By Alex Mitchell, Felicity King, Megan Stokes and Millie Hurst.

RELIGIONSBy Alex Mitchell, Felicity King, Megan Stokes and Millie Hurst.

JUDAISMHistory of Judaism until 164 BCE

The Old Testament

The history of Judaism is inseparable from the history of Jews themselves. The early part of the story is told in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).It describes how God chose the Jews to be an example to the world, and how God and his chosen people worked out their relationship. It was a stormy relationship much of the time, and one of the fascinating things about Jewish history is to watch God changing and developing alongside his people. Jewish history begins during the Bronze age.

The birth of Judaism

This was the beginning of Judaism as a structured religion The Jews, under God’s guidance became a powerful people with kings such as Saul, David, and 

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JUDAISMSolomon, who built the first great temple. From then on Jewish worship was focussed on the Temple, as it contained the Ark of the Covenant, and was the only place where certain rites could be carried out .

The kingdom declines

Around 920 BCE, the kingdom fell apart, and the Jewish people split into groups.

This was the time of the prophets.

Around 600 BCE the temple was destroyed, and the Jewish leadership was killed.

Many Jews were sent into exile in Babylon. Although the Jews were soon allowed to return home, many stayed in exile, beginning the Jewish tradition of the Diaspora - living away from Israel.

BUDDHISMSiddhartha Gautama - The Buddha

By finding the path to Enlightenment, Siddhartha was led from the pain of suffering and rebirth towards the path of Enlightenment and became known as the Buddha or 'awakened one'.

Buddha temple statue, Kathmandu, Nepal A life of luxury

Opinions differ as to the dates of Siddhartha Gautama's life. Historians have dated his birth and death as circa 566-486 BCE but more recent research suggests that he lived later than this, from around 490 BCE until circa 410 BCE.

He was born into a royal family in the village of Lumbini in present-day Nepal, and his privileged life insulated him from the sufferings of life; sufferings such as sickness, age and death.

BUDDHISM.Discovering cruel realityOne day, after growing up, marrying and having a child, Siddhartha went outside the royal enclosure where he lived. When he went outside he saw, each for the first time, an old man, a sick man, and a corpse.This greatly disturbed him, and he learned that sickness, age, and death were the inevitable fate of human beings - a fate no-one could avoid.Becoming a holy manSiddhartha had also seen a monk, and he decided this was a sign that he should leave his protected royal life and live as a homeless holy man.

SIKHISM.Sikhism was born in the Punjab area of South Asia, which now falls into the present day states of India and Pakistan. The main religions of the area at the time were Hinduism and Islam. The Sikh faith began around 1500 CE, when Guru Nanak began teaching a faith that was quite distinct from Hinduism and Islam. Nine Gurus followed Nanak and developed the Sikh faith and community over the next centuries. Militarization of the SikhsSikhism was well established by the time of Guru Aryan; the fifth Guru. Guru Aryan completed the establishment of Amritsar as the capital of the Sikh world, and compiled the first authorized book of Sikh scripture, the Adi Grant.However, during Aryans’ time Sikhism was seen as a threat by the state and Guru Arjan was eventually executed for his faith in 1606.The sixth Guru, Hargobind, started to militarise the community so that they would be able to resist any oppression. The Sikhs fought a number of battles to preserve their faith.The Sikhs then lived in relative peace with the political rulers until the time of the Moghal Emperor, Aurangzeb, who used force to make his subjects accept Islam.Aurangzeb had the ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur, arrested and executed in 1675.

SIKHISM.Gobind Singh was the last human Guru. Sikhs now treat their scriptures as their Guru.After the GurusThe first military leader of the Sikhs to follow the Gurus was Banda Singh Bahadur.He led a successful campaign against the Moghals until he was captured and executed in 1716.In the middle of the century the Sikhs rose up again, and over the next 50 years took over more and more territory.In 1799 Ranjit Singh captured Lahore, and in 1801 established the Punjab as an independent state, with himself as Maharaja.He proved an adept ruler of a state in which Sikhs were still in a minority.Although a devout Sikh, he took part in religious acts with Muslims and Hindus as well.Defeated by the BritishAfter Ranjit Singh died in 1839 the Sikh state crumbled, damaged by vicious internal battles for the leadership.In 1845-6 troops of the British Empire defeated the Sikh armies, and took over much Sikh territory. The Sikhs rebelled again in 1849, and were defeated by the British, this time conclusively.

ISLAM.Before the 20th centuryIslam and BritainQueen Elizabeth I asked the Ottoman Sultan for assistance against the Spanish Armada © There are references to Islamic scholars in the prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1386).Following the Crusades against Islam, Britain became friendly with some Islamic countries. Queen Elizabeth I, for example, asked the Ottoman Sultan Murad for naval assistance against the Spanish Armada.The first recorded Englishman to become a Muslim was John Nelson, who converted to Islam at some point in the 16th Century.A 1641 document refers to "a sect of Mahomatens" being "discovered here in London". There were also a few conversions to Islam during the period, and a few years later, in 1649, came the first English version of the Qur'an, by Alexander Ross.In the 18th and 19th Centuries there were a number of converts to Islam amongst the English upper classes, including Edward Montagu, son of the ambassador to Turkey.The first large group of Muslims in Britain arrived about 300 years ago. They were sailors recruited in India to work for the East India Company, and so it's not surprising that the first Muslim communities were found in port towns.Ships' cooks came too, many of them from Sylhet in what is now Bangladesh. There are records of Sylhetis working in London restaurants as early as 1873.Some Muslim sailors decided to stay in Britain and simply left their ships without going through any formal immigration procedure.

ISLAMThe next wave of Muslim immigration to Britain followed the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. The increase in trade caused a demand for men to work in ports and on ships.Most of these immigrants came from the Yemen, probably because Aden was the main refueling stop for ships between Britain and the Far East, and many of the seamen later settled in the port cities of Cardiff, Liverpool, South Shields, Hull, and London. There are now an estimated 70-80,000 Yemenis living in Britain, who form the longest-established Muslim group in Britain.An example is the Yemeni community of South Shields, which began at the end of the 19th century when Yemenis working as stokers on steamships moved ashore and set up boarding houses in the dock area.The first mosque in Britain is recorded as having been at 2 Glyn Rhondda Street, Cardiff, in 1860.Top ImmigrationBritain's Muslim population are almost all people who immigrated to Britain in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, or their descendants.During the first quarter of the 20th century it was estimated that there were around 10,000 Muslims in Britain. Now there are between 1 and 2 million British Muslims (2% - 4% of the population), and over half of them were born in Britain.

DIFFERENCES IN THE RELIGIONS

That they all have differences God but they treat him/her the same way. They all have different Gods. The followers all ways prayer in different ways but they still get worshiped. Some of the religions are monotheist which means they only believe in one god. They have different places to worship there god.