetarian? If you eat meat, does this article persuade you to consider becoming a vegetarian or persuade you to consume more vegetarian alternatives to meat?

Protected: Self-Driving Vehicles Are Going to Make Traffic Even More Miserable

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ASU’s Dr. Partha Dasgupta on the Biggest Stories in Cryptography

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ASU’s Dr. Partha Dasgupta on the Biggest Stories in Cryptography

Cryptography is an essential practice for our data-driven world. In this Q&A, Dr. Partha Dasgupta, an Associate Professor at Arizona State University (ASU) with experience at DARPA, shares some of his insights on the state of cryptography.

For computer science students, the ASU Online Master of Computer Science (MCS) degree is an opportunity to learn from world-class faculty like Dr. Gupta in a flexible, affordable online format. Here’s the Q&A:

After last year’s disclosure of the EFAIL vulnerability, what is the future of the PGP standard for end-to-end email encryption?

Dr. Gupta: The PGP standard is not compromised by EFAIL. EFAIL uses complicated vulnerabilities in the applications that support PGP to extract secret data. These vulnerabilities are essentially programming defects in the applications, and not design defects in PGP. They can be (and have been) fixed.

Password managers like LastPass are becoming an increasingly popular tool — and thus an increasingly appealing target for hackers. How secure are they?

Dr. Gupta: The security of password managers depends on the implementation of these applications. Super secure password managers would store passwords on local storage, secured by long passphrases and not store the passphrase anywhere. However, such an approach is “dangerous” since there is no way of recovering anything if the password store is corrupted, deleted, or lost, or the passphrase is forgotten. Hence other, more usable methods are implemented, giving rise to weaknesses that can be exploited by hackers. Of course, if a hacker succeeds in introducing a virus into the computer that has a password manager, then all passwords are trivially exposed. There is no known defense against this hacking attack.

Blockchain protocols are designed to be fundamentally secure, but several recent hacking incidents have called that premise into question. Should we still be looking to blockchain as a “trustless” solution for business applications like smart contracts and supply chain tracking?

Dr. Gupta: Blockchain is fundamentally secure, as long as it is a distributed blockchain and it has a large number of trusted miners. That is the design specification of a blockchain network, and the security methodology works as long as the bad actors are a minority of the miner community. Hackers have targeted communities with low numbers of miners and added large numbers of colluding miners to compromise the security — hence the term “51% attack.” Once again, this is an example of badly-designed implementation and not a fault of the blockchain design.

Last November, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein called for tech companies to use “responsible encryption” that balances consumer desire for secure products with the government’s need to ensure public safety. Is “responsible encryption” possible? What would it look like?

Dr. Gupta: There is no such thing. Data that can be accessed by a government can also be accessed by a bad actor. Much has been written about why encryption with law-enforcement backdoors is a disastrous product that no one will use. We went through this drama with the Clipper Chip in 1998. This is just a replay of that old, failed attempt at backdoor encryption.

The race to come up with quantum-proof encryption techniques before hackers gain access to a quantum computer is heating up. Is this threat a likely scenario, or science fiction?

Dr. Gupta: Partially both. There has been some work on quantum-proof symmetric encryption, but nothing exists for public key cryptography. However, quantum computing is terribly underpowered, and it is not clear whether it is possible to build anything that will compromise conventional cryptography. A good discussion can be found on Bruce Schneier’s blog.

Is it important for a computer science grad student to follow trends in cryptography?

It is more important for a CS student to understand the basics of cryptography, rather than following trends. Cryptography is a well-established set of algorithmic procedures that secures data in a variety of applications. It is not as well understood by the CS community as it should be, as data security is an important facet of today’s world.

Any recommendation you can give to a computer science student who wants to learn about cryptography?

Cryptography is logical, mathematical, and practical. The student should definitely learn about “public key encryption” and its importance in web-based secure communications. Of course, to understand public keys, one also needs to know about hash functions and symmetric key encryption. Apart from taking courses, there is a large volume of self-study material available via Wikipedia and YouTube.

The Online Master of Computer Science from Arizona State University gives you the opportunity to do high-level coursework in specialized topics like blockchain, data mining, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity.

 

New Homes

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New Homes

Have you ever moved? If so, what was it like for you? Was it hard to make new friends, fit in and learn the customs of your new hometown? Did you enjoy getting to start over in a new place? What did you learn from the experience?

If not, would you ever want to move to another home, city, school, state or country? Why or why not? What do you think would be the best and hardest parts of living somewhere new?

Tell us in the comments, then read the related article to find out what it was like for this writer to grow up in 10 different countries.

Find many more ways to use our Picture Prompt feature in this lesson plan.

Word + Quiz: molder

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Word + Quiz: molder

: break down, decay

_________

The word molder has appeared in 20 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Sept. 26 in “Florence’s Slow-Motion Havoc Leaves Thousands of Evacuees in Limbo” by Alan Blinder and Chris Dixon:

With the storm still wreaking slow-motion havoc long after its winds dwindled away, Ms. Brewington and thousands of other evacuees across the Carolinas are in an exhausting, dispiriting limbo — a sad staple of most natural disasters but with a pace that seems particularly cruel this time.

Since it made landfall on Sept. 14, the storm and its aftermath have been blamed for at least 45 deaths in the Carolinas, and about 1,800 people remain in shelters at schools, recreation centers and National Guard armories. Uncounted thousands more evacuees are staying with relatives or friends, or have crowded into hotels, while their homes molder, insurance adjusters crisscross the region and, in some downstream communities, the floodwaters rise again.

_________

How Would It Feel if Your Little-Known Pastime or Interest Suddenly Became Popular?

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How Would It Feel if Your Little-Known Pastime or Interest Suddenly Became Popular?

Have you ever watched something — a hobby, sports team, musician, style or anything else — go from just being known among a few people to becoming wildly popular? Have you ever felt like you were an early fan or participant in something that became a craze? If so, how did you feel as more people got into it? Did the popularity make you more interested — or less? Why?

In “Finland’s Hobbyhorse Girls, Once a Secret Society, Now Prance in Public,” Ellen Barry writes:

It is impossible to say exactly when the Finnish hobbyhorse craze began, because it spread for years under the radar before adults became aware of it.

In 2012, a filmmaker, Selma Vilhunen, stumbled across internet discussion boards used by hobbyhorse enthusiasts and was enraptured.

Teenage girls had invented a form of hobbyhorse dressage, in which the rider’s lower body pranced and galloped like a horse, while her upper body remained erect and motionless like a rider. This evolved into an elaborate network of coaches and students and competitions, but it was discussed only online, for the most part.

“It was like a secret society,” Ms. Vilhunen said.

One of the girls she sought out as a guide to the hobbyhorse scene was Alisa Aarniomaki, a teenager from a city on Finland’s west coast.

Leather-jacketed and fuchsia-haired, Ms. Aarniomaki was a celebrity in the online world for her hand-sewn hobbyhorses and riding videos, but she was apprehensive about letting her classmates know about it. When she was 12, some friends happened to spot her practicing in the woods near her school, and teased her for playing a child’s game.

When Ms. Vilhunen’s documentary film, “Hobbyhorse Revolution,” was released in 2017, it captured its subjects in long spells of raucous joy. This was important to the filmmaker, who has made adolescent girls the focus of much of her work.

“Little girls are allowed to be strong and wild,” she said. “I think the society starts to shape them into a certain kind of quietness when they reach puberty.”

The hobbyhorse pastime is now celebrated as a national export, with national championships held every summer and Ms. Aarniomaki as its unofficial spokeswomen.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

— What are your thoughts on the hobbyhorse craze? Do you think it could catch on where you live? Why or why not?

— The article mentions that some of the girls were teased for being hobbyhorse enthusiasts. Do you think that still happens now that the pastime has caught on among more people? Explain.

— What do you think it’s like to watch your “secret society” become interesting to people in other places — or actually be featured in a documentary film?

— Do you have any similar instances in your own life, such as when your favorite little-known band, video game, book, movie or anything else became popular? How did your experience compare to the stories described in the article?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Learning With: ‘Sri Lanka Suicide Bombings Targeting Christians Kill Hundreds’

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Learning With: ‘Sri Lanka Suicide Bombings Targeting Christians Kill Hundreds’

Before reading the article:

What have you heard or read about the attacks that occurred on Sunday in Sri Lanka? What is known and not known about the incidents?

Now, read the article, “Sri Lanka Suicide Bombings Targeting Christians Kill Hundreds,” and answer the following questions:

1. How many people were killed in Sri Lanka on Sunday? How many were injured? Where did the attacks occur?

2. How many people have been arrested in connection with the bombings?

3. Who is Ranil Wickremesinghe? What remarks that he made, according to the article, suggest recent frictions within the government hierarchy?

4. What elements, according to the article, have created a “combustible atmosphere” in South Asia?

5. How has the government of Sri Lanka responded following the attacks?

6. How did word about the attacks spread?

Finally, tell us more about what you think:

1. What is the predominant religion in Sri Lanka? What percentage is Hindu, Muslim and Catholic, according to government figures?

2. When did Sri Lanka experience a civil war? What groups participated in that conflict?

3. Why did Sri Lanka block several social media networks in the wake of the terrorist attacks? Do you think the government was justified in making this decision? Why or why not?

Trials – Learning Systems

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Trials – Learning Systems

After a multi-week business trip, I’m now back and ready to begin anew (i.e. weekly posts), so first off, thanks for your patience.

We are all aware of trials.  Not the ones where you sit in a court room.  Nor the ones, where a med could improve your life. Nope, not those.  I’m referring to software trials, where you get to test out the product, before you buy. 

The e-Learning industry as a whole are fans of trials, well, uh, most of the industry that is. Authoring tools? Trials.  Assessment tools? Trials.  Web Conferencing? Mixed.  Other e-learning tools? Trials.

But the behemoth, the big elephant in the room, learning systems are not fans of trials.  This wasn’t always the case.

Step into my Time Machine

In the early 2000’s right up to about 2012, trials were common in the learning system market. Especially in the 2008-12 time frame, when the economy on a global scale was in tatters.

Not every vendor offered them, but more than enough did and consumers liked that.  Then something happened.

The economy improved.  More people flooded into the market looking for a learning system, without knowledge about the space, and thus unaware of that occured in the past.

People didn’t ask for a trial (as was the old way in the past), now it was just a demo, then decision time.

Elixir for all!

In the good ol’ days vendors listed trials on their web sites OR if you liked what you saw in the demo, you asked them via the phone or e-mail for a trial.  And most complied.  They were aware that if you were in this phase, you were on the more than interested angle.  For the vendor, it was a potential win, way better than no one reaching out to them at all.

With the web sites, the usual approach was your name, company, and e-mail address and then they sent you either a login/password with a sitename.vendorlms.com  or right into sitename.lmsvendor.com and off and running.

The vendor then followed up with you, because they had your e-mail address.  Some asked for the phone number, and at least for me, I always gave them either 867-5309 with an area code of 555, or 555-555-5555, which surprisingly works most of the time, in the sense, they can’t reach you, after all, I prefer e-mail.

The point, however was all about the trial.  I wanted to see the system. I wanted to test it out.  I didn’t care if it was skinned or not, as long as the functionality was there, and if I had questions I could ask (the salesperson) or look them up (with support links or support site), I was fine. 

I always needed 30 days.  Not because I was greedy, rather I had other things to do as part of my job, and looking only at a system in a short time frame wasn’t feasible. This wasn’t a simple buy, this was a big budget item with no room for second guessing if you pick wrong.

Time had to be my friend and the vendor if they wanted my business had to recognize that.  As they say, the rabbit isn’t always the fastest, unless it is being chased by a hawk. Take that turtle.

Present Day

Trials are now uncommon.  Sure they still exist, but most of the times it is because the vendor has a buy now/go live now model, so you can go in for the trial, and if you like it, buy right within the trial.

Other vendors offer a sandbox, but it is only available if you are either about to buy the system or in the final stages and you ask for a sandbox to test out the system. In this regard the vendor might skin and tweak it for you ahead of time OR my drop you into a vanilla sandbox for testing.

It doesn’t have to be this way though.  You can still do a trial at the beginning stage of the whole process.

Why Vendors are holding back from trials

There are a series of factors involved in the “non-trial” aspect:

  • The system is highly configurable and the vendor is worried that the buyer will not understand that, or see it, and as such, just see the system as basic, no frills
  • The trial lacks any type of skin, so it shows up as a generic look, which can turn off buyers (if they are not aware ahead of time)
  • A competitor could be getting a free look at the system (yes, it does happen, but not as frequent as it once was)
  • The fear that unless the vendor hand holds you thru the process, you as the buyer will be confused, dismayed and not see the benefits of the system, especially the functionality
  • Lack of support and/or training that is available for the trial, especially if the vendor is known for having top tier support and training
  • The vendor wants to talk to you – to “qualify” you

Why each of these reasons, are not reasons to hold back from trials

System is Highly Configurable

The vendor sets up their trial with all the functionality the buyer will get (out of the box) for that system. The back-end is what they will see if they buy.  The vendor can upon someone registering for the trial, send them a “Welcome Guide” with some key takeaways, including the configurable angle and steps how you can do it – for trial purposes, best practices on whatever, and an FAQ. 

There can be links to the vendor’s support page including access to “How to” videos.  The welcome pack includes other perks to entice the customer to reach out, if they need help.

In the e-mail, the vendor’s salesperson information is included, and notice that they will follow up in a week to see how everything is going, answer any questions, etc. 

With the welcome pack, the vendor can show screens of what other customers have done with the platform out of the box (showing the power of the configuration).  Or have a link to a video showing the possibilities.  

Using this approach, the vendor not only solves the “vanilla” generic look, but also the reduction of “I don’t understand or how to use or how to reach anyone, because there are enough touch points in the e-mail and welcome guide to solve that.  Will it eliminate everything? Absolutely not, because this isn’t everyone figures everything out.  SaaS software, heck software doesn’t always work that way. 

Let’s be Realistic

Most people will jump right into their trial. They do not click the “Help” section, nor “support” nor anything that can assist them.  They will start to play around.  That chatbot you have on your site? Worthless.  You are better off yelling at the screen or your neighbor for leaving their trash bins outside for two weeks.

This is reality, uh, not yelling at your screen – maybe though your neighbor. It is definitely the reality for SaaS software, heck any software for that matter.  How many times have you played a video game without ever opening up the guide?  What about that Office software?  Or that CRM you are testing out and using in a trial?

Thus, this is another advantage of a welcome pack with direct links contained within and a perk or two, to entice people to look at it as a “pack” and not a manual, because nobody is reading that manual. 

A pack is a few pages, not the next best seller for Barnes and Noble.  The perk?  If they buy, an additional discount.  Or if they end up asking questions on the product, special points towards a discount if they end up buying.  In other words, leverage that “Gamification” approach or benefit to buy our system, with using incentives for folks to utilize your welcome guide.

We are society that is constantly bombarded with perks and points. Why? Because it works.  Do vendors offer it when it comes to anything? Uh, no.  Could they? Yes, and it can be with that trial first off, and their amazing welcome pack or welcome kit.

The Competitor

Nothing you can do can stop someone from looking at your system, even if you choose not to do a trial. Vendors can have a friend, significant other, even themselves masking as someone else, call you, make up some stuff, to see the system, and many vendors will show it to them.  Need a name? Hello, web site yellow pages.  

This is another reality aspect.  Or think of it this way, at the ATD show, there will be a lot of vendors there. I can guarantee you that they (at least one person from that booth) will eventually walk the floor to check out other vendors and if they are competitors, look at their product, ask questions, etc.  Some are honest, others, uh, are not.

But they do it.  So, holding back a trial because you are worried that top competitor is going to check out your product, isn’t a reason.  After all, the buyer you really want, could have been yours, if you had the trial, rather than withholding it for fear.

Qualify

Once a vendor has your e-mail address, they can contact you. An easy way to authenticate is have a link go to that e-mail address they signed up, and they have to click it, to authenticate that this is their email address.  Findanlms.com follows this mantra, as a way to verify that the person is who they say they are, and not Fred from the Pebbles and Rubble society.  

Many SaaS products follow the authenticate approach as well, as an additional layer of security (which we at findanlms.com do too).  

If the vendor uses a soft touch, they can find out a bit more about you as a buyer, without having to talk to you.  The point of a trial, is for you to look at their product.  Increasing the percentages towards a buy.

Now what consumers dislike is the fill out information and then we the vendor contact you quickly and pester you.  The reason folks are accessing via the net, is they do not want to talk to you right away. 

A soft approach will always work far better than a hard sell.  Nobody likes hard sells, just as nobody likes forced learning (ahem..ahem..)

Let’s Compare to a Car

When you are looking for a car, you will go to a lot or a few and test drive a car or a few of them.  You may not know exactly what you want or maybe you do, but you want to be sure it is the right fit.   Most salespeople these days are very “hands-off”, and as long as you give them your driver’s license, they will allow you to test drive.  

At the end of the test drive, you can walk or you can stay and talk.  In the car industry, they do not want you to leave, because the probability of you returning is small, but unlike the car industry, in the learning system space, you are not testing out the system for a few hours, you are going to have it for a few weeks.

How Long for a Trial?

30 days.  Cornerstone is offering a trial for 14 days for SMB buyers.  First off, that is too short, secondly it says if I am not an SMB, I can’t have that trial, which makes not only no sense, but bad business, especially if you as the customer have no idea on what they as the vendor identify as SMB.

One vendor in the industry, lists 300 plus folks as Enterprise, although at that number you are in small business.  Another vendor lists 2000 as Enterprise and again, in reality that is low mid-size, i.e. the top end of SMB.

Thus, for Cornerstone they could be losing out on opportunities because of the words “SMB”.   Secondly, 14 days is just not enough time.

A trial should be available for up to three folks to test it out, so you the signee are one user, and then you can send out links to another two folks if you want.  That’s it.  No more. This isn’t a trick to try to use the system for free for you and 50 of your friends.

I always had trials and I’d have another person play around in the system too (either my administrator – if I had one or my boss who I knew would never access it in the first place, but asked for access).   Most of the times, it was the administrator.

Even if the trial is only for one person, it doesn’t mean you can’t send the user name and password to someone else to take a look (hence the value of having a couple of seats). 

For some reason, vendors who do seven day or 14-days seem to think, that you are just hanging around having unlimited time in a short time frame to look at their system and make perhaps the most important decision for your learners whether they be your customers, employees, members, students, etc.

And yet, I will hear from vendors who gripe that someone gave them only seven days to respond to their RFP.  So, uh, seven is fine for buyer, but not you?  Exactly.

The trial is always free.  I mention this because Cornerstone made it a point in their announcement to say it is a free trial.  Well, how else will it be?  It is called a trial for a reason.  This isn’t a trial, where you give them your credit card first and then if you decide not to buy in X weeks, they charge you. 

Thus, unless the vendor says otherwise, assume the trial is free.  I surmise many vendors though will cite it as a “Free Trial”, just from a marketing standpoint.

Bottom Line

The learning space is massive in size. Whether you are an LXP, LMS, SEP, learning platform, micro-learning platform, training management system, or other, you need to get folks to look at your product.

Sure you could have them stop by your booth – but they have to attend the show. Or you can market your web site, but then they have to contact you to see it, usually via a form, that may or may not be seen by someone at your company.

Or,  you could offer them a trial, with a quick sign-up, quick authenticate and log in, followed up with your welcome kit/pack, along with some perks to get the buyer seeing you as you want them to see you,

As the only vendor to buy from.

E-Learning 24/7

 See why buyers love using Findanlms.com for their learning system needs. Schedule Demos. Send RFPs. Talk to key decision personnel.  The latest data, latest updates, all in one place Findanlms.com

If you are looking for a learning system, stop by findanlms.com – it is 100% FREE, always. And we never do quid pro quo with any vendor in the system.  100% independent. 

 

 

What did the word ‘Sharia’ mean in seventh century Arabia?

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What did the word ‘Sharia’ mean in seventh century Arabia?

Long before the birth of the Prophet Muhammad in c.570 CE, the word Sharia was commonly used by Arabic speaking communities on the Arabian Peninsula and in the wider region. The origins and development of the term Sharia are subject to debate, but it seems to have been well known. For example, Arab Christian communities would use the term “Shariat al-Masih” to mean “The Sharia of the Messiah”, Arab Jewish communities would use the term “Shariat Musa” to mean “The Sharia of Moses”, and the term “Shariat al-Majus” was used in reference to Zoroastrianism.[1]

In the Arabian context, and within these communities, the word Sharia was a very broad term. It would be used in different ways, at different times, to evoke different things. Sometimes it was used to refer to a religion in its totality. Other times it was used more specifically with a legalistic meaning, in reference to communal religious laws about dietary practices or marriage for example. At its most basic level, the word Sharia meant “path” or a “path to water,” and carried the meaning that there existed a path of right conduct that was pleasing to God.   

Consequently, when the Qur’an emerged in seventh century Arabia,[2] Arabic speaking communities were well familiar with the word Sharia so, when the Qur’an used language such as “we have assigned a law and a path to each of you,”[3] it could be understood by those who heard it to be referring to the Sharia of different communities.

Defining and translating ‘Sharia’ in English is challenging

Of the Qur’an’s 6236 verses, around 9% can be understood as having a legalistic meaning,[4] and these could have been widely understood to be referring in some sense or other to what this path, or Sharia, might be. Of course, today the word Sharia is generally associated only with Islam, and with its foundational meaning in mind academics such as Professor Sherman A. Jackson (University of Southern California) define it as “At the most basic level, Sharia is the Muslim universe of ideals.”[5]

The precise nature of this path was only fully known to God, and so over time another Arabic word, fiqh – which at its most basic means “a deep and true understanding” – in turn came to mean a deep and true understanding of the Sharia, or rather, Islamic law.[6] While the predominant Muslim belief is that the Sharia can be found within the Qur’an and the example of the Prophet Muhammad, that belief expresses far more than simply that the Sharia is found in the plain-meaning of the text, or a straightforward repetition of what they Prophet is reported to have said, done, or tacitly approved of in every situation.

Defining Islamic law is as challenging

Islamic law is the best English translation we currently have for that word – fiqh or a deep and true understanding of the Sharia. However, it is not an ideal translation. A word like ‘law’ usually calls to mind images of states, law codes, courts, judges, police, and parliaments, while some of the most important concerns of what we call Islamic law are prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage, areas of human life that the English word law does not account for.

In the past, it was widely understood by Muslim scholars that their efforts to understand to Sharia could be fallible, and could therefore be revised and changed. It was also presumed that the Islamic law might manifest itself in different ways in different contexts. With those points in mind, Professor Mona Siddiqui (University of Edinburgh) writes that historically Muslim scholars, “were not prone to being conclusive in the presentation of their arguments, fully aware that acquiring knowledge of [the Sharia] was a human exercise and only God knew the truth. Therefore, fiqh [Islamic law] was always reflective of a certain hesitancy… reflective of conversations that were never meant to finish.”[7]

We can see a distinction starting to emerge between these two concepts: the Sharia itself, and the conversations around trying to understand the Sharia that is Islamic law. Consequently, Professor Rumee Ahmed (University of British Columbia) notes “The difference between Sharia and Islamic law should always be kept in mind. In shorthand, Sharia is the divine ideal, and Islamic law is a human attempt to capture the ideal. The distinction is crucial.”[8]

If you would like to hear more from academics such as Mona Siddiqui and Rumee Ahmed, and learn more about how these two partner concepts – the Sharia and Islamic law – have been used in different times and places, as well as in vastly different and changing contexts ranging from modern Britain, to Palestine, Indonesia, and northern Nigeria, join the new course The Sharia and Islamic Law: An Introduction.

 

Notes and references:

[1] The precise origins of the word Sharia and its different meanings is the subject of debate by historians of late antiquity. However, the manner in which the word Sharia appears in the Qur’an and early Muslim sources has led historians such as Norman Calder to suggest “it [is] unlikely that these sources constitute the beginning of the development of this term [Sharia] in Islam or in the other monotheist faiths”. N. Calder, “Sharia” in The Encyclopaedia of Islam: Second Edition (Leiden: Brill, 1954-2005).

[2] The traditional Muslim narrative is that the Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel incrementally over a period of 23 years from 610 CE – 632 CE.

[3] Qur’an 5:48. M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an: A New Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3rd ed. 2010) The Arabic words Abdel Haleem translates as law and path are shir‘a (a cognate of Sharia) and minhaj (denoting a smooth or clear path). Other examples of the Qur’an referring to the Sharia in different ways include Q42:13: “In matters of faith, He has laid down for you [people] the same commandment that he gave Noah, which we revealed to you [Muhammad] and which we enjoined upon Abraham and Moses and Jesus”. The Arabic word Abdel Haleem translates as “He has laid down” is shara‘a (another cognate of Sharia) and the word for “commandment” is din (a word that can also be translated to mean religion). This kind of polysemy around Sharia remained evident in later Muslim history where, on the one hand, a philosopher like Ibn Rushd (d.1198) could construe Sharia very broadly, while on the other hand one can also find references to “the verdict of the Islamic Sharia” in Egyptian court records from the Ottoman period.

[4] This number is based on the widely used 1924 Cairo edition of the Qur’an, and is the subject of debate among both academics and traditional Muslim scholars alike. There is a traditional understanding that the Qur’an contains 500 verses of legal relevance, found in the work of early exegetes like Muqatil b. Sulayman (d.767 CE), while academics such as Shelomo Dov Goitein and Wael Hallaq have argued that, once one takes into account the length of different verses, the proportion of the Qur’an that has a legal import becomes larger.

[5] Sherman A. Jackson, “What is the Sharia and Why Does it Matter?” Huffington Post (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-is-shariah-and-why-d_b_710976)

[6] As is the case with the Arabic word Sharia, the Arabic word fiqh has also been used with whole a host of different meanings in different times, places, and contexts. Therefore, it would imprecise to suggest that there has always been a pristine and absolute distinction between the terms Sharia and fiqh, as they have at times been used interchangeably. A common alternative translation of the word fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence, rather than Islamic law.   

[7] Mona Siddiqui, The Good Muslim: Reflections on Classical Islamic Law and Theology (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012) p.6.

[8] Rumee Ahmed, Sharia Compliant: A User’s Guide to Hacking Islamic Law (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018) p.23.

David Warren is grateful to Dr Andreas Görke, Dr Omar Anchassi, and Dr Tazeen M. Ali for their comments on a draft of this article.

Free Course on Developing your Counseling Skills

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The following course Introduction to Counseling Skills is provided in its entirety by Atlantic International University’s “Open Access Initiative” which strives to make knowledge and education readily available to those seeking advancement regardless of their socio-economic situation, location or other previously limiting factors. The University’s Open Courses are free and do not require any purchase or registration, they are open to the public.

The course in Counseling Skills contains the following:

  • Lessons in video format with explaination of theoratical content.
  • Complementary activities that will make research more about the topic , as well as put into practice what you studied in the lesson. These activities are not part of their final evaluation.
  • Texts supporting explained in the video.

The Administrative Staff may be part of a degree program paying up to three college credits. The lessons of the course can be taken on line Through distance learning. The content and access are open to the public according to the “Open Access” and ” Open Access ” Atlantic International University initiative. Participants who wish to receive credit and / or term certificate , must register as students.

Lesson 1: COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGY

Counseling psychology is a psychological specialty that encompasses research and applied work in several broad domains: counseling process and outcome; supervision and training; career development and counseling; and prevention and health. Some unifying themes among counseling psychologists include a focus on assets and strengths, person–environment interactions, educational and career development, brief interactions, and a focus on intact personalities. In the United States, the premier scholarly journals of the profession are the Journal of Counseling Psychology and The Counseling Psychologist.
In the U.S., counseling psychology programs are accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA), while counseling programs are accredited through the Counsel for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP). To become licensed as a counseling psychologist, one must meet the criteria for licensure as a psychologist.

Video Conference
Lecture Materials

Lesson 2: PRIMARY COUNSELING THERAPIES

When deciding on an appropriate counselor or psychotherapist, it can be useful to understand the different therapies they may use. Although all can be effective, you may find one approach more appealing than another, or find that some approaches are better for a certain area of counseling or psychotherapy than others. Psychological therapies generally fall into four categories. These are behavioral therapies, which focus on cognitions and behaviors, psychoanalytical and psychodynamic therapies, which focus on the unconscious relationship patterns that evolved from childhood, humanistic therapies, which focus on self-development in the ‘here and now’ and arts therapies, which use creative arts within the therapeutic process. This is a generalization though and counseling or psychotherapy usually overlaps some of these techniques. Some counselors or psychotherapists practice a form of ‘integrative’ therapy, which means they draw on and blend specific types of techniques. Other practitioners work in an ‘eclectic’ way, which means they take elements of several different models and combine them when working with clients. There are also a number of specific other therapies that can be used.

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Lesson 3: PSYCHOANALYTIC COUNSELING

Psychoanalysis is a set of psychological and psychotherapeutic theories and associated techniques, originally popularized by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and stemming partly from the clinical work of Josef Breuer and others. Since then, psychoanalysis has expanded and been revised, reformed and developed in different directions. This was initially by Freud’s colleagues and students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav Jung who went on to develop their own ideas independently from Freud.

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Lesson 4: GRIEF COUNSELING

Most can agree with the simplistic definition that grief is a keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss, sharp sorrow, and/or painful regret. As we can see, grief is not too abstract a term for us to define, because to some degree we have all experienced grief or seen it displayed in others. Though it is not a hard term to wrap meaning around, it is however a complex entity in itself. It is presented differently in everyone through variances in intensity, complexity, duration, and the properties and stages that one experiences. Webster also defines bereavement as the “state of sorrow over the death or departure of a loved one”. This term also seems pretty simple and equates to the reactions one goes through after losing a loved one.

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Lesson 5: BEHAVIORAL APPROACH TO COUNSELING

The term behavior modification and behavior therapy are often used interchangeably, but they have slightly different meanings. Behavior modification is an approach to assessment, evaluation, and behavior change that focuses on the development of adaptive, pro-social behaviors and the decrease of maladaptive behavior in daily living. Behavior modification is used by therapists and paraprofessional workers to help individuals improve some aspect of daily life. Behavior therapy is a clinical approach that can be used to treat a variety of disorders, in various types of settings, and with a wide range of special population groups. The

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Lecture Materials

Lesson 6: REALITY THERAPY COUNSELING

Reality therapy (RT) is an approach to psychotherapy and counseling. Developed by William Glasser in the 1960s, RT differs from conventional psychiatry, psychoanalysis and medical model schools of psychotherapy in that it focuses on what Glasser calls psychiatry’s three Rs: realism, responsibility, and right-and-wrong, rather than symptoms of mental disorders. Reality therapy maintains that the individual is suffering from a socially universal human condition rather than a mental illness. It is in the unsuccessful attainment of basic needs that a person’s behavior moves away from the norm. Since fulfilling essential needs is part of a person’s present life, reality therapy does not concern itself with a client’s past. Neither does this type of therapy deal with unconscious mental processes. In these ways reality therapy is very different from other forms of psychotherapy.

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Lesson 7: SCHOOL COUNSELING SKILLS & TECHNIQUES

The professional school counselor provides responsive services through the effective use of individual and small group counseling, consulting, and referral skills. There are three major theories that have shaped how counselors provide
therapeutic interventions in schools. The first of these is based on the theoretical
foundation provided by psychoanalysis, first defined and elaborated by Sigmund Freud. These approaches include those that can be described as neo-Freudian and those that contain elements first identified in Freud’s writings. Eric H. Erikson, Alfred Adler, and Otto Rank have built models for practice based on these approaches and theories.

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Lesson 8: FAMILY COUNSELING

Family therapy, also referred to as couple and family therapy, marriage and family therapy, family systems therapy, and family counseling, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of interaction between family members. It emphasizes family relationships as an important factor in psychological health. The different schools of family therapy have in common a belief that, regardless of the origin of the problem, and regardless of whether the clients consider it an individual or family issue, involving families in solutions often benefits clients. This involvement of families is commonly accomplished by their direct participation in the therapy session. The skills of the family therapist thus include the ability to influence conversations in a way that catalyzes the strengths, wisdom, and support of the wider system.

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 Lesson 9: RELATIONSHIP/COUPLES COUNSELING

Relationship counseling is the process of counseling the parties of a relationship in an effort to recognize and to better manage or reconcile troublesome differences and repeating patterns of distress. The relationship involved may be between members of a family or a couple, employees or employers in a workplace, or between a professional and a client. Couple therapy (or relationship therapy) is a related and different process. It may differ from relationship counseling in duration. Short term counseling may be between 1 to 3 sessions whereas long term couples therapy may be between 12 and 24 sessions. An exception is brief or solution focused couples therapy. In addition, counseling tends to be more ‘here and now’ and new coping strategies the outcome. Couples therapy is more about seemingly intractable problems with a relationship history, where emotions are the target and the agent of change. Marriage counseling or marital therapy can refer to either or some combination of the above.

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Lesson 10: BASIC COUNSELING SKILLS & TECHNIQUES

Tackling the ups, downs, and all around issues that come along with living a healthy life is no easy bull’s eye to hit. Every week can bring family emergencies, health problems, relationship issues, and career concerns. With all of these things that we cannot ignore how do we go about facing them head-on with strength, self-assurance, and a clear mind? If you are a counselor, or have been to a counselor before, you would know the benefits that being able to speak with someone one-on-one about your issues have to offer. There is no shame in asking for help, and there are plenty of people that are qualified professionals that are here to service your personal, career, or family needs..

Video Conference:
Lecture Materials

We understand how busy adults do not have time to go back to school. Now, it’s possible to earn your degree in the comfort of your own home and still have time for yourself and your family. The Admissions office is here to help you, for additional information or to see if you qualify for admissions please contact us. If you are ready to apply please submit your Online Application and paste your resume and any additional comments/questions in the area provided. (Online Application) (Request Info)

Atlantic International University
800-993-0066 (Gratis en EUA)
808-924-9567 (Internacional)

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