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Islam (Arabic: Template:Ar; Template:ArabDIN listen) is a monotheistic religion based upon the Qur'an, which Muslims believe was sent by God through Muhammad, as well as teachings of Muhammad recorded in the Hadith. Followers of Islam, known as Muslims (Arabic: Template:Ar), believe Muhammad to have been God's (Arabic: ]) final prophet.

Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam is considered an Abrahamic religion. With a total of approximately 1.4 billion adherents, Islam is the second-largest religion in the world.

Secular historians place Islam's beginnings during the 7th century in Arabia. Under the leadership of Muhammad and his successors, Islam rapidly spread by religious conversion and military conquest. Today followers of Islam may be found throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia.

Etymology

In Arabic, Islam derives from the triconsonantal root Template:ArabDIN, with a basic meaning of "to surrender". Islam is an abstract nominal derived from this root, and literally means "submission to 'The God' (Allah)". Other Arabic words derived from the same root include:

• Salaam, meaning "peace", also part of a common salutation, assalamu alaikum ("peace be upon you").
• Muslim, an agentive noun meaning "one who submits ".
• Salamah, meaning "safety", also used in the common farewell ma' as-salamah (" with safety").
• Islam (with a short "a" vowel) also means "I submit", since the addition of a hamza to the beginning of the triliteral root, followed by the first two consonants, a short vowel, and the final consonant, is the first-person singular imperfect tense in Arabic. (For example, from Sĩn-Kãf-Nũn, the word "'askun" means "I live".)

Beliefs

Muslims believe that God revealed his direct word for humanity to Muhammad (c. 570–632) through the angel Gabriel and earlier prophets, including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Muslims believe that Muhammad is the last prophet, based on the Qur'anic phrase "Seal of the Prophets" and sayings of the prophet of Islam himself, and that his teachings for humanity will last until the Day of the Resurrection. Muslims assert that the main written record of revelation to humanity is the Qur'an, which is flawless, immutable, and which Muslims believe is the final revelation of God to humanity.

Muslims hold that Islam is the same belief as that of all the messengers sent by God to humanity since Adam, with the Qur'an, the text used by all sects of the Muslim faith, codifying the final revelation of God. Islamic texts depict Judaism and Christianity as derivations of the teachings of Abraham, and the Qur'an calls Jews and Christians (and sometimes people of other faiths) "People of the Book". However, Muslims believe that these other faiths have distorted the word of God by deliberately altering words in meaning, form and placement in their respective holy texts, such as Jews changing the Hebrew Bible and Christians the New Testament. This perceived distortion of the Bible is known as tahrif, or tabdīl, meaning "alteration, substitution". This doctrine is accepted by most Muslims; some relatively small sects, such as Mu'tazili and Ismaili, as well as a few Islamic scholars and members of various liberal movements within Islam, reject the view that the Qur'an is a correction of Jewish and Christian scriptures.

Fundamental Practices

Shahadah

The basic tenet of Islam is found in the shahādatān ("two testimonies"): Template:ArabDIN — "I bear witness that there is no God but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." As the most important pillar, this testament can be considered a foundation for all other beliefs and practices in Islam. Children are taught to recite and understand the shahadah as soon as they are able to do so. Muslims repeat the shahadah in prayer, and non-Muslims use the creed to formally convert to Islam.

Salat

Muslims perform five daily prayers throughout the day as a form of submission to Allah. The ritual combines specific movements and spiritual aspects, preceded by ablution. It is also supposed to serve as a reminder to do good and strive for greater causes.

Zakat

Zakat, or alms-giving, is a mandated giving of charity to the poor and needy by able Muslims based on the wealth that he or she has accumulated. It is a personal responsibility intended to ease economic hardship for others and eliminate inequality.

Sawm

Sawm, or fasting, is an obligatory act during the month of Ramadan. Muslims must abstain from food, drink, and sexual intercourse from dusk to dawn and are to be especially mindful of other sins that are prohibited. This activity is intended to allow Muslims to seek nearness to God as well enable them to remember the needy.

Hajj

The Hajj is a pilgrimage that occurs during the month of Dhu al-Hijjah in the city of Mecca. The pilgrimage is required for all Muslims who are both physically and financially able to go and is to be done at least once in one's lifetime.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

Sunni

The Sunni are the largest group in Islam. In Arabic, as-Sunnah literally means principle or path. Sunnis and Shi'a believe that Muhammad is a perfect example to follow, and that they must imitate the words and acts of Muhammad as accurately as possible. Because of this reason, the Hadith in which those words and acts are described are a main pillar of Sunni doctrine.

Sunnis recognize four major legal traditions (madhhabs): Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanafi, and Hanbali. All four accept the validity of the others and Muslims choose any one that he/she finds agreeable to his/her ideas. There are also several orthodox theological or philosophical traditions (kalam).

Shi'a

Shi'a Muslims, the second-largest branch, differ from the Sunni in rejecting the authority of the first three caliphs. They honor different accounts of Muhammad (hadith) and have their own legal traditions. Shi'a scholars have a larger authority than Sunni scholars and have greater room for interpretation. The concept of Imamah (leadership) plays a central role in Shi'a doctrine. Shi'a Muslims hold that leadership should not be passed down through a system such as the caliphate, but rather, descendants of Muhammad should be given this right as Imams.

Sufism

Sufism is a spiritual practice followed by both Sunni and Shi'a. Sufis generally feel that following Islamic law or jurisprudence (or fiqh) is only the first step on the path to perfect submission; they focus on the internal or more spiritual aspects of Islam, such as perfecting one's faith and fighting one's own ego (nafs). Most Sufi orders, or tariqas, can be classified as either Sunni or Shi'a. However, there are some that are not easily categorized as either Sunni or Shi'a, such as the Bektashi. Sufis are found throughout the Islamic world, from Senegal to Indonesia. Their innovative beliefs and actions often come under criticism from Wahhabis, who consider certain practices to be against the letter of Islamic law.

Others

Wahhabis, as they are called by some muslims and non-muslims, are a smaller, more recent Sunni group. They prefer to be called Salafis. Salafiyyah is a movement commenly thought as founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab in the 18th century in what is present-day Saudi Arabia. They are classified as Sunni. One of the foremost principles, however, is the abolition of "schools of thoughts" (legal traditions), and the following of Muhammad directly through the study of the sciences of the Hadith (prophetic traditions). The Hanbali legal tradition is the stongest school of thought where the Islamic law in Saudi Arabia is derived from, and they have had a great deal of influence on the Islamic world because of Saudi control of Mecca and Medina, the Islamic holy places, and because of Saudi funding for mosques and schools in other countries. The majority of Saudi Islamic scholars are considered as Wahhabis by other parts of the Islamic world.

Another sect which dates back to the early days of Islam is that of the Kharijites. The only surviving branch of the Kharijites are the Ibadi Muslims. Ibadhism is distinguished from Shiism by its belief that the Imam (Leader) should be chosen solely on the basis of his faith, not on the basis of descent, and from Sunnism in its rejection of Uthman and Ali and strong emphasis on the need to depose unjust rulers. Ibadi Islam is noted for its strictness, but, unlike the Kharijites proper, Ibadis do not regard major sins as automatically making a Muslim an unbeliever. Most Ibadi Muslims live in Oman.

Another trend in modern Islam is that which is sometimes called progressive. Followers may be called Ijtihadists. They may be either Sunni or Shi'ite, and generally favor the development of personal interpretations of Qur'an and Hadith. See: Liberal Islam

One very small group, based primarily in the United States, follows the teachings of Rashad Khalifa and calls itself the "Submitters". They reject the Hadith and Fiqh, and say that they follow the Qur'an alone. They also consider Khalifa a messenger after Muhammad (Rashad Khalifa proclaimed himself the Messenger of the Covenant). Note that this is different to a Prophet. Neither the "Submitters" nor Rashad Khalifa believe there will be any more prophets after Muhammed. Most Muslims of both the Sunni and the Shia branches consider this group to be heretical. Some Muslims, however, will reject Khalifa's messenger status but will also reject both the Fiqh and the Hadith.

Relationships and views

Acceptance among the larger Muslim community of all other minority groups claiming to be Muslim varies. Some will agree in saying that, although their beliefs may be different, they still can be considered Muslim, while others claim that various minority groups have gone beyond the fold of Islam.

Many Muslims, however, do not like to label themselves as from any of the denominations listed above. These Muslims believe that the following extract from the Qur'an bans the formation of sects within Islam, and therefore classify themselves as simply "Muslims":

"As for those who divide their religion and break up into sects, thou hast no part in them in the least: their affair is with God. He will in the end tell them the truth of all that they did."

Islam and other religions

The Qur'an contains both injunctions to respect other religions, and to fight and subdue unbelievers during war. Some Muslims have respected Jews and Christians as fellow people of the book (monotheists following Abrahamic religions), while others have reviled them as having abandoned monotheism and corrupted their scriptures. At different times and places, Islamic communities have been both intolerant and tolerant. Support can be found in the Qur'an for both attitudes.

The classical Islamic solution was a limited tolerance — Jews and Christians were to be allowed to privately practice their faith and follow their own family law. They were called dhimmis and paid a special tax called the jizya. The status of dhimmis is a matter of dispute, with some claiming that dhimmis were persecuted second-class citizens, and others that their lot was not difficult.

The medieval Islamic state was often more tolerant than many other states of the time, which insisted on complete conformity to a state religion. The record of contemporary Muslim-majority states is mixed. Some are generally regarded as tolerant, while others have been accused of intolerance and human rights violations.

Related Faiths

The Yazidi, Sikhism, Bábísm, Bahá'í Faith, Berghouata and Ha-Mim religions either emerged out of an Islamic milieu or have beliefs in common with Islam in varying degrees; in almost all cases those religions were also influenced by traditional beliefs in the regions where they emerged, but consider themselves independent religions with distinct laws and institutions. The last two religions no longer have any followers.

History

Islamic history begins in Arabia in the 7th century with the emergence of 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 Turks 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, recaptured Palestine 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, due to European industrialism and colonialism. Following WWI, the remnants of the Ottoman empire were parceled 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 prominent movement in Islam in recent times has been fundamentalist Islamism, there are a number of liberal movements within Islam, which seek alternative ways to align the Islamic faith with contemporary questions.

Early Sharia 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 centre of modern thought and freedom.

Many Muslims counter the claim that only "liberalization" of the Islamic Sharia law can lead to distinguishing between tradition and true Islam by saying that meaningful "fundamentalism", by definition, will eject non-Islamic cultural inventions — 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

Based on the figures 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 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. Non-Muslim observers attribute this growth to the higher birth rates in many Islamic countries (six out of the top-ten countries in the world with the highest birth rates are majority Muslim ). A recent demographic study, meanwhile, has determined that the birth rates of some Muslim countries are plummeting to the levels of western countries .

The most exact calculations estimate Islamic population to be a little over 1.3 billion. 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 U.S. 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 September 2005.

Only 18% of Muslims live in the Arab world; 20% are found in Sub-Saharan Africa, about 30% in the South Asian 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 Western Europe, with up to 6 million Muslims (10% of the population ). Albania has the highest proportion of Muslims as part of its population in Europe (70%), although this figure is only an estimate (see Islam in Albania). The number of Muslims in North America is variously estimated as anywhere from 1.8 to 7 million.

Political and religious extremism

The term Islamism describes a set of political ideologies derived from Islamic fundamentalism. Islamist ideologies hold that Islam is not only a religion, but also a political system that governs the legal, economic and social imperatives of the state according to its interpretation of Islamic Law, in extreme cases pursuing its aims by resorting to warfare or terrorism.

Islamic extremist terrorism refers to acts of terrorism claimed by its supporters and practitioners to be in furtherance of the goals of Islam. The validity of an Islamic justification for these acts is contested by other Muslims. Islamic extremist violence is not synonymous with all terrorist activities committed by Muslims. Nationalists, separatists, and others in the Muslim world often derive inspiration from secular ideologies. These are not well described as either Islamic extremist or Islamist.

Symbols of Islam

Muslims do not accept any icon or color as sacred to Islam, as they believe that worshipping symbolic or material things is against the spirit of monotheism. Many people assume that the star and crescent symbolize Islam, but these were actually the insignia of the Ottoman Empire, not of Islam as a whole. The color green is often associated with Islam as well; this is custom and not prescribed by religious scholars. However, Muslims will often use elaborately calligraphed verses from the Qur'an and pictures of the Ka'bah as decorations in mosques, homes, and public places. The Qur’anic verses are believed to be sacred.

See also

• Criticism of Islam
• Islamic economics
• Islamic feminism
• Islamic law
• Islamic literature
• Islamic studies
• List of converts to Islam
• List of Muslims
• Muslim World
• Political Islamism
• Religion
• Timeline of Islamic history

References

1. Vartan Gregorian (2003). Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. pp. p. ix. ISBN 081573283X. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
2. Teece, Geoff (2005). Religion in Focus: Islam. Smart Apple Media. pp. p. 10. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
3. Nelson, Lynn Harry. "Islam and the Prophet Muhammad". Kansas University. Retrieved 2006-06-17. - "One must remember that we are talking about the Muslim expansion, not Arab conquests. The expansion of Islam was as much, or perhaps much more, a matter of religious conversion than it was of military conquest."
4. Barnes, Trevor (2005). Islam: Worship, Festivals, and Ceremonies from Around the World. Boston, Massachusetts: Kingfisher Publications. pp. p. 15. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
5. Nigosian, S A (2004). Islam: Its History, Teaching, and Practices. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
6. Eastman, Roger (1999). The Ways of Religion: An Introduction to the Major Traditions. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. pp. p. 431. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
7. Lloyd Ridgeon (2003). Major World Religions: From Their Origins to the Present. New York, NY: RoutledgeCorizon. pp. p. 258. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
8. Arshad Khan (2003). Islam 101: Principles and Practice. Lincoln, Nebraska: Writers Club Press. pp. p.54. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
9. Stats > People > Birth rate > Top 10, NationMaster.com, retrieved March 27, 2006
10. "The demographics of radical Islam", by Spengler, Asia Time Online, August 23, 2005, retrieved March 27, 2006
11. France, CIA - The World Factbook, January, 2006, retrieved March 27, 2006
12. Crescent Moon: Symbol of Islam?, by Huda, About, retrieved April 01, 2006

Bibliography

• Arberry, A. J. The Koran Interpreted: a translation by A. J. Arberry. Touchstone, ISBN 0684825074
• Kramer, Martin. The Islamism Debate. University Press, (1997) ISBN 9652240249
• Kurzman, Charles. Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook. Oxford University Press, (1998) ISBN 0195116224
• Rahman, Fazlur. Islam. University of Chicago Press; 2nd edition, (1979) ISBN 0226702812
• Safi, Omid. Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism. Oneworld Publications, (2003) ISBN 1-85168-316-X
• Tibi, Bassam. The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political Islam and the New World Disorder. Univ. of California Press, (1998) ISBN 0520088689

External links

Academic resources

• University of South California Compedium of Muslim Texts
• Encyclopedia of Islam (Overview of World Religions)
• Resources for Studying Islam (Department of Islamic Studies, University of Georgia)
• Unit on Islam from the NITLE Arab Culture and Civilization Online Resource

Directories

• Islam in Western Europe, the United Kingdom, Germany and South Asia

Islam and the arts, sciences, and philosophy

• 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.
• Islamic Philosophy (Journal of Islamic Philosophy, University of Michigan)
• Famous Muslim scientists & scholars

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• Islam
• Monotheism
• Abrahamic religions
• Eastern culture
• Western culture
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• Religious faiths, traditions, and movements