worshipabsolutely obedient. The ethical relation points to two different aspects of
God: infinite goodness, mercy, and forgiveness, which is balanced by His
wrath and strict justice. The corresponding human relation is thankfulness
and fear. Furthermore, the Muslim community is divided into the people of
the book (those with revealed scripture) and the people without the book,
which suggests a distinction between believers and unbelievers. Jews and
Christians are accounted among the people of the book. The Islamic world-
view is an excellent example of a concept that helps to meditate notions of
difference and commonality. The common features are a belief system,
mythic elements, and ritual.
Worldviews set boundaries for a religion and suggest the importance
of its social dimension. Worldviews are not static concepts because they
are known to change over time. The Vedic worldview of ancient India,
with its threefold structure of the sky (masculine), the atmosphere, and
earth (feminine), and embodying a distinction between being and non-
being, which is located beneath the earth, is different from the later
purāÏic view. This later view is of a world shaped like an egg of seven
concentric circles within which the earth is located at the center and India
represents the center of the earth with Mt. Meru rising from its center.
Different worldviews call attention to the diverse geographic and cultural
distinctions among religions. A religious worldview is not merely some-
thing cultural and geographic but also historical and social. Worldviews
enable students to witness how language organizes reality, classifies
things within the world, integrates the various aspects of the world, and
interprets its world and new events. The worldview of a religion gives
one a possible insight into how that religion might deal with change, or
internal or external challenges.Further reading: Izutsu (1966); Paden (1988); Smart (1995, 1996)WORSHIP
An act of devotion that is usually directed to a god, goddess, sacred
person, or sacred object that is assumed to be more real and superior to
the devotee. In addition to devotion and adoration, worship also includes
words of praise or homage to the subject of the action. Worship takes
place within a context that includes the myths, doctrine, and ethics of a
particular religious tradition that shape the form of the activity. Often,
worship is intermixed with other types of devotional activities, such as
petitions and expiations.