Class 11 History: Religious Conflicts

No-one living in the modern world can have escaped reading about, or even witnessing the escalations in religious intolerance, conflicts and disputes that have been happening in the world in recent years.

In the Class 11 History main lesson in November, we attempted to ‘unpack’ some of what lies behind these conflicts.

In this main lesson, Class 11 examined the relationships between the three great monotheistic religions of the world. We traced Judaism back to its Old Testament roots, we tried to understand what lay behind the persecution of Jesus Christ and we took an in-depth look at the harsh realities of life on the Arabian Peninsular in the seventh century A.D. to see what kind of world Muhammad was born into.

We then embarked on a fourteen hundred year journey in order to gain an understanding of the religious conflict – and sometimes harmony – that has characterised the relationships between Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Although we dwelt briefly in the medieval period to theorise what lay behind the Crusades, and we slowed down to examine the decline of the Great Ottoman Empire between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, much of our work centred around case studies from the twentieth century such as the birth of the State of Israel, the Suez Crisis, the Cold War effect and the turbulent relationship between the U.S. and the Middle East.

We also undertook a compare and contrast exercise between Christianity and Islam and were surprised at the many deeply held views and fundamental concepts that they share together.

Tony Andrews