Curated playlist
Monotheistic religions
- SikhismSikhism's sixth guru introduced two swords on the 12th of June 1606.
- IslamBecoming Muslim takes one spoken sentence said before witnesses. That oath is called the shahada.
- JudaismIn 2008, Israel's highest religious court invalidated 40,000 conversions to Judaism.
- ShaivismShaivism includes ascetics who beg with a human skull and householders who pray in local temples. Both follow Shiva.
- DruzeThe Druze call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn, which means the Unitarians. The name the wider world uses instead comes from a man the Druze regard as a heretic. He was Muhammad bin Ismail Nashtakin ad-Darazī, an early preacher, and his name…
- Baháʼí FaithThe Baháʼí Faith has faced persecution in Iran, the land where it began, since its earliest days. Baháʼu'lláh established this religion in the 19th century, and its followers, called Baháʼís, now live in most of the world's countries and…
- ZoroastrianismZoroastrianism has an estimated 110,000-120,000 followers today, yet it once counted its believers in the millions. Scholars rank it among the oldest organized faiths in the world. Its founder is usually called Zoroaster, a Greek rendering…
- ChristianityChristianity's first followers did not think they were founding a new faith. They were waiting for Jesus to return.
- Abrahamic religionsThe term "Abrahamic religions" is only a 20th-century invention. It partly replaced "Judeo-Christian" to include Islam.
- International Society for Krishna ConsciousnessThe International Society for Krishna Consciousness, known to the public as the Hare Krishna Movement, was founded on the 13th of July 1966 in New York City. Its founder, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, had arrived in the city only…
- Black Hebrew IsraelitesBlack Hebrew Israelites are followers of a new religious movement built on a single claim: that African Americans are descendants of the ancient Israelites. The movement goes by several names, including Hebrew Israelites, Black Hebrews,…
- RastafariRastafari is a religion organised around a man who told an interviewer in 1967 that treating him as divine was a mistake. Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, had been asked about the belief that he was the Second Coming of Jesus. His…