Analysing Religion and Criminality. Mani Kanth Kaleru. Section-B
Religion is basically defined as a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and sometimes, to moral values. Religions are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the human nature. The development of religion has taken different forms in different cultures. Some religions place an emphasis on belief, while others emphasize practice. Some religions focus on the subjective experience of the religious individual, while others consider the activities of the religious community to be most important. Coming to Islam, is a monotheistic and Abrahamic religion articulated by the Quran, a text considered by its followers to be the word of God and by the teachings and normative example of Muhammad, considered by them to be the last prophet of God. An adherent of Islam is called a Muslim. With over 1.5 billion followers or over 22% of earth's population, Islam is the second-largest and one of the fastest-growing religions in the world.
Coming to crime, a normative definition views crime as weird behaviour that violates prevailing norms – cultural standards prescribing how humans ought to behave normally. This approach considers the complex realities surrounding the concept of crime and seeks to understand how changing social, political, psychological, and economic conditions may affect changing definitions of crime and the form of the legal, law-enforcement, and penal responses made by society.