The Success of Ford Motor Company Research Paper

The Success of Ford Motor Company - Research Paper Example According to the paper we highlight some of the issues mentioned in the case and support it with research in the automobile industry domain. The focus is restricted to the US automobile market; though we need to consider the global car market since the automobile industry is global in nature. Manufacturing, Research and Development and raw materials are often sourced from across the globe. Similarly, products manufactured in one country are often exported and sold in several other countries. Here, we are discussing the case in the context of the automotive industry in US. There are references to the global environment also. Some of the peripheral aspects of the case also deal with the global scenario. From this discussion it is clear that the company was operating in a highly competitive US market. The US market was marked by consumers who were facing the brunt of a slow-growth economy with several macro-economic indicators at an all-time low. Naturally, this led to the demand for highly efficient automobiles. The concerns were with maximizing the value of every dollar earned. This was applicable to all consumer durable products. The political setup was stable and emphasized robust economic growth. Socio-economic forces tended to be positive for all the consumer durable goods that dominated the market. The environment was technology intensive and it permeated to all classes of products, more especially in the area of communication services. In automobile industry, hybrid cars, electric vehicles and traditional gasoline and diesel vehicles with higher fuel efficiency were making their presence felt. The industry was driven by the car manufacturers. Supplier power was low since they could not bargain for higher prices easily. Additionally, there were more suppliers who could cater to automobile companies.

Musical Style and Innovations of Beethoven Essay Example for Free

Musical Style and Innovations of Beethoven Essay Musical Style and Innovations Beethoven is viewed as a transitional figure between the Classical and Romantic eras of musical history. Above all, his works distinguish themselves from those of any prior composer through his creation of large, extended architectonic structures characterized by the extensive development of musical material, themes, and motifs, usually by means of modulation, that is, a change in the feeling of the home key, through a variety of keys or harmonic regions. Although Haydns later works often showed a greater fluidity between distant keys, Beethovens innovation was the ability to rapidly establish a solidity in juxtaposing different keys and unexpected notes to join them. This expanded harmonic realm creates a sense of a vast musical and experiential space through which the music moves, and the development of musical material creates a sense of unfolding drama in this space. In this way Beethovens music parallels the simultaneous development of the novel in literature, a literary form focused on the life drama and development of one or more individuals through complex life circumstances, and of contemporaneous German idealisms philosophical notion of self, mind, or spirit that unfolds through a complex process of contradictions and tensions between the subjective and objective until a resolution or synthesis occurs in which all of these contradictions and developmental phases have been resolved or encompassed in a higher unity. Beethoven continued to expand the development section of works, extending a trend in the works of Haydn and Mozart, who had dramatically expanded both the length and substance of instrumental music. As Beethovens major immediate predecessors and influences, he looked to their harmonic and formal models for his own works. However, both Mozart and Haydn placed the great weight of a musical movement in the statement of ideas called the exposition, for Beethoven the development section of a sonata form became the heart of the work. Beethoven was able to do this by making the development section not merely longer, but also more structured. The very long development section of the Eroica Symphony, for example, is divided into four roughly equal sections, making it, in effect, a sonata form within a sonata form. The first movement alone of this symphony is as long as an entire typical Italian-style Mozart symphony from the 1770s. His focus on the development would, like others of his innovations, set a trend that later composers would follow. Although Beethoven wrote many beautiful and lyrical melodies, another radical innovation of his music, compared especially to that of Mozart and Haydn, is his extensive use of forceful, marked, and even stark rhythmic patterns throughout his compositions and, in particular, in his themes and motifs, some of which are primarily rhythmic rather than melodic. Some of his most famous themes, such as those of the first movements of the Third, Fifth, and Ninth symphonies, are primarily non-melodic rhythmic figures consisting of notes of a single chord, and the themes of the last movements of the Third and Seventh symphonies could more accurately be described as rhythms rather than as melodies. This use of rhythm was particularly well suited to the primacy of development in Beethovens music, since a single rhythmic pattern can more easily than a melody be taken through a succession of different, even remote, keys and harmonic regions while retaining and conveying an underlying unity. This allowed him to combine different features of his themes in a wide variety of ways, extending the techniques of Haydn in development (see Sonata Form). He also continued another trend towards larger orchestras that went on until the first decade of the 20th century, and moved the center of the sound downwards in the orchestra, to the violas and the lower register of the violins and cellos, giving his music a heavier and darker feel than Haydn or Mozart. Gustav Mahler modified the orchestration of some of Beethovens music most notably the 3d and 9th symphonies with the idea of more accurately expressing Beethovens intent in an orchestra that had grown so much larger than the one Beethoven used: for example, doubling woodwind parts to compensate for the fact that a modern orchestra has so many more strings than Beethovens orchestra did. Needless to say, these efforts remain controversial. In his Fifth Symphony Beethoven introduced a striking motif, drawn from a late Haydn symphony, in the very opening bar, which he echoed in various forms in all four movements of the symphony. This is the first important occurrence of cyclic form. He was also fond of making usual what had previously been unusual: in the Fifth Symphony, instead of  using a stately minuet, as had been the norm for the dance movement of a four-movement work, he created a dark march, which he used as the third movement and ran into the fourth without interruption. While one can point to previous works which had one or more of these individual features, his music, combined with the use of operatic scoring that he learned from Mehul and Cherubini, created a work which was altogether novel in effect too novel, in fact, for some critics of the time. On the other hand, his contemporary Spohr found the finale too baroque, though he praised the second movement as being in good Romantic style. His Ninth Symphony included a chorus and solo voices in the 4th movement for the first time, and made extensive use of fugues, which were generally considered to be a different form of music, and again unusual in symphonies. He wrote one opera, Fidelio. It has been said that he wrote beautiful vocal music without regard for the limitations of human singers, treating the voice as if it were a symphonic instrument even though his conversation books note his desire to make his music singable and include references that indicate that he had remembered his fathers singing lessons. Beethovens development and works are typically divided into three periods: an early period in which his works show especially the influence of Mozart and Haydn; a middle, mature period in which he developed his distinctive individual style, sometimes characterized as heroic; and a late period, in which he wrote works of a highly evolved, individuated, sometimes fragmented and unorthodox style sometimes characterized as transcendent and sublime, where he tried to combine the baroque ideas of Handel and Bach with his icons Mozart and Haydn. In his late years he called Handel my grand master. In contrast to Mozart, he labored heavily over his work, leaving intermediate drafts that provide considerable insight into his creative process. Early drafts of his Ninth Symphony used rough vertical marks on the score in place of actual notes, to indicate the structure he had in mind for the melody. Studies of his sketch books show the working out of dozens of variations on a particular theme, changing themes to fit with an overall structure that evolved over time, and extensive sketching of counter-melodies.

Hydroelectric Power :: essays research papers

Hydroelectric Power   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of the earliest ways to harness power is to use the powerful flow of water. On September 30th, 1882, in Appleton, Wisconsin, the first ever dam was built. Since then, over 2,044 billion-kilowatt hours have been produced each day, worldwide. This source of energy is being used more and more days, because it is so dependable. But, how does it actually work and produce electricity? First of all, dams are located in a position where water moves swiftly and quickly. This is very important. When the water enters the dam, it goes through a series of giant pipes. At this point, the water hit the paddles of the turbine, causing it to spin. From there, the water goes to the end of the dam, and continues its regular flow in the river. To find out where the electricity comes from, we must go back to the turbines. As the turbines spin, a long, thick stick that protrudes out the side is connected to a generator filled with magnets. This is where all the electrons are produced. Lastly, the power is then flows through power lines and reaches homes and businesses in the area. There are many advantages to using dams. Fist of all, we basically have an unlimited source of water. Also, these dams are sturdy and could last for years and years. In addition, dams don’t add any pollution, which nuclear and fossil fuels do, to the environment, which is now a major problem. Lastly, it’s a reliable source. Unlike wind power and solar power, we could use it day and night and we know it will be around the next day. There are a few disadvantages towards having a dam. First of all, they are very costly. Dams have a lot of expensive equipment. Also, a dam requires a lot of space to build and powerful water. Both of these requirements make finding a place to build a dam hard to find. Worst of all, when building a dam, you might have to evacuate people to do the actual building. There is an average of 80,000 people who need to be evacuated. All in all, I think that hydroelectric dams should be the world’s main source of power. Hydroelectric Power :: essays research papers Hydroelectric Power   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of the earliest ways to harness power is to use the powerful flow of water. On September 30th, 1882, in Appleton, Wisconsin, the first ever dam was built. Since then, over 2,044 billion-kilowatt hours have been produced each day, worldwide. This source of energy is being used more and more days, because it is so dependable. But, how does it actually work and produce electricity? First of all, dams are located in a position where water moves swiftly and quickly. This is very important. When the water enters the dam, it goes through a series of giant pipes. At this point, the water hit the paddles of the turbine, causing it to spin. From there, the water goes to the end of the dam, and continues its regular flow in the river. To find out where the electricity comes from, we must go back to the turbines. As the turbines spin, a long, thick stick that protrudes out the side is connected to a generator filled with magnets. This is where all the electrons are produced. Lastly, the power is then flows through power lines and reaches homes and businesses in the area. There are many advantages to using dams. Fist of all, we basically have an unlimited source of water. Also, these dams are sturdy and could last for years and years. In addition, dams don’t add any pollution, which nuclear and fossil fuels do, to the environment, which is now a major problem. Lastly, it’s a reliable source. Unlike wind power and solar power, we could use it day and night and we know it will be around the next day. There are a few disadvantages towards having a dam. First of all, they are very costly. Dams have a lot of expensive equipment. Also, a dam requires a lot of space to build and powerful water. Both of these requirements make finding a place to build a dam hard to find. Worst of all, when building a dam, you might have to evacuate people to do the actual building. There is an average of 80,000 people who need to be evacuated. All in all, I think that hydroelectric dams should be the world’s main source of power.

Happy Teacher

â€Å"HAPPY TEACHER† A Narrative Report on Practice Teaching 2011- 2012 Maria Regina D. Gile My parents would always tell me how I dreamed of becoming a teacher in the future. I would usually be found holding a book and a pen, scribbling some notes and cutting off sheets of paper. A chalk and a board was my favourite, they would say, with matching pointing stick. I guess ever since, I find teachers so majestic and powerful and smart that made me want to be one. That was BEFORE not until now. Not today. I want to become a fashion designer, an interior designer, anything that has to do with the Arts. I love anything related to it.Colours, pegs, pencils, paintbrushes, everything. That is what I want. But you see, not all that we want, we get. This is what I want but I’m taking up what I don’t want. BS Education. Well for one it’s because a lot of people look at it as a low profession. Second, monetarily speaking, it does not tantamount to all the works to be done and efforts exerted. And lastly, my patience level? Err. Below Average. I cannot tolerate slow learners, or mentally challenged ones, or whatever you call them. I just am not comfortable with that. But fate brought me here. God brought me here. Although hard to accept, I had to.The first few years of me being an Education Student went quite well. I got high satisfactory grades, loved by teachers and gained friends. Everything was going well. I could get used to this, I thought to myself. Four years and I still haven’t shifted. Cool. And in my fourth year, the â€Å"total defining moment† has finally arrived; and that is to Practice Teaching- in an unfamiliar environment- just us- no back- up. Oh great, I thought. I better ready myself. I cannot back out! THIS IS A REQUIREMENT! I NEED TO DO IT IN ORDER TO GRADUATE! And so i did. I entered the room sheepishly with all eyes on me.Not to mention the slight murmurs children made and slight laughs. Boom- boom- boom! My heart went. I was assigned to Grade 1 students. I can do this. So in the first few weeks, i observed and supervised classes but not really went to the act of teaching. Children would usually approach me, asking me to open their biscuits, punch straws on their juices and fix their belts. It felt good and that was quite odd. I never opened myself to this perspective. Days went on and I realized i have memorized their names in just a week. I would usually call out their names to tell them to keep quiet, to fall in line and to fix their things.I’m lovin’ this i thought. What even made me realize i could be in this profession is when students started giving me cute little heart shaped papers telling me how much they love me and how beautiful i am. These kids really know how to appreciate every small little thing! My presence, they say, makes them feel safe and that they never want me to go away. Isn’t that sweet? Until finally i realized, i could be a teacher. I love kids, i love how they express their gratitude, i love the classroom setting! It makes me feel confident and safe and everything! And from that moment, i realized i wanted to become a Grade- school teacher.Not because i am enforced in this course but because i want it. Yes, i want to become a teacher. My â€Å"realization† was even strengthened when i started teaching. At first i was extremely nervous and uneasy because i do not know what to expect. Will they listen to me? Will they learn from me? Can they adapt to my strategy? All of these questions kept running in my mind until one student approached me and gave me a hug. I needed that. I instantly felt at ease. It felt like home. So i went on. The night before my teaching, i practiced and prepared myself very well. From the motivation, presentation, lesson proper and all.I didn’t want to fail. I need to impress my students, my critic teacher. So going back, when i started talking in front, i find myself getting more energetic and excited. i love talking and this profession allows me to maximize my mouth muscles! Great! The kids started listening attentively, actively participated and they are getting excited too! With this, i even thought, i am a great teacher! I can arouse their interest, they are listening and my critic teacher is smiling! It feels good and rewarding, honestly. All the things i have learned, i integrated, all the strategies taught, i applied and i said to myself this is gonna be fun!And so, i always prepared lessons even two days before and thought of different ways to motivate my students. I injected humor in my discussions that made the class lively, games to challenge the students, and riddles and more. It was fulfilling to see those timid students before were actively reciting and are motivated by me. I got so attached to all of them easily, taking care of them as if my own children. They’re my little angels! And everyday i look forward to see them despite the ted ious works and deadlines. I know that becoming a teacher isn’t easy. It requires a lot of patience and hard work and passion.And i am thankful to God for bringing me here. If i didn’t give it a try, i wouldn’t have seen the beauty of this profession. Thanks to St. Paul too, for this practice teaching. It exposed me to an environment i would probably be dealing with for the rest of my life and through this Pauline Education, not only has it moulded me as a professional but a teacher with a heart and values. Finally, with the practice teaching i have experienced, it served as an eye- opener that becoming a teacher is not bad at all. It is a fulfilling profession not only academically or professionally but a food for the soul.

Influence of Religion on African Culture

Africa is a continent of diversity. In this diversity there are hundreds of tribes and communities each practicing its own culture and religion. It would be very difficult to define Africa’s traditional religion as it would be difficult to define its culture.More so, it is extremely difficult to establish the dividing line between African Culture and African Religion. However, as much as there were many African Traditional Religions, their similarities were more dominant than their differences. We take up these similarities and encompass them as one African Traditional Religion. In this report, we explore the important aspects of Africa’s Traditional Religions and cultures that cut across the entire continent.This essay is based on various researches done by prominent scholars, historical background of Africa, news and books relevant to African studies. This report attempts to define religion, culture, and explores the major religions, African Traditional Religion (ATR) , Christianity and Islam and their influence and impact on African culture. Africa is one of the World’s six continents. It is the second largest and second most populous continent after Asia. Other continents include; Asia, America-North, America-South, Australia, Europe.Geologically, Present-day Africa, occupying one-fifth of Earth's land surface, is the central remnant of the ancient southern supercontinent called Gondwanaland, a landmass once made up of South America, Australia, Antarctica, India, and Africa. This massive supercontinent broke apart between 195 million and 135 million years ago, cleaved by the same geological forces that continue to transform Earth's crust today. At about 30. 2 million km? (11. 7 million sq  mi) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20. % of the total land area. With 1. 0 billion people (as of 2009) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14. 72% of the world's human population. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, both the Suez Canal and the Red Sea along the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The continent has 54 sovereign states, including Madagascar, various island groups, and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, a member state of the African Union whose statehood is disputed by Morocco.Afri was the name of several Semitic peoples who dwelt in North Africa near Carthage (in modern Tunisia). Their name is usually connected with Phoenician afar, â€Å"dust†, but a 1981 hypothesis has asserted that it stems from a Berber word ifri or Ifran meaning â€Å"cave†, in reference to cave dwellers. Africa or Ifri or Afer is name of Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania (Berber Tribe of Yafran). Pre-colonial Africa possessed perhaps as many as 10,000 different states and polities characterised by many different sorts of political organisation and rule.These included small family groups of hunter-gatherers such as the San people of southern Africa; larger, more structured groups such as the family clan groupings of the Bantu-speaking people of central and southern Africa, heavily structured clan groups in the Horn of Africa, the large Sahelian kingdoms, and autonomous city-states and kingdoms such as those of the Akan, Yoruba and Igbo people (also misspelled as Ibo) in West Africa, and the Swahili coastal trading towns of East Africa.Religion originates from the Latin world religare (re: back, and ligare: to bind), and this brings up the world â€Å"being bound. † faith is usually the core element of religion. Faith encompasses â€Å"Value-center,† â€Å"trust,† â€Å"loyalty,† and â€Å"meaning†. It is difficult to define religion.A good definition of religion is one that expounds on the following key traits; Belief in something sacred (for example, gods or other supernatural beings), A distinction between sa cred and profane objects, Ritual acts focused on sacred objects, A moral code believed to have a sacred or supernatural basis, characteristically religious feelings (awe, sense of mystery, sense of guilt, adoration), which tend to be aroused in the presence of sacred objects and during the practice of ritual, prayer and other forms of communication with the supernatural, world view, or a general picture of the world as a whole and the place of the individual therein. This picture contains some specification of an over-all purpose or point of the world and an indication of how the individual fits into it, a more or less total organization of one’s life based on the world view, A social group bound together by the above. Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning â€Å"to cultivate†) is a term that has various meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of â€Å"culture† in Culture: A Cri tical Review of Concepts and Definitions.However, the word â€Å"culture† is most commonly used in three basic senses: Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as culture, An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning and the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group. Culture has six core elements; politics, economics, ethics, aesthetics, kinship and religion. And out of these, religion â€Å"is by far the richest part of the African heritage. † It shapes their cultures, their social life, their politics, and their economics and is at the same time shaped by this same way of life. Some of the major religions that influenced African culture; African traditional religion, Christianity and Islam African Traditional ReligionIt is a unique religion whose sources include: sacred places and religio us objects such as rocks, hills, mountains, trees, caves and other holy places; rituals, ceremonies and festivals of the people; art and symbols; music and dance; proverbs, riddles, and wise sayings; and names of people and places. Beliefs cover topics such as God, spirits, birth, death, the hereafter, magic, and witchcraft. Religion, in the African indigenous context, permeates all departments of life. Africa’s traditional religion is based on the Ubuntu philosophy, which is a Zulu word for human-ness, and was developed over many centuries in traditional African culture. This culture was pre-literate, pre-scientific and pre-industrial. The concept of Ubuntu was originally expressed in the songs and stories, the customs and the institutions of the people. Another distinctive quality of the Ubuntu philosophy is the African emphasis on consensus.Indeed, the African traditional culture has, seemingly, an almost infinite capacity for the pursuit of consensus and reconciliation. D emocracy in the African way does not simply boil down to majority rule since it operates in the form of discussions geared towards a consensus. Christianity The Christian religion was founded in what is today Israel and Palestine 2000 years ago at the beginning of the Common Era. Christianity is based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, a Jewish teacher and prophet. Early Christians (followers of Christ) believed that Jesus was divine in that he was the son of God. Islam Islam is a religion that was founded by Prophet Mohammed.It geographic origin can be traced to the modern-day Saudi Arabia. Influences of Religion on African Culture Religion being one of the core components of culture has a great influence on culture. Every religion practiced in Africa today has had a profound effect on the African culture, be it the African Traditional Religion, Christianity or Islam. Christianity Influence on African Culture arrived in Africa in two groups. One important group was centered in Egypt and had influence throughout North Africa. This group was known as the Gnostics. One of the other major factions of the early Christianity was centered in Rome. This faction was very much influenced by the teachings of the Apostle Paul.This faction became prominent in the fourth century C. E. when the Roman Empire officially became Christian. Recognizing the importance of a sacred text in solidifying their control over Christianity, the Roman faction brought together a collection of writings by early Christians and proclaimed these writings were inspired by God and that they were the true testament of the life and teachings of Jesus. This collection is known as the New Testament and is a central part of the Christian Bible. However, in creating the New Testament the Roman faction rejected as heresy all other writings about Jesus' life and teachings, including many books written by North African Gnostic ChristiansIn spite of the repression of the Gnostic Christians by Roman Christians, Christianity continued to flourish throughout North Africa until the arrival of Islam in the seventh century C. E. The Christians in this area were known as Coptic Christians, named after the main language of the area. By the time of the arrival of Islam, the Coptic Orthodox Church had lost most of the Gnostic influence, although the Coptic faith, like the Gnostics placed a great deal of emphasis on contemplation and monasticism. In structure, it was similar to the Church of Rome in that it practiced the same sacraments, and the church structure was made up of priests and bishops.Like the Roman Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church is headed by a Patriarch (similar to the Pope in the Roman Church) who lives in Alexandria. Even after Egypt had been taken over by Arab Moslems, the Coptic Christians continued to form a small but important segment of Egyptian society. Indeed, Coptic Christians today comprise approximately fifteen per cent of the Egyptian population. Christiani ty was introduced in Nubia by Christian monks and traders in the fifth and sixth centuries C. E. By the seventh century, the rulers of Nubia and most Nubians had converted to Christianity. In practice and structure, the Nubian church was similar to the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt.In June, 18, 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull ‘Dum Diversas', granting King Alfonso V of Portugal the right to â€Å"attack, conquer, and subjugate Saracens, Pagans and other enemies of Christ wherever they may be found. † It gave title over all lands and possessions seized and permitted the Portuguese to take the inhabitants and consign them to perpetual slavery. Dum Diversas legitimised the colonial slave trade that begun around this time with the expeditions by Henry the Navigator to find a sea route to India, which were financed with African slaves. This approval of slavery was reaffirmed and extended in his Romanus Pontifex of 1455. The transatlantic trade in Africans was fo unded on Christianity.Religion was key in motivating Prince Henry of Portugal, later called Henry, â€Å"the Navigator† (1394-1460), to put in motion Europe's aggressive and ruthless expeditions to Africa. Henry was not only the governor of Algrave Province, who managed a large economic infrastructure based on the unbridled grasp of enormous wealth from trans-Saharan commerce, but he was also the administrator of the Order of Christ, the Portuguese successor to the Knights Templar, a famous Western military order founded in the aftermath of the First Crusade at Clermont on November 27, 1095. As one of the best fighting units, the Soldiers of Christ prompted a series of striking maritime exploits, ensuring the safety of Europeans who made pilgrimages to Jerusalem.It is important to note that during this historical period, the feudal states of European countries were just beginning to unite and major religious wars were being fought between Christians and Muslims, especially th e Moors in Morocco. Henry trained men to sail from Portugal, down the west coast of Africa in search of the limits to the Muslim world, in order to halt the Islamization of West Africa and to accelerate the spread of Christianity. In order to further God's intentions for humankind, Ogbu Kalu contends that within the context of religious logic, papal bulls offered rights of patronage to Henry, authorizing him to appoint clerical orders for evangelization and to fend off competing European interests.According to Peter Russell, Henry the Navigator considered conversion and enslavement as interchangeable terms, experiencing no cognitive dissonance in using Christianity as a civilizing agent for making converts into slaves. In â€Å"Christianity: Missionaries in Africa,† Modupe Labode sums it up this way: The case of the Portuguese exemplifies the close relationship between Crown and Church. In the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), the pope recognized Portuguese claims to Africa. The Crown was also responsible for attempting to convert the indigenous people to Christianity. Much of the missionary effort over the next two and half centuries was conducted under Portuguese authority. The vast majority of the missionaries at this time were Roman Catholic priests, many of them belonged to religious orders such as the Jesuits, Capuchins, and Franciscans.Influence of Islam on African Culture led to the spread of Islam, from its heartland in the Middle East and North Africa to India and Southeast Asia, revealed the power of the religion and its commercial and sometimes military attributes. The spread of Islam across much of the northern third of Africa produced profound effects on both those who converted and those who resisted the new faith. Islamization also served to link Muslim Africa even more closely to the outside world through trade, religion, and politics. Trade and long-distance commerce, in fact, was carried out in many parts of the continent and linked regio ns beyond the orbit of Muslim penetration.Until about 1450, however, Islam provided the major external contact between sub-Saharan Africa and the world. State building took place in many areas of the continent under a variety of conditions. West Africa, for example, experienced both the cultural influence of Islam and its own internal dynamic of state building and civilization developments that produced, in some places, great artistic accomplishments. The existence of stateless societies and their transformation into states are a constant of African history even beyond 1500. As we have seen with Egypt, North Africa was also linked across the Sahara to the rest of Africa in many ways.With the rise of Islam, those ties became even closer. Between A. D. 640 and 700 the followers of Muhammad swept across North Africa from Suez to the Pillars of Hercules on Morocco's Atlantic shore. By A. D. 670 Muslims ruled Tunisia, or Ifriqiya, what the Romans had called Africa. (The Arabs originally used this word as the name for eastern North Africa and Maghrib for lands to the West. ) By 711, Arab and Berber armies had crossed into Spain. In opposition to the states dominated by the Arabic rulers, the peoples of the desert, the Berbers, formed states of their own at places such as Fez in Morocco and at Sijilimasa, the old city of the trans-Saharan caravan trade.By the 11th century, under pressure from new Muslim invaders from the East, a great puritanical reformist movement, whose followers were called the Almoravids, grew among the desert Berbers of the western Sahara. Launched on the course of a jihad, a holy war waged to purify, spread, or protect the faith, the Almoravids moved southward against the African kingdoms of the savanna and westward into Spain. Islam offered a number of attractions within Africa. Its fundamental teaching that all Muslims are equal within the community of believers made the acceptance of conquerors and new rulers easier. The Islamic tradition of uniting the powers of the state and religion in the person of the ruler or caliph appealed to some African kings as a way of reinforcing their authority.The concept that all members of the ummah, or community of believers, were equal put the newly converted Berbers and later Africans on an equal footing with the Arabs, at least in law. Despite these egalitarian and somewhat utopian ideas within Islam, practice differed considerably at local levels. Social stratification remained important in Islamicized societies and ethnic distinctions also divided the believers. The Muslim concept of a ruler who united civil and religious authority reinforced traditional ideas of kingship. It is also important to note that in Africa, as elsewhere in the world, the formation of states heightened social differences and made these societies more hierarchical.Africans had been enslaved by others before, and Nubian (African) slaves had been known in the classical world, but with the Muslim conquests o f North Africa and commercial penetration to the south, slavery became a more widely diffused phenomenon, and a slave trade in Africans developed on a new scale. In theory, slavery was viewed by Muslims as a stage in the process of conversion – a way of preparing pagans to become Muslims – but in reality conversion did not guarantee freedom. Slaves in the Islamic world were used in a variety of occupations, such as domestic servants and laborers, but they were also used as soldiers and administrators who, having no local ties and affiliations, were considered to be dependent and thus trustworthy by their masters. Slaves were also used as eunuchs and concubines; thus the emphasis on women and children.The trade caravans from the Sahel across the Sahara often transported slaves as well as gold. Other slave-trade routes developed from the African interior to the east African coast. The tendency for the children of slave mothers to eventually be freed and integrated into M uslim society, while positive in one sense, also meant a constant demand for more slaves. Islam provided the residents of these towns a universal set of ethics and beliefs that made their maritime contacts easier; but in East Africa, as in the savanna kingdoms of West Africa, Islamization was slow to penetrate among the general population, and when it did, the result was often a compromise between indigenous ways and the new faith.By the thirteenth century, a string of urbanized trading ports sharing the common Bantu-based and Arabic-influenced Swahili language and other cultural traits – although governed by separate Muslim ruling families – had developed along the coast. Towns such as Mogadishu, Mombasa, Malindi, Kilwa, Pate, and Zanzibar eventually contained mosques, tombs, and palaces of cut stone and coral. Ivory, gold, iron, slaves, and exotic animals were exported from these ports in exchange for silks from Persia and porcelain from China for the ruling Muslim f amilies. African culture remained strong throughout the area. Swahili language was essentially a Bantu language into which a large number of Arabic words were incorporated, though many of them were not incorporated until the 16th century.The language was written in an Arabic script sometime prior to the 13th century; the ruling families could also converse in Arabic. Islam itself penetrated very little into the interior among the hunters, pastoralists, and farmers. Even the areas of the coast near the trading towns remained relatively unaffected. In the towns, the stone and coral buildings of the Muslim elite were surrounded by mud and thatch houses of the non-Muslim common people, so that Islamization was to some extent class-based. Still, a culture developed that fused Islamic and traditional elements. Family lineage, for example, was traced both through the maternal line, which controlled property (the traditioral African practice), and through the paternal line, as was the Musli m custom.The enduring legacy of the influence of religion on African culture led to majority of Africans profess either Christian or Islamic faith. Considering that there lie a thin veneer between culture and religion, it is imperative that these two religions have fundamentally altered the African culture, if there exist any. These religions spread into Africa aboard various vehicles, including; slavery, colonialism, trade, education, among others. These religions emphasized a ruler-ship founded on a hierarchy focused on one centre of power, the imperial dictatorship. This was contrary to African culture that was less hierarchical and more collegiate, that emphasized on dialogue and consensus. It is this imperialist hierarchical structure that still causes chaos in Africa today.To a large extend most Africans remain colonized, whether politically, economically, religiously, culturally, spiritually or otherwise. A society that is still colonized is not a free society, it is a societ y wallowing deeply in the swampy marshes of slavery. Africa, the mother of humanity, as it stands now is one whose veil of religion and garment of culture has been torn. It is a mother whose dignity has been raped, and its young children defiled by the older siblings who came back from their adventures abroad. One most fundamental question would be: Is colonialism and slavery a just price that Africans have to pay eternally for the reward of education and trade? Whichever way the answer comes to be, Africa needs restoration.Restoration is only possible if Africans can wake up to spiritual reality and eschew the bondage of foreign religion consumed by it from its renegade sons and daughters. The turning point can only be achieved if Africans realize that religion and spirituality are distinct – that spirituality possessed by a religious person can never be fresh and neither can religion exist in a pure spirituality. Africa must free itself from this intoxicating addiction to f oreign religion, and for that matter, any religion for it to be truly free. CONCLUSION. In conclusion, a keen oversee at history slowly shows us more cleary the influence of religion on African culture.The change due to the influence may not have taken place there and then but took time spreading its roots and slowly merging with the native culture and in some other instances completely eroding it. Just like how Christianity was introduced to Africa, the natives did not completely embrace it just like that, they took their precious time and in present day Africa, it is still being practiced and no one can pin point the exact time when Christianity was completely taken in by the natives of the past. These different religions which were introduced to African culture or way of life made other cultures to take a complete turnaround from their practices and events.