Anybody know anything about Rastafarianism??

[Lonely_Road_Of_Faith]

I'm just curious, but does anybody here know much about Rastafari?

As I understand it, that was Bob Marley's religious philosophy

http://www.bobmarley.com/life/rastafari/

It seems like Rastafarianism is very loosely based on Christianity...with a lot of African influences & their own stuff thrown in.

One thing I don't get was their belief that Ethiopia's former King Haile Selassie was the Messiah, or that they believe Jamaica represents hell and Ethiopia represents heaven.

Oddly enough, the Rasta hair style...Dreadlocks, seems to be based on one of the Bible's Levitical laws about hair styles.

Oh, and according to the article I linked to, smoking Marijauna (Ganja) is one of their religious rites...

I just wondered if anybody knows much about it all...

[premjan]

Ras Tafar is just another name for Haile Selassie.

Probably you could compare them to Islamic Ahmadiyas led by the Aga Khan. Basically a heterodox godman cult.

[Vajradhara]

Namaste all,

thanks for the post.

yes, Ganga is a sacrament for Rastas.

Rastas believe that Haliee Selassie was a direct descendent of King David.. this is one of the 12 Tribes of Judea that were lost... and they ended up in Ethiopia. So, they actually think that Ras Tafar is the living Son of God.. not a messiah like Jesus... it's a bit dodgy there...

i would say it's rather more like Judaism than Christianity...

Babylon for Rastas is the White-dominated, euro-centric western world.

Mount Zion is a reference to their ancestral homeland of Ethiopia.

here's a great write up of the overall tradition:


http://www.swagga.com/rasta.htm

[Heathen Dawn]

Thank you for reminding me why I so love religious zoology (oops... make that comparative religion :p). So many species, so many weird specimens... :D

[Opera Nut]

Gee, somebody mentioned the Aga Khan/Aly Khan. I wondered who that was. Wasn't the Aga Khan married to Rita Hayworth and the son was the Aly Khan? I probably read that in Vogue.

Did not know they had a name, Ahmadiyas.

Thanks!

[Sarpedon]

He is the titular head of the Ismaili sect of Islam (aka the Assassins, though they've cooled it in recent centuries) An offshoot of shi'ism, the ismailis believe their leader (in this case, the aga khan) is a semi-divine Imam. In history, they began in Persia, moved to Egypt during the Fatimid dynasty (who were ismailis) then were driven out by the Sunnis, re-established themselves in Syria (where some, called Druzes, remain) and then somehow end up in Afganistan. A former Aga Khan was a ruler there, before being driven out by the Sunnis again. Taking refuge with his british allies in India (this is late nineteenth, century, I think, I'm just writing this off the top of my head, please correct me if I'm wrong) and eventually relocated to France, where the current Aga Khan resides. Yearly, his followers present him with his own weight in gold and jewels. He also gives out the prestigious "Aga Khan Award" for architecture. The ismailis are nowadays fairly evenly distributed across the world, like the jews of europe in days gone by, they are more liberal and better educated as a whole than the generality of the muslim population, and are strong advocates of a peaceful form of pan-islamicism.

[premjan]

pardon my gaffe.

ismail was the son of Abraham if i'm not mistaken. is this an attempt to trace the root of islam to ismael the son of abraham?

[Sarpedon]

I believe so. I don't know any arabic...all I know is that this cult originated around the time of the crusades, which is how they got their name associated with murderers, apparently they were great at infiltrating crusader castles and cities and creating havoc.

[premjan]

actually it has to do with the seventh imam of shiism being either the elder son of the sixth imam or the younger son. the elder son was ismail. the assasins are a subset of the ismailis.

[Heathen Dawn]

Originally posted by Sarpedon
(aka the Assassins, though they've cooled it in recent centuries)


“Assassin” comes from “hashish-eater”. They both ate hashish and assassinated people, hence the terminology.


Yearly, his followers present him with his own weight in gold and jewels.

Followers who are usually too destitute for their own basic needs. Yet another example of how religion is a blight upon mankind.

[shivalinga]

i read a book on rasta history and dogma,
essentially it is a combination of judaism,
caribbean voodoo,and the ideas of early
black americans like Marcus Garvey.

Jamaica is of course the home of rastamen,
but also the whole caribbean.

it is based on their interpretation of bible history
with ultimately the lion of the house of judah,
the messiah ,being born as Ras Tafari, the heir
to the ethiopian throne, who would become
Selassie I (eye) ,as Bob Marley put it


"We sick an' tired of-a your ism-skism game -
Dyin' 'n' goin' to heaven in-a Jesus' name, Lord.
We know when we understand:
Almighty God is a living man.
You can fool some people sometimes,
But you can't fool all the people all the time.
So now we see the light (What you gonna do?),
We gonna stand up for our rights!"



rasta (http://altreligion.about.com/cs/rastafarian/) http://www.theflow.nl/rastafar.htm

[Leah]

Rastafari themselves see their roots in Judaism, and in Samson being the first Rastafari.

They do, though, not practice circumcision, nor the principles of Judaist hygiene, while compensating the principles of a kosher diet with a vegetarian diet, and (like Samson) they don't drink alcohol.

Their believe of afterlife resembles such of those christians that believe in a harmageddon day on earth, with the exception that only Rastafari men and women were to be gathered on that day.

Rather carefully may I add that in my view the basic belives of Rastafari are of humanist nature.

They originate from Ethiopia, therefor the connection to Judaism and Samson doesn't seem so far off.

You should get more detailed info
here (a reggae and rasafari forum I can reccomend) (http://www.melodymakers.de/forum/index.php)

[Leah]

here a direct link to a discussion on the Rastafari belief in the Rastafari section of the forum I mentioned earlier (http://www.melodymakers.de/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2250)

[Sakpo]

Originally posted by shivalinga

black americans like Marcus Garvey.
[/URL]

Garvey was Jamaican. Although he lived in New York for a long period, he also lived in London quite a bit as well, but that hardly makes him English. He was a Jamaican Pan Africanist, and certainly was not an American.

[reverendmoss]

One of the best summaries of Rastafarianism I've found was a biography of Bob Marley by Timothy White called Catch a Fire (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/080506009X/ref=pd_sim_books_5/002-1767567-5678444?v=glance&s=books). The first chapter is about the young Haile Selassie, actually. You can also check out the Kebra Negast (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312167938/qid=1065866565/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-1767567-5678444?v=glance&s=books) and the Holy Piby (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0948390638/qid=1065866443/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/002-1767567-5678444?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), a 'bible' for the rastas, which is actually yet another edited version of the Judaic texts :) Rasta took a little too much from the Christian philosophies for me but it's definitely worth looking at, if only for helping to clarify the world-view of Reggae music.

[Leah]

I would just like to add, that, although the Ratafari ideology is not mine,
it is rather fascinating how a 'religion' and 'way of life' has had such a great impact in music and had found and formed the to me most outstanding music about.
Someone once said to me that lovers of reggae are throughout optimists, something I woudn't generalise.
But if you compare the real roots reggae with its humanist messages and the conduct amongst it's fans (followers) to the Europeanised soft pop-reggae with it's lack of meaning and the bad conduct amonst those fans,
well, one gets the impression that the Rasta way of life and ideology seems to have some form of energy.
For a Rastafari there is always hope, there is always a future and always somewhere to go.

One Love
and on a personal level: they do look stunning. And their way of speaking gives me goosepimples. :D

[reverendmoss]

Originally posted by Leah
Someone once said to me that lovers of reggae are throughout optimists, something I woudn't generalise.

That someone probably never listened to Lynton Kwesi Johnson! :) He had an axe to grind but still made some dope reggae (no pun intended, seriously).