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Islam is a monotheistic religion created in the 700s based on the religious text know as the Quran, written by the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The adherents of Islam are Muslims which is sometimes spelled "Moslem". In some older English texts they are referred to as "Muhammadans" or "Mohammadan"; however this term is not commonly used because Muslims find it offensive, because the term implies that they worship Muhammad, which they do not.

The meaning of the word Islam

Islam is an Arabic meaning "submission (To Allah). The word "Islam" also has an entymological relationship to other Arabic words, such as "peace". The word Muslim is derived from Islam and means "one who surrendered" or submitted (to Allah).

Teachings of Islam

Muslims believe in one God, the God of Adam, Noah, Moses, Jesus, who are all regarded as prophets or "Messengers" before Muhammad. Muslims believe that Muhammad came to bring the final message of God, the correct path and true knowledge of the afterlife to pagan polytheists and to the Christians and Jews -- monotheists who had deviated from the correct path.

For Muslims, the Qur'an answers questions about daily needs, both spiritual and material. It discusses God and God's Names and attributes; believers and their virtues, and the fate of non-believers (kâfir); Mary, Jesus, and all the other prophets; and even scientific subjects. Sunni Muslims (the majority of world's Muslims) do not follow the laws of the Quran directly; rather they follow the understanding of the Quran contained in the law collections known as the Hadith.

Muslims are being taught that God sent down 104 books. Besides the Qur'an, the most important of these are the Law of Moses (the Taurah), the Psalms of David (the Zabûr) and the Gospel of Jesus (the Injil). The Qur'an describes Christians as "the people of the Book" (ahl al Kitâb). A Christian is not considered to be a kâfir.

The teachings of Islam concern many of the same personages as those of Judaism and Christianity. However, Muslims frequently refer to them using Arabic names which can make it appear they are talking about different people: e.g. Allah for God, Iblis for Satan, Ibrahim for Abraham, etc. A belief in a day of judgment and an afterlife are pivotal to Islam.

The Five Pillars of Islam

The Five Pillars of Islam are the basic elements of the faith:

• the recitation and acceptance of the Creed or shahada: "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is His prophet."
• prayer, ablutions, and purifications (salat);
• alms (zakat);
• observing the fast of Ramadan (saum); and
• making a pilgrimage to Mecca or hajj

Many Muslims in the Islamist movement view Jihad (holy war) as a sixth pillar of Islam.

Hasan al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, called Jihad the sixth pillar of Islam. Its invitation is "to join a movement of social revolution to enforce its own program of reform which it deems best for the well-being of mankind." (Beware of an elite which thinks it knows best the needs of a class, a nation or mankind.) This movement which, the Qur'an calls "Hizb Allah", the Party of God, is left with no other choice except to capture State Authority. Thus Jihad will include Qital (fighting). But "war in Islam is not a casual phenomenon of violence; it is one of the phases of man's striving (Jihad) against all that is evil ... The raising of the sword is only one aspect of the all-round struggle to establish Islam in the world." "Wage war for the sake of Allah. Kill whoever denies Him." (Muhammad) "Jihad has been made obligatory (against pagans and people of the Book) on every Muslim by ....... and in His eyes avoidance of Jihad is the greatest sin."

Each Muslim should have an ambition for martyrdom, be a lover of death. (Every martyr shall have seventy deer-eyed houris as his consorts. ) "Jihad shall continue until the Day of Judgment." (S. A. A. Maududi & A. H. Siddiqi "Jihad in Islam", Lahore, 1991)

Views of Jews and Christians

Islam consigns Jews and Christians to the status of the dhimmi. A dhimmi is a non-muslim citizen that is given by Muslims a number of rights, among them the right to freely practice their faith.

Divisions of Islam

Islam is divided into three main sects: the Sunni, the Shia, and many smaller sects such as the mystical sect known as Sufi Islam, or Sufism.

The division dates back to a dispute over who was to be caliph, i.e. successor of Muhammad as leader of the Muslim community (or Ummah); though not his successor as prophet. The Sunni believed that the leader of the Muslims should be elected, so long as he came from the Quraysh tribe, the tribe of the prophet; the Shia believed that only Muhammad's son-in-law Ali and his descendants should be eligible for the position. The Sunni are in the majority world-wide, and are the majority in most Muslim countries, with the exception of Iran, where the majority is Shia.

There are other Muslim sects including the Ismailis, the Nizaris (more commonly known as the Assassins), the Druze (which have developed into a separate religion), and the Ahmadiyya, a controversial messianic sect.

The Nation of Islam is a movement in the United States for black empowerment, with one of its leaders being Louis Farrakhan. The Nation of Islam claims to be Islamic, however most other Muslims reject their claim, on the grounds that their teachings differ significantly from those traditionally associated with Islam.

Practices of Islam

The vast bulk of the world's Muslims live in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and are of many different races and (political and ethnic) nationalities.

Holidays

The Muslim Sabbath is on Friday - Muslims attend prayer in a mosque of his town and hear two sermons; these sermons form the principal part of the midday prayer. When the holidays occur is according to the Islamic calendar, meaning each year they shift relative to the Gregorian calendar.

Festivals through the year:

Ramadan - month long observance of fasting.

Feast of Breaking the Fast (idu-l-fitr), or the Little Feast (al-idu s-saghir)- occurs at the conclusion of Ramadan. It is held on the first four days of the month of Shawwal

The Big Feast, (idu-l-adha,), also "The Feast of Sacrifice" (Kurban Bayram) - two months and 10 days after the Little Feast. Animals are slaughtered to commemorate Abraham's sacrificing of a ram instead of his son Ishmael. Those who are able make a pilgrimmage to Mecca do so around this date.

Ashura - the 10th day of the month of Muharram. This is the day on which Mohammed's grandson, Imam Husain, was martyred in Iraq. For Shiites this is a day of mourning. Some Sunnis connect this holiday to the deliverance of the Children of Israel from Egypt, and is a day of special prayer, rejoicing and music. This holiday is strongly discouraged by the Islamist movement (fundamentalist Islam), which is becoming predominant in the Arab world

The Prophet's birthday (al-mawlidu n-nabawi sh-sharif) - This holiday is prohibited by the Islamist movement (fundamentalist Islam). Entire Arab nations, such as Saudi Arabia, now forbid Muslims to celebrate this holiday.

Muslim New Year - not generally celebrated as an official Muslim holiday, although many Arab communities have some kind of celebrations. This holiday is prohibited by the Islamist movement (fundamentalist Islam), which is now predominant in the Arab world.

Dietary laws

When eating meat, Muslims may only eat from meat that has been slaughtered in the name of Allah. Such meat is called halal. Regardless, many Muslims living in Western nations appear to have no compulsion about eating non-halal meat, as long as it isn't pork which is forbidden. Most Islamic religious clerics allow for a Jew or a Christian to do such slaughtering; as such Muslims may eat kosher meat (meat which has been slaughtered by a Jewish person in accordance with Jewish law.) Islamic laws prohibits a Muslim from eating pork, monkey, dog or cat, as these animals are haram (unlawful). For the meat of an animal to be halal (lawful) it must be one of the declared halal animals, it must be slaughtered by a Muslim, and the animal may not be killed by being boiled or electrocuted. Some Muslim clerics have ruled that the animal does not have to be killed by a Muslim, but may be slaughtered by a Jew or a Christian. Thus, some observant Muslims will accept kosher meat (meat prepared in accord with Jewish law) as halal.

The role of women in Islam

Islam does not prohibit women from working, yet emphasizes the importance of caring for her house and family and not neglecting their needsIslamic law allows a man to divorce his wife at his will, by saying "I divorce you" three times in public. This practice is valid within the Muslim world today.

In Saudi Arabia, mainstream Islamic scholars teach that men may murder their wives if they accuse them of infidelity. This practice is widespread. Moderate Muslim scholars have written with concern about this practice, and are looking for ways to introduce changes into fundamentalist Islamuc societies so as to end such practices.

Other topics to be described here should include the religious practices of women, marriage, veiling, change in Muslim views over the last century, and the effect of the Islamist movement on women.

Circumcision for boys is highly recommended in Islam; many Islamic clerics say that it is not strictly mandatory. Various types of female circumcision (female genital mutilation) are practiced in some African Muslim communities. However this has no basis in the Quran, is not practiced by Muslims outside of Africa, and practiced by some non-Muslim African communities. Indeed, many Arab Muslims teach that female circumcision is not proper.

Islam since the Enlightenment

Not all Muslims follow Sharia, Islamic law. In the past century many Muslim have moved to many European and North and South American countries; these nations underwent great changes as a result of the Enlightenment in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Perhaps the most significant change was total or effective separation of Church and State, thus state ending encouragement, and even enforcement, of religious observance. The effect that this massive social change had on Christians and Jews is now having a similar effect on Muslims. Many secularized Muslims, have stopped participating in religious duties; many of them are so-called second-generation Muslims in western countries, the children and grandchildren of Muslim immigrants, who live in-between two cultures and have developed ambivalent feelings towards their religious duties. On the one hand they tend to cling to their traditions for identity reasons, on the other hand the influence of western mentality, daily life and peer-pressure tears them away from muslim culture. Plus, a complicating factor for observing Ramadan and the five prayers is the fact that western society is not designed for such radical habits.

This phenomenon is not as noticeable in the middle-east, because to a large degree the enlightenment never occured in the Arab nations. Many nations still have islam as their official language, and the practice of other faiths is often strictly controlled, or even forbidden. In some nations asking people to join an non-Muslim faith is a crime punishable by imprisonment or death. It is only in the last 50 years that enlightenment values have begun to seriously penetrate Arab and Muslim nations.

Islamism - Islam and Contemporary Political Movements

The Islamist movement (as distinct from Islamic), and pan-Arabism in the past century - Just as has happened in Christianity and Judaism, the political, social and theological beliefs of many Muslims today is not identical to the beliefs of many Muslims of a century ago.

Due to the predominance of the Islamist movement in the 20th century, Islam has in the last century become increasingly intolerant of any disagreement or criticism. A recent feature of worldwide Islam is the tendency to issue public death threats against Muslims who disagree with the religion, ask to modernize the Quran, or write a book about leaving Islam. The death threats are not the province of a small number of fanatic clerics; in most of the cases cited below there have been public demonstrations by thousands of people in many nations, even in Arabs in Western nations such as England, burning the "heretics" in effigy and calling for their death. Moderates in the Arab community are not empowered to overturn the fatwas (religious edicts) calling for such death sentences. For examples of some of these death sentences, see Fatwa.

See Also: Mosque -- History of Islam -- Shariah -- Four Schools of Madhhab -- Shaafi'i -- Hanafi -- Maliki -- Hanbali -- Imam -- Mujtahid -- Tawhid -- Qibla al-Qudsiyya -- jihad -- Islamic Sects -- Syncretism in Islam -- Islamic rituals (births, weddings, burials...) -- djinn -- Munkar and Nakir

External links on Islam:

• Introduction to Islam
• Islamic resources on different topics
• Islam and Science
• Many accurate scientific facts that can be read in the Quran (Muslims' revelied book)
• Islam Resources
• Islam-on-line
• Islamic dietary laws

Further reading

"The Islamism Debate" Martin Kramer, University Press, 1997

"Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook" Charles Kurzman, Oxford Universoty Press, 1998

"The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political Islam and the New World Disorder" Bassam Tibi, Univ. of California Press, 1998