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Islam (Arabic: الإسلام al-islām) "the submission to God" is a monotheistic faith, one of the Abrahamic religions, and the world's second largest religion.

History

Islamic history begins in Arabia in the 7th century with the emergence of the prophet Muhammad. Within a century of his death, an Islamic state stretched from the Atlantic ocean in the west to central Asia in the east, which however was soon torn by civil wars (fitnas). After this, there would always be rival dynasties claiming the caliphate, or leadership of the Muslim world, and many Islamic states or empires offering only token obedience to an increasingly powerless caliph.

Nonetheless, the later empires of the Abbasid caliphs and the Seljuk Turk were among the largest and most powerful in the world. After the disastrous defeat of the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, Christian Europe launched a series of Crusades and for a time captured Jerusalem. Saladin however restored unity and defeated the Shiite Fatimids.

From the 14th to the 17th centuries one of the most important Muslim territories was the Mali Empire, whose capital was Timbuktu.

In the 18th century there were three great Muslim empires: the Ottoman in Turkey, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean; the Safavid in Iran; and the Mogul in India. By the 19th century, these realms had fallen under the sway of European political and economic power. Following WWI, the remnants of the Ottoman empire were parcelled out as European protectorates or spheres of influence. Islam and Islamic political power have revived in the 20th century. However, the relationship between the West and the Islamic world remains uneasy.

Contemporary Islam

Although the most visible movement in Islam in recent times has been fundamentalist Islamism, there are a number of liberal movements within Islam which seek alternative ways to reconcile the Islamic faith with the modern world.

Early shariah had a much more flexible character than is currently associated with Islamic jurisprudence, and many modern Muslim scholars believe that it should be renewed, and the classical jurists should lose their special status. This would require formulating a new fiqh suitable for the modern world, e.g. as proposed by advocates of the Islamization of knowledge, and would deal with the modern context. One vehicle proposed for such a change has been the revival of the principle of ijtihad, or independent reasoning by a qualified Islamic scholar, which has lain dormant for centuries.

This movement does not aim to challenge the fundamentals of Islam; rather, it seeks to clear away misinterpretations and to free the way for the renewal of the previous status of the Islamic world as a center of modern thought and freedom. See Modern Islamic philosophy for more on this subject.

The claim that only "liberalisation" of the Islamic Shariah law can lead to distinguishing between tradition and true Islam is countered by many Muslims with the argument that any meaningful "fundamentalism" will, by definition, reject non-Islamic cultural inventions - by, for instance, acknowledging and implementing Muhammad's insistence that women have God-given rights that no human being may legally infringe upon. Proponents of modern Islamic philosophy sometimes respond to this by arguing that, as a practical matter, "fundamentalism" in popular discourse about Islam may actually refer, not to core precepts of the faith, but to various systems of cultural traditionalism.

The demographics of Islam today

See Islam by country and Demographics of Islam.

Based on the percentages published in the 2005 CIA World Factbook ("World"), Islam is the second largest religion in the world. According to the World Network of Religious Futurists, the U.S. Center for World Mission, and the controversial Samuel Huntington, Islam is growing faster numerically than any of the other major world religions. Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance estimate that it is growing at about 2.9% annually, as opposed to 2.3% per year global population growth. This is attributed either to the higher birth rates in many Islamic countries (six out of the top-ten countries in the world with the highest birth rates have a Muslim majority ) and/or high rates of conversion to Islam.

Commonly cited estimates of the Muslim population today range between 900 million and 1.4 billion people (cf. Adherents.com); estimates of Islam by country based on US State Department figures yield a total of 1.48 billion, while the Muslim delegation at the United Nations quoted 1.2 billion as the global muslim population in Sept 2005.

Only 18% of Muslims live in the Arab world; 20% are found in Sub-Saharan Africa, about 30% in the Indian subcontinental region of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, and the world's largest single Muslim community (within the bounds of one nation) is in Indonesia. There are also significant Muslim populations in China, Europe, Central Asia, and Russia.

France has the highest Muslim population of any nation in Europe, with up to 6 million Muslims (10% of the population). Albania is said to have the highest proportion of Muslims as part of its population in Europe (70%), although this figure is only a (highly contested) estimate (see Islam in Albania). The number of Muslims in North America is variously estimated as anywhere from 1.8 to 7 million.

Symbols of Islam

Green is commonly used when representing Islam. It is much used in decorating mosques, tombs, and various religious objects. Some say this is because green was the favorite color of Muhammad and that he wore a green cloak and turban. Others say that it symbolizes vegetation. After Muhammad, only the caliphs were allowed to wear green turbans. In the Qur'an, 18:31, it is said that the inhabitants of paradise will wear green garments of fine silk.

The reference to the Qur'an is verifiable; it is not clear if the other traditions are reliable or mere folklore. However, the association between Islam and the color green is firmly established now, whatever its origins may have been.

• The color green is absent from medieval European coats of arms as during the Crusades, green was the colour used by their Islamic opponents.

• In the palace of Topkapi, in Istanbul, there is a room with relics of Muhammad. One of the relics, kept locked in a chest, is said to have been Muhammad's banner, under which he went to war. Some say that this banner is green with golden embroidery, others say that it is black and others think there is no banner in the chest at all.

In early accounts of Muslim warfare, there are references to flags or battle standards of various colors: black, white, red, and greenish-black. Later Islamic dynasties adopted flags of different colors:

• The Ummayads fought under white banners
• The Abbasids chose black
• The Fatimids used green
• Various countries on the Persian Gulf have chosen red flags

These four colors, white, black, green and red, dominate the flags of Arab states. See and .

The crescent and star are often said to be Islamic symbols, but flag historians say that they were the insignia of the Ottoman empire, not of Islam as a whole.

See Also

List of Islamic and Muslim related topics

Notes

1. Shi'a muslims do not believe in absolute predestination (Qadar), since they consider it incompatible with Divine Justice. Neither do they believe in absolute free will since that contradicts God's Omniscience and Omnipotence. Rather they believe in "a way between the two ways" (amr bayn al‑'amrayn) believing in free will, but within the boundaries set for it by God and exercised with His permission.
2. The Egyptian Islamic Jihad group claims, as did a few long-extinct early medieval Kharijite sects, that Jihad is the "sixth pillar of Islam." Some Ismaili groups consider "Allegiance to the Imam" to be the so-called sixth pillar of Islam. For more information, see the article entitled Sixth pillar of Islam.

References

• Encyclopedia of Islam
• The Koran Interpreted: a translation by A. J. Arberry, ISBN 0684825074
• Islam, by Fazlur Rahman, University of Chicago Press; 2nd edition (1979). ISBN 0226702812
• The Islamism Debate, Martin Kramer, University Press, 1997
• Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook, Charles Kurzman, Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0195116224
• Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism Omid Safi, Oneworld Publications, Oxford, 2003. ISBN 1-85168-316-X
• The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political Islam and the New World Disorder, Bassam Tibi, Univ. of California Press, 1998

External links

Online academic sources

• Encyclopedia of Islam (Brill) Online Demo Page
• Encyclopedia of Islam (Overview of World Religions)
• Resources for Studying Islam (Department of Islamic Studies, University of Georgia)

Directories

• Islam in Western Europe, the United Kingdom, Germany and South Asia
• Dmoz.org Open Directory Project: Islam (a list of links with information about Islam)
• Dmoz.org Open Directory Project: Contra Islam (a list of links critical of Islam)

Islam and the arts, sciences, & philosophy

• Islamic Architecture
• Islamic Art (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)
• Muslim Heritage (Foundation for Science Technology and Civilisation, UK)
• Islamic Architecture (IAORG) illustrated descriptions and reviews of a large number of mosques, palaces, and monuments.
• The International Museum of Muslim Cultures, Jackson, MS. Features exhibits on Islamic Moorish Spain and the Timbuktu Manuscripts.
• Islamic Philosophy (Journal of Islamic Philosophy, University of Michigan)

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