Ash Wednesday marks the first day of the Season of Lent in the Western Christian calendar and always occurs forty-six days before Easter (40 days if you don’t count Sundays). Thus, the holiday falls on a different date each year, because it is dictated by the date of Easter (it can fall anywhere between February 4th and March 10th). The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, penitence, alms-giving and self-denial-for the death (Good Friday) and resurrection of Jesus celebrated on Easter Sunday.

While Ash Wednesday is most strongly associated with the Roman Catholic Church, Lutherans, Episcopalians and a smattering of other Christian worshippers also observe the holiday. It derives its name from the ritual of placing a cross of ashes on the forehead of adherents as a symbol of penitence. The ashes are made from the burnt palm fronds used in the prior year’s Palm Sunday celebration.

According to the Bible, ashes were used in ancient times to express mourning and guilt for sins and personal shortcomings. In early Christianity, believers who had committed grave sins would perform a kind of public penance on Ash Wednesday, donning hair shirts while their local bishop sprinkled them with ashes made from the palms from the prior year. Then, while the faithful recited the Seven Penitential Psalms (smugly, I’d imagine), the penitents were turned out of the church and could not return until after Easter. When this ritual was gradually widened to include all believers, the hair shirt was abandoned in favor of the practice of abstaining from some sort of pleasurable activity or vice, such as eating chocolate, smoking cigarettes and having sex.

Unsurprisingly, The Roman Catholic Church takes Ash Wednesday very seriously. Thus, Catholics can look forward to a day of fasting, abstaining from meat and feeling even worse about themselves than they already do. The more laid back Anglican Church only really stresses fasting, and some of the really namby pamby denominations that observe the holiday only requires a day of repentance and reflection.

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According to the book of Genesis in the Old Testament, Sodom and Gomorrah were two ancient cities in Palestine that were destroyed by God because of the sins of its inhabitants. The cities are described as being destroyed by brimstone and fire (with an earthquake thrown in for good measure), and have become a symbol of impenitent sin and “sexual deviancy” in both the Christian and Islamic faiths. Thus, the etymology of the English word “sodomy,” a term that is broadly used to describe any non-vaginal sex, but is most often employed in reference to homosexual intercourse. However, Bible scholars are split over whether the primary offense of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah was homosexuality or some other significant sins, with some Rabbinical writings asserting that they were also guilty of rampant stealing, blasphemy and violence.

According to Genesis, God appeared to Abraham to warn him of his intention to destroy the two cities. Abraham expressed his concern about the righteous people in the city who would be unfairly punished for the sins of their fellow citizens. In response, God promised Abraham that he would save the city if He could find ten righteous Sodomites. God then sent two angels to Sodom, who encountered Lot at the gates of the city. Lot kindly offered to house and feed the grateful angels. However, later that night, a mob of shady men surrounded Lot’s house and ordered that he hand over his guests so that they may “know them” (which has been interpreted by some to mean, “have intercourse with them.”). A consummate host, Lot refused to turn over his guests to the mob, but generously offered them his two virgin daughters instead to “do to them whatever you like.”

Despite Lot’s tempting offer, the mob turned him down and attempted to force their way into the house, at which point the angels unceremoniously struck them with blindness. As a token of their gratitude, they briefed Lot about the impending destruction of the city, and ordered him to leave with his wife and daughters. As a final word of caution, Lot and his family were warned not to look behind them while they were fleeing the city. However, Lot’s wife could not resist the temptation to take a peek behind her during their escape from the city (hardly a crime considering the allegedly abominable sins of the Sodomites, but I digress). For this split-second act of disobedience, God turned her into a pillar of salt.

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Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction of a culture’s religious icons by its own followers, and often precipitates a major shift or break from an established religion. People who support iconoclasm are called “iconoclasts,” a term which has come to describe a person who breaks or disdains orthodoxy or established dogma. Iconoclasm can be distinguished from the destruction of one culture’s images by another group (such as the treatment of South Americans by the Spanish), and does not refer to the demolition of images of a leader after his death or overthrow (for example the toppling of Mussolini’s statues in Italy).

However, the two Byzantine outbreaks of iconoclasm, which occurred during the 8th and 9th centuries, are unique because the use of images was the main issue in dispute (during most iconoclastic periods, invective against “graven images” has usually acted as a symbolic kicking board for other ideological concerns). It is believed that “The First Iconoclasm” (726-787 AD) began after the eruption of an underwater earthquake between the islands of Thera and Therasia, which was interpreted by Emperor Leo III as a sign of God’s anger. This earthquake may have motivated Leo to remove an icon of Christ from the Chalke Gate the surrounded the imperial palace, and eschew religious iconography during the remainder of his reign.

During “The Second Iconoclasm” (814-842 AD), enacted by Constantine V, the Emperor explicitly banned the manufacture of any images of Christ and declared iconoclasm the official imperial policy. Many historians believe that the cultural confrontation with Islam, coupled with fear of and respect for their military might, may have inspired the Byzantine Christians to adopt Islamic precepts regarding the sinfulness of idolatry.

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According to chapters 11-23 in the book of Genesis, Abraham and his wife Sarah are the progenitors of the Hebrew people. Sarah, along with Rebecca, Rachel and Leah are considered the “four Matriarchs” of the Jewish people. When Abram was 75 (God later changed his name to “Abraham”), God instructed him to travel to Canaan with Sarai (who later became “Sarah”).

To the couple’s great dismay, Sarai was barren; a fact that weighed on the couple more heavily in light of God’s promise that Abram and his children would found a great nation. After ten years of unsuccessfully trying to conceive, Sarai gave Abram her maidservand Hagar to take as his concubine.

Hagar soon conceived, and bore a son named Ishmael. However, when Abram was 99 years old, God appeared before Abram and blessed the couple (and symbolically changed Abram’s name to “Abraham” and Sarai’s name to “Sarah”). God promised Abraham that Sarah would conceive a child despite her advanced age (she was 90!) and that he would maintain his covenant with their son, Isaac. True to his promise, their son Isaac was born a year later, beginning the biblical line of God’s promised “great nation” of Israel.

Isaac and Ishmael were initially raised side by side as brothers, but Sarah eventually asked Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away for reasons that are still debated by Biblical scholars today. Some claim that Sarah was horrified after discovering that Ishmael was secretly worshipping other gods, some say that it was motivated by Hagar’s uppity attitude and still others claim that Sarah was afraid that Ishmael would receive a greater inheritance as Abraham’s firstborn. In any event, Abraham ordered Hagar and Ishmael to leave his house the next morning (according to Muslim religious texts, Hagar went on to become one of the matriarchs of Islamic). It is alleged that Sarah died peacefully, at the ripe old age of 127.

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The Church of the Holy Wisdom, or Hagia Sophia, is a former Byzantine church and former Ottoman mosque located in Istanbul, Turkey. Sadly, nothing remains today of the original Hagia Sophia, which was built on this site in the 4th century by the Emperor Constantine, the first Christian emperor and the founder of Constantinople. The Hagia Sophia was the crown jewel of a number of Christian churches built in important cities by the emperor. After the destruction of Constantine’s church, his son Constantius and the emperor Theodosius the Great build a second church at the site; however, it was burned down during riots in 532 AD and only scant fragments of the remnants of this church survive today.

Hagia Sophia was rebuilt in her present form between 532 and 537 under the personal supervision of Emperor Justinian I. After the fall of Constantinople at the hands of the Ottomans in 1453, Hagia Sophia was converted into the principal mosque of Istanbul for almost 500 years. At first, very few structural changes were made by the ruling sultanate, with only a mihrab (prayer niche), minbar (pulpit) and a wooden minaret added to the former church. However, at some point, all of the faces depicted in the church mosaics were covered with plaster due to the Islamic prohibition on figurative imagery.

In 1934, under Turkish president Kemal Atatürk, Hagia Sofia was secularized and turned into the Ayasofya Museum. The prayer rugs were removed, revealing the marble beneath, but the mosaics remained largely plastered over and the building was allowed to decay for some time. Some of the calligraphic panels were moved to other mosques, but eight roundels were left and can still be seen today.

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Mizuko kuyō, or “fetus memorial services”, is a popular ceremony is Japan for those who have had a miscarriage, stillbirth or abortion. The practice of Mizuko kuyō has existed in some form in Japan for at least two centuries, and is generally included among Shinto practices involving ancestor worship. Mizuko kuyō ceremonies traditionally make offerings to the bodhisattva Jizō, who is believed to protect children.

Historical upheavals, overpopulation and shifting values have contributed to the widespread practice of abortion in Japan. Abortion became particularly widespread after the ravages of World War II, in response to acute poverty and the need to control a growing population in a country with limited living space and no system of adoption. Moreover, while abortion is widely accepted in Japan, parents still express concern for the souls of their unborn babies. Thus, the practice of Mizuko kuyō reflects an effort to resolve parental grief, comfort the soul of the fetus and/or prevent retribution from the vengeful spirit.

Men and women of all ages and socio-economic classes practice Mizuko kuyō. At each temple, a notebook is provided in which parents can write messages to their babies. It is common for these temples to offer Jizo statues for a fee, which worshippers dress in red bibs and caps and display in the temple yard as a representation of their lost child. Some prominent Japanese figures have spoken out against Mizuko kuyō, claiming that the practice has become too commercial and that these temples advertise in a manner that exploits people’s fears of retaliation by the dead. However, many defend the practice on the grounds that it addresses important emotional needs of the people.

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On September 30, 2009, the Kerala High court in India ordered local police and the Union Home Ministry to conduct a probe of the “forced conversion” campaign known as ‘Love Jihad’ or ‘Romeo Jihad.’ It is alleged that young men have been recruited by radical Islamic organizations to attract college girls with declarations of love and promises of marriage in an effort to coerce them into converting to Islam.

The ruling came on the heels of a Kerala court rejection of the bail applications of two Muslim men accused of ‘luring’ two MBA students into marriage for the sole purpose of converting them Islam. The young women testified that they had been ‘tricked’ into converting to Islam by their suitors, who had first endeared themselves with promises of marriage. The young women subsequently accompanied their suitors on a ‘romantic date,’ only to be held hostage by the young men and forced to watch extremist Islamic propaganda videos. The suspects were members of Campus Front, the student chapter of the powerful confederation of Muslim organizations known as Popular Front of India (PFI).

Investigators are now trying to determine how many girls have been “trapped in the racket” and where the funding for the movement is coming from. Investigators began to suspect that something was afoot over the summer, when the police reported that they had registered almost four thousand young women, over the course of six months, who had been exposed to the ‘Romeo Jihad’ network and subsequently converted to Islam.

However, the investigation into the alleged ‘Love Jihad’ movement is not entirely one-sided; Kerala Police are also attempting to trace the origins of mysterious posters that have sprouted up at women’s college campuses that warn students to be wary of becoming victims of ‘Love Jihad.’ These posters bear the name Rama Sene, a right-wing Hindu nationalist group that gained international attention earlier this year after members of their organization attacked a group of young women in a pub as part of their “moral policing” act.

In sum, investigators are now faced with the unenviable task of separating fact from fiction in a region long polarized by religious strife.

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