2.2 Religion in asia

When we look at a map of Asia we see that it is an enormous continent stretching from Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia in the West, to Japan in the East, and from Russia in the North to India and Indonesia in the South. This is the continent on which all five the major religions of the world originated. Let us start in the West with the area that is also known as the Middle East . This includes countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Israel.

Israel is also part of Asia, and Jews regards it as their Holy Land. Today Judaism is the state religion and the faith of the majority of Israelis. But there have been Jews in other parts of Asia for centuries. In India, for example, there are synagogues that were built hundreds of years before the arrival of European explorers and colonists.

Christianity also started off in Israel, and although a form of this religion spread as far as the borders of China and the South coast of India, it later died out. It was left to missionaries from Europe and the Americas, centuries later, to bring both the Catholic and Protestant types of Christianity to Asia. Today, Korea and the Philippines are largely, though not exclusively, Christian countries. Christianity has not historically been as successful in the rest of Asia, but in recent years there have been reports of Christian advances in China.

Fact file

• There are approximately 300 million Buddhists in Asia.
• The world's most populous Muslim country is Indonesia, where over 150 million Muslims live.
• Close to 900 million Indians are Hindus.

Islam was founded in Arabia, which is also part of Asia. Since then, enormous parts of the Asian continent have adopted Islam as their major religion: almost all of Southwest Asia (the "Middle East", countries like Iraq, Syria and Lebanon), West Asian countries like Iran and Turkey, and Central Asian countries like Afghanistan, but also in Southeast Asia, where Malaysia and Indonesia are predominantly Muslim countries.

Hinduism comes from India, and nearly a billion (one thousand million) people in that country are Hindus. Hinduism is also found in Nepal, where it is the state religion, and versions of it can be found in parts of Indonesia (A “state religion” is a religion that is recognized and/or supported by the state or government).

Buddhism comes from India too, but is no longer a major religion there. Instead, Buddhism has spread to other Asian countries. There are two main forms: Theravada Buddhism is an old, conservative faith that can be found today in Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Mahayana Buddhism developed later on, and spread to the northeast of India. Today it is found in China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam.

When we look at the Northern parts of Asia we see that Russia dominates that part of the continent. The part of Russia called Siberia stretches right across Asia. Russia is both a European and an Asian country. Orthodox Christianity is the most prominent Russian religion, but Islam and Buddhism are practised in Siberia too. For a long time during the twentieth century, communist governments in Russia, China, Vietnam and other countries suppressed the practice of religion. When these governments fell or at least softened their hard–line stance in the 1990s, religion immediately made a comeback in all these countries.

Fact file

• Shinto is a Japanese religion in which the appreciation of nature is very important
• Confucianism is a Chinese religion that emphasises ritual, social conformity and orderliness
• Taoism is another Chinese religion, but it emphasises magic, spiritual experience and longevity
• Jainism is related to Hinduism and Buddhism, but is more strict in its ethical rules than those two. It is only found in India.
• Sikhism was an attempt to combine aspects of Islam and Hinduism, and eventually it grew to an important religion in its own right.
• Zoroastrianism was founded in Persia and was the first major monotheistic (believing in one god) faith. Today, most Zorastrians live in Bombay, India, where they are known as P arsees (i.e. Persians).
• The Baha'i Faith originated in Iran and later moved its headquarters to Israel. Although it is not as big as the other religions, it is widely distributed across Asia.

In many remote parts of Asia, mostly in mountainous areas covered by thick forests, various people continue to practice the ancient religions of their ancestors.