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	** The ] sent to ] (Jesus); (Also known as the New Testament)		** The ] sent to ] (Jesus); (Also known as the New Testament)
	** The ] sent to Muhammad.		** The ] sent to Muhammad.
	* Belief in all the prophets (]) and messengers ('']'') sent by God (see ]) (making no distinction between them i.e. one is not better ~~than~~ another.)		* Belief in all the prophets (]) and messengers ('']'') sent by God (see ]) (making no distinction between them i.e. one is not better then another.)
	* Belief in the Day of Judgement ('']'') and in life after death - heaven ('']'') and hell ('']'').		* Belief in the Day of Judgement ('']'') and in life after death - heaven ('']'') and hell ('']'').
	* Belief in Fate ('']'').		* Belief in Fate ('']'').
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	From the beginning of the faith, most Muslims believed that the Qur'an was perfect only as revealed in Arabic. Translations were the result of human effort and human fallibility, as well as lacking the inspired poetry believers find in the Qur'an. Translations are therefore only commentaries on the Qur'an, or "interpretations of its meaning", not the Qur'an itself. Many modern, printed versions of the Qur'an feature the Arabic text on one page, and a vernacular translation on the facing page.		From the beginning of the faith, most Muslims believed that the Qur'an was perfect only as revealed in Arabic. Translations were the result of human effort and human fallibility, as well as lacking the inspired poetry believers find in the Qur'an. Translations are therefore only commentaries on the Qur'an, or "interpretations of its meaning", not the Qur'an itself. Many modern, printed versions of the Qur'an feature the Arabic text on one page, and a vernacular translation on the facing page.

	==Textual History of the Qu'ran==
	Wherever we find a religion that has a Scripture, that fact presents scholarship with the problem of the textual history of that Scripture. There are no exceptions to this among the historic religions. In the case of Buddhism, for example, we have the problem of the Pali Canon, the Sanskrit Canon, the Tibetan Canon, and the Chinese Canon. In the case of Zoroastrianism there is the liveliest dispute among Iranian scholars at this very moment as to the Avestan text, and, as is well known, the text of the Pahlavi books is an exceedingly complicated problem. Each generation of students for the last hundred years has found itself faced with new problems concerning the text of the Old Testament, and our own memories are still fresh with the excitement caused by the discovery of the Chester Beatty Papyri and the Ryland's Gospel fragment, both of which raised lively discussions on matters related to the textual history of the New Testament. Whether we face the text of the Book of the Dead, coming from the ancient Egyptian religion, or the text of the Qur'an coming from the youngest of the great historic religions, we have the problem of the history of the text.

	In the case of none of the historic religions do we have the autographs of the original Scriptures. What we have in our hands are the documents that have come down in the various communities, and which have been more or less tampered with in transmission. This tampering does not mean tampering with evil intent; it may, indeed, have been with very good intent, but nevertheless it was tampering. The Avesta, for example, was written out in Sassanian times in a new alphabet based on the characters of Sassanian Pahlavi, and we have no knowledge whatever of what the original Avestan script was like. Similarly the Hebrew Scriptures as we know them are in the "square script", but this was not the script used when their originals were written. Moreover, the "pointing" that is in the text of all our copies is a relatively recent addition to the text, and at least three varieties of this "pointing" are known. When we come to the Qur'an, we find that our early MSS are invariably without points or vowel signs, and are in a Kufic script very different from the script used in our modern copies. This modernizing of the script and the orthography, and the supplying the text with points and vowel signs were, it is true, well-intentioned, but they did involve a tampering with the text. That precisely is our problem. We have a received text, a textus receptus which is to be found in all the ordinary copies in popular use. It is not, however, a facsimile of the earliest Qur'an, but a text which is the result of various processes of alteration as it passed down from generation to generation in transmission within the community. What do we know of the history of this process of textual transmission?

	There is, of course, an orthodox theory as to this textual transmission. The Parsis of India have an orthodox theory as to the transmission of the text of the Avesta, and in Rabbinic literature we have an orthodox theory as to the transmission of the text of the Old Testament; and though scholarship cannot accept these orthodox theories, they have the interest of being the traditionally accepted account of the textual transmission within these communities. The orthodox Muslim theory can be stated quite simply. Before the creation of the world Allah created the Tablet and the Pen, and at His command the Pen wrote on the Tablet all that was to be. As each successive Prophet appeared the angel Gabriel revealed to him from the Tablet the message therefrom that he was to deliver. When the Prophet Muhammad came, and it was time for his ministry to commence, the angel Gabriel came to him also, and from time to time over some twenty years revealed to him those passages from the Tablet that he was to proclaim as the Word of Allah. Each year Gabriel used to collate with the Prophet the passages revealed that year to make sure that they had been recorded correctly. The last year of the Prophet's life they so collated the material twice. As the Prophet from time to time proclaimed his messages thus received from Gabriel to the people. He had his amanuenses copy them down, so that when he died all the material that had been given him as revelation was already written down and carefully collated, so that it was an exact transcript of what was written on the Preserved Tablet in the Heavens. In the Caliphate of Abu Bakr this material was put into Codex form as a first Recension, which served is the official text for his Caliphate and that of 'Umar his successor. During the Caliphate of 'Uthman, however, it was found that this material was being recited by different groups of Muslims in different dialectal forms, so 'Uthman sent to Hafsah, the daughter of 'Umar and widow of the Prophet, and had her bring out the copy that had been in her possession since her father's death. Then he appointed a Committee of men of the Quraish, and had them write out a new recension in the pure Quraish dialect. When this was done he had four copies of it made and sent one to Kufa, one to Basrah, one to Damascus, and one to Mecca, and ordered all other copies in existence to be destroyed. All our modern copies are the direct descendants of this standard official text of 'Uthman. Indeed, the Egyptian standard text of 1342 A.H. expressly says -


	"Its consonantal text has been taken from what the Massoretes have transmitted as to the Codices which were sent by 'Uthman to Basra, Kufa, Damascus, and Mecca, and the Codex which he made for the people of Madina and that which he kept for himself, and the codices which were copied from those."
	This is not, however, the history of the text as modern scholarship reads it.

	To begin with it is quite certain that when the Prophet died there was no collected, collated, arranged body of material of his revelations. What we have is what could be gathered together somewhat later by the leaders of the community when they began to feel the need of a collection of the Prophet's proclamations and by that time much of it was lost, and other portions could only be recorded in fragmentary form. There is a quite definite and early Tradition found in several sources which says, "The Prophet of Allah was taken before any collection of the Qur'an had been made". Muslim orthodoxy holds that the Prophet himself could neither read nor write. But in our generation both Professor Torrey of Yale and Dr. Richard Bell of Edinburgh, working independently of each other, have concluded that the internal evidence in the Qur'an itself points to the fact that he could write, and that for some time before his death he been busy preparing material for a Kitab, which he would leave to his people as their Scripture, to be to them what the Torah was to the Jews or the Injil to the Christians. There is, indeed, an uncanonical tradition current among the Shi'a, that the Prophet had made a collection of passages of his revelations written on leaves and silk and parchments, and just before his death told his son-in-law Ali where this material was kept hidden behind his couch, and bade him take it and publish it in Codex form. It is not impossible that there was such a beginning at a collection of revelation material by the Prophet himself, and it is also possible that Dr. Bell may be right in thinking that some at least of this material can he detected in our present Qur'an. Nevertheless there was certainly no Qur'an existing as a collected, arranged, edited book, when the Prophet died.

	At first the leaders of the community, who had charge of the community affairs after the Prophet had gone, do not seem to have felt the need for any collection of the revelations. It was only after the community began to settle down to the new situation in which it found itself, that the need for a record of these revelations began to make itself felt. While the Prophet was alive, the fountain of revelation, so to speak, was still open. New injunctions might at any time come to abrogate earlier injunctions which were no longer adequate for the developing life of the community; or fresh revelations might be forthcoming to meet new situations that were arising. The rapidly developing community life in Madina had meant that the Muslim community was continually being faced with unexpected community problems, and they had grown accustomed to coming to the Prophet for instruction, and for the solution of their problems. The customary form for these instructions to take was that of revelations. With the death of the Prophet, however, the source of revelations automatically ceased to flow, and his immediate successors had perforce to direct community affairs in accordance with what was known of revelations that had been given.

	But what revelation material was available to these early successors of the Prophet? There were some passages, particularly passages of a legalistic character, that the Prophet had himself ordered to be written down, and which were still in the possession of the community. There were also some passages of a liturgical nature which were used in the daily prayer services, and which, whether written down or not, would have been memorized by a goodly number of members of the community. There may have been passages in written form among the Prophet's own possessions. There certainly were many passages of revelation which individual members of the community had written down, not because the Prophet had ordered them to do so, but because they themselves were interested in having them so in written form. Then there was the memory of the community. That tradition is probably sound which says that the revelations proclaimed by the Prophet were with few exceptions relatively short, and there would have been many members of the community who could remember numbers of revelations given forth on various occasions. When the early leaders of the community needed to know if there were any injunctions extant regarding one matter or another, it was to these sources of information that they turned.

	Perhaps even in the Prophet's own lifetime there were certain members of the community who took an interest in "collecting" the pronouncements of their Prophet. In this there is nothing unusual. It was precisely this that in the earliest Christian community provided those collections of "Sayings of Jesus", that we find among the basic material of the Gospels. Certainly after the Prophet's death we find certain members of the community interested in increasing their collections of the pronouncements of the Prophet, and these presently came to be known as the Qurra - the Reciters who became a kind of depository of revelations to whom the civic leaders could turn for information, when such was needed, as to whether there was any revelation which might decide how they should deal with such and such a situation. Some of these Qurra' might have chosen to memorize as much as they could discover of the various revelations, while others chose rather to commit their collections to written form. There has been a suggestion that the Prophet himself had begun to organize a body of Qurra who were to be the guardians of revelation. But the evidence adduced for this is extremely tenuous and the early history of the Qurra' is still veiled in the greatest obscurity.

	Here, however, we have our first stage in the history of the text of the Qur'an. There could not be a definitive text while the Prophet was still alive, and abrogation of earlier material or accessions of fresh material were always possible. With his death, however, that situation ended, and we have what was preserved of the revelation material, partly in written form, partly in oral form, in the hands of the community, and tending to become the special care of a small body of specialists. Tradition says that it was the sudden danger of the loss of these specialists that led to the next stage in the history of the text. We read that at the battle of Yemamah in the year 12 A.H. so many of the Qurra' were among the slain that 'Umar suddenly awoke to the fact that a few more battles like that of Yemamah might mean that a great portion of the revelation material would be irretrievably lost, and so he came to the Caliph Ahu Bakr and urged on him the necessity of getting this material that was in the possession of the Qurra' assembled and written down in some fixed form, ere it was too late. As it is we find numerous references in tradition to verses, which were "lost on the Day of Yemamah". Abu Bakr, the story continues, demurred, asking who was he that he should do a thing which the Prophet himself had not done, and about which he had left no commandment. 'Umar, however, convinced him, and he summoned Zaid b. Thabit, who had been an amanuensis of the Prophet, and bade him assemble from the community all that any of them had of the revelations of the Prophet, and write them out in goodly form. Zaid, it is said, also demurred, asking what business they had undertaking to do a thing which the Prophet had not seen fit to do, and about which he had left no commandment. 'Umar, however, convinced him also of the urgency and necessity of the task, and Zaid, so the tradition records, set about assembling the material from leaves, from white stones, from the shoulder-blades of camels, and from the breasts of men. In other words, he assembled the material available, both oral and written, in an attempt at a first definitive text of the revelations.

	The text thus obtained Tradition regards as officially promulgated by Abu Bakr, and so the first Recension of the text of the Qur'an. Modern criticism is willing to accept the fact that Abu Bakr had a collection of revelation material made for him, and maybe, committed the making of it to Zaid b. Thabit. It is not willing to accept, however, the claim that this was an official recension of the text. All we can admit is that it was a private collection made for the first Caliph Abu Bakr. Some scholars deny this, and maintain that Zaid's work was done for the third Caliph, Uthman, but as 'Uthman was persona non grata to the Traditionists, they invented a first recension by Abu Bakr so 'Uthman might not have the honour of having made the first Recension. Someone, however, must have made the collection that Hafsah the daughter of 'Umar, later produced to form part of the material used in 'Uthman's recension, so that we must think of some private collection made either by Abu Bakr or 'Umar, and it may well have been by the first Caliph, but it was a private not an official undertaking.

	As a matter of fact, there were others besides Zaid b. Thabit who had busied themselves with this task of assembling in Codex form a complete collection of what still survived of the revelation material which now makes up the Qur'an. Tradition knows the names of several of these, e.g. Salim b. Mu'qib, who was killed at the battle of Yemamah, and who, tradition says was the first to make such an attempt at setting all his material down in Codex form; 'Ali b. Abi Talib, who is said to have endeavoured to arrange the revelations in their chronological order; Anas b. Malik, whose Codex may have been based on that of his uncle Abu Zaid, who was well known as one of the early collectors of revelation; Abu Musa al-Ash'ari whose Codex was a large one, and was familiarly given the name of Lubab al-Qulub; and various others, including the two famous Codices of Ubai b. Ka'b and of 'Abdallah b. Mas'ud from both of which a great body of variant readings has survived. It is frequently asserted that the verb jama'a "to collect", as used in this connection, means only hafaza "to memorize". The verb, it is true, can have this meaning, but since 'Ali is said to have packed up what he "collected" on his camel and brought it along; since what Abu Musa had "collected" was something that had a nickname; and since the friends of Ibn Mas'ud at Kufa supported him in his refusal to give up what he had "collected" to be burned , it is quite clear that we are dealing with collections that were in written form. In the case of the Codices of 'Ali, Ubai and Ibn Mas'ud, indeed, we find tradition which professes to give the order in which the revelation material was arranged in their Codices an order which differed considerably from that found in our present Qur'an.

	The most important fact that Tradition has preserved in connection with these early Codices, however, is the fact that certain of them came to attain the position of metropolitan Codices. Thus we read that the people of Kufa came to regard the Codex of Ibn Mas'ud as in a sense their Recension of the Qur'an, the people of Basra the Codex of Abu Musa, the people of Damascus the Codex of one Miqdad b. al-Aswad, and the Syrians other than the folk of Damascus, the Codex of Ubai. This is exactly what might have been expected, and has a close parallel in the case of the New Testament, where the texts that go under the name of the Alexandrian text, the Neutral text, the Western text, the Caesarean text, were recensions of the text, differing slightly from one another, and favouring certain groups of variant readings, which had grown up and come into use in certain important centres of Church life. As Kufa, Basra, Damascus, and Homs began to develop into important centres of the Islamic community, it was quite natural that they, as well as Mecca and Madina, would want their own collection or revelation material, and the Tradition reflects the fact that different recensions of the material came into use at these different centres. Such recensions, while embracing in general the same body of material, always differ from one another in the inclusion or exclusion of certain material, and in their choice among a multitude of variant readings, and this holds of these early metropolitan Codices of Islam. Thus we know that the Codex of Ibn Mas'ud omitted Suras I, CXIII and CXIV, and that both the Codices of Ubai and Abu Musa included two short Suras, which are not in our present text, while a considerable body of variant readings from these Codices is to be gathered from the grammatical, lexical, exegetical and masoretic literature of latter generations which still remembered and discussed them. There were once, indeed, a number of special works, under the name of Kitab al-Masahif, which specially discussed this stage of the Old Codices, and it was a fortunate accident which enabled the present writer to discover and publish the text of the sole surviving example of these, the Codex Book of Ibn Abi Dawud.

	It was the existence of these variants in the texts used in different centres that led to the next stage in the history of the text. The story in which the memory of this is enshrined is that Hudhaifah b. al-Yaman on being sent to the armies that were fighting in Azarbaijan was horrified to find the Kufans and Syrians disputing over the correct reading in passages that they were using in their devotional services, and in some cases even denying that what the others were using was really part of the Qur'an. In his distress, he returned to the Caliph 'Uthman at Madina and said "Overtake this people before they differ over the Qur'an the way the Jews and Christians differ over their Scripture." 'Uthman was persuaded and sending for Zaid b. Thabit, laid on him the task of making this official recension. Tradition says that he did four things in this connection. First he made an announcement in the mosque calling on all who had any revelation material to bring it to Zaid b. Thabit. Second, he sent to Hafsah to get the material that had come down to her from her father 'Umar. Hafsah produced this from under her bed, and it was found that the worms had eaten it in places, but apparently its material was used for 'Uthman's recension and then returned to Hafsah, for at her funeral the Governor Marwan, who had tried in vain to get it from her during her lifetime, demanded it of her brother and destroyed it, fearing, he said, that if it got abroad, the readings that 'Uthman desired to repress would recommence. Third, he appointed a Committee to work with Zaid b. Thabit, to scrutinize all the material sent in, to accept only that for which two witnesses could he found, and to see that what was written was written but in the genuine Quraish dialect. Fourth, when the work was completed he had copies made and sent to the great metropolitan centres, with orders that all other Codices or portions of revelation material in circulation be destroyed. Some traditionists tell us that this was known as "the year of the destruction of the Codices", and for long afterwards we hear echoes of the bitter hostility of the Qurra' to 'Uthman because of his work in thus canonizing the Madinan text tradition and prohibiting the use of any other.

	'Uthman's official Recension gained rapid and almost universal acceptance. Only in Kufa do we hear of any considerable support for one of the earlier texts, for there the text of Ibn Mas'ud continued for some time to dispute the authority of the new canonical text, but even Kufa had finally to come into line with the rest of Islam, and accept the Madinan text. It is always arguable that as Madina was the Prophet's own city, and was the home of the majority of "Old Muslims" who had been closest to the Prophet, the Madinan text tradition had all the chances of being the best available type of text. It is worth emphasizing, however, that at the time it was only one of several types of text tradition in existence, and 'Uthman's work in recording it in a definite and final form, closed a stage in the history of the text. Up till that time had been the period of the Old Codices, but from then on we trace the history of one Codex only, that which represents the official Recension of 'Uthman. Attempts have been made to avoid this conclusion by claiming that all that 'Uthman did was to remove dialectal peculiarities that had crept into the pronunciation of the Qur'an as it was recited, and have a standardized type of text written out in the pure dialect of the Quraish. This matter of Quraish dialect is indeed mentioned in the traditions referring to this Recension, but to pretend that it was merely a matter of dialectal variations is to run counter to the whole purport of the accounts. The vast majority of dialectal variations would not have been represented in the written form at all, and so would not have necessitated a new text. The stories of Zaid and his colleagues working on the text make it perfectly clear that they were regarded as recording a text de novo, for we read that at times when there was only one witness available for a certain passage they would wait till another witness who knew that passage had come back from the wars, or wherever he had been, and recite it to them; and there were discussions among them as to where certain passages belonged in the collection. Finally, the mass of variant readings that has survived to us from the Codices of Ubai and Ibn Mas'ud, shows that they were real textual variants and not mere dialectal peculiarities.

	The text that 'Uthman canonized, however, was a bare consonantal text with marks to show verse endings, but with no points to distinguish consonants, no marks of vowels, and no orthographic signs of any kind. Unfortunately we do not know the precise kind of script in which it was written. The earliest fragments of Qur'anic MSS which survive to us are all written in a kind of script that grew up in the city of Kufa as a special script for the writing of Qur'ans and which we call the Kufic script. None of these fragments however, can be dated earlier than the second century of the Hijrah, and it is indeed, doubtful if any are really older than the third century. One often reads of there being still in existence Qur'ans written by the hands of 'Uthman or of 'Ali; or of 'Ali's sons al-Hasan and al-Husain, but such attributions are merely the fruit of pious imagination. The late Professor Bergsträsser collected some twenty references to claims made by different centres of Islam to possess the famous Codex of 'Uthman himself which he was reading when assassinated and whose pages were discoloured by his blood.

	Faced with a bare consonantal text the reader obviously had to interpret it. He had to decide whether a certain sign was a shin or a sin, a sad or a dad, a fa or a qaf, and so on; and when he had settled that he had further to decide whether to read a verbal form as an active or a passive whether to treat a certain word as a verb or a noun, since it might be either and so on. In the first generation this problem would not have been so serious for the Qurra', for memory of what the text should be would in many passages decide the matter of how it was to be pointed and vowelled, and where the pauses that governed the meaning should be. Theoretically one could suppose that this oral tradition as to how the text should be read could be transmitted carefully from generation to generation, as was the case with the old poetry. But actually the enormous body of variant readings that has been recorded proves that there was no consistent tradition on this matter transmitted. From the date of the publication of 'Uthman's official text till the year 322 A.H. we are in the period of ikhtiyar or "free choice", and it is very curious that though the 'Uthmanic text is now taken as the basis, many famous savants, even to the end of this period, were accustomed to state their preference in certain passages for readings from one or other of the old non-'Uthmanic Codices. As we might have expected we find that the iktiyar of certain famous teachers tended to be perpetuated by their students and win acceptance in more or less extensive circles, so that before long we begin to hear of students studying the ikhtiyar of So-and-so as to huruf and the riwaya of So-and-so as to qira'a i.e. their schemes first of pointing and then of vowelling the unpointed unvowelled text. This again tended to crystallize at the great centres where students congregated, so that soon we begin to hear of the tradition of the Kufans, or the traditious of the Basrans, or Syrians, etc. as to the correct way of pointing and vowelling the text, this meaning the tradition that had come to dominate in their Schools in which Qur'anic learning was cultivated. At a fairly early date we hear of three principles emerging and being laid down to guide the ikhtiyar, viz. mushaf 'arabiyya, and isnad. That is, the reading proposed must be one that will check with the consonantal text, will be in consonance with the laws of Arabic grammar, and be a reading that has come down from some reputable authority. There was, of course, dispute about these rules. Some claimed that so long as a reading was good Arabic and made good sense it did not matter whether it came from the 'Uthmanic Codex or one of the other Old Codices, since they also came from the time of the Prophet. Some were contemptuous of isnad, but that a reading must be sound Arabic diction was naturally accepted by all.

	The next stage was to indicate these readings in the text itself. One did not have to mark them in the text, of course, for once they had been memorized properly the Reader could take up a copy of the consonantal text and read according to what he had memorized. Memory, however, is a very treacherous thing and very soon the custom was introduced, based apparently on a practice in vogue among the Christians using Syriac Scriptures, of marking the readings by a system of dots, black and coloured. Tradition makes it clear that there was very considerable opposition to the introduction of these points into the Codices, this being regarded as "innovation" and so smacking of heresy. There is no unanimity as to who first introduced the systems of points, the favourite names in connection therewith being those of Yahya b. Ya'mar and Nasr b. 'Asim. There was at first a period of fluidity, and we actually have some fragments of Codices in which by the use of vari-coloured dots different possibilities of pointing one and the same word are indicated, while the great majority of words have no points marked at all. This suggests that at first only those words would be pointed where there was some uncertainty as to what the correct reading should be. That the practice of pointing came to be generally accepted and consistently carried through the whole of a Codex is said to be due to the activity of the famous official al-Hajjaj b. Yusif, who was perhaps the most remarkable figure in Islam during the Caliphate of 'Abd al-Malik. When we come to examine the accounts of the activity of al-Hajjaj in this matter, however, we discover to our surprise that the evidence points strongly to the fact that his work was not confined to fixing more precisely the text of the Qur'an by a set of points showing how it was to be read, but he seems to have made an entirely new Recension of the Qur'an, having copies of his new text sent to the great metropolitan centres, and ordering the destruction of earlier copies in existence there, much as 'Uthman had done earlier. Moreover this new text promulgated by al-Hajjaj seems to have undergone more or less extensive alterations. The Christian writer al-Kindi in his polemical work known as the Apology of al-Kindi makes a controversial point out of the alterations he claimed that al-Hajjaj, as everyone knew, had made in the text of the Qur'an, but this was regarded hy scholars as just a polemical exaggeration such as one might expect in a controversial writing. However, in the Kitab al-Masahif of Ibn Abi Dawud, already mentioned we have recorded in a special chapter a list of readings in our Qur'an text which are due to alterations made by al-Hajjaj. If this is so, our textus receptus is not based on the Recension of 'Uthman, but on that of al-Hajjaj b. Yusif.

	The limitation of ikhtiyar came in the year 322 A.H. when the Wazirs Ibn Muqlah and Ibn Isa, guided by the great savant Ibn Mujahad, settled on seven systems of reading the text, and decreed that these alone were canonical, permissible ways of pointing and vowelling the text. Their decision did not go unchallenged, but the severe punishment meted out to two famous scholars, Ibn Miqsam and Ibn Shanabudh, who persisted in their right to ikhiyar, and to read, if they saw fit readings from the Old Codices, soon convinced the Readers that the period of ikhtiyar was over, and they were faced with a limitation which marked a new stage in the history of the text.

	The Seven Systems chosen by Ibn Mujahid were those of Nafi of the Madinan School, Ibn Kathir of the Meccan school, Ibn 'Amir of the Syrian School, Abu 'Amr of the Basran school, and 'Asim, Hamza, and Al-Kisa'i of the Kufan school. His choice was not unchallenged. Some seriously objected to the fact that there were three among the seven from the Kufan School, and desired one of them to be replaced by a reader from another School, some favouring Abu Ja'far of the Madinan School, and others Ya'qub of the Basran School. In particular the position or al-Kisa'i in the group was challenged, and the candidature or Khalaf of the Kufan School was for long vigorously pressed. Ibn Mujahid's choice, however held, and the systems of his seven are still the canonical Seven, though in many instances the masoretic works continue, as e.g. in the famous work an-Nashr of Ibn al-Jazari, to record the variants of the Ten, i.e. the Seven with the three whose candidature was pressed. Some masoretic works, indeed, preserved fourteen systems, including besides the Ten the readings of four other Readers, Ibn Muhaisin of Mecca, al-Hasan of Basra, al-Yazidi of Basra, and al-A'mash of Kufa, whose systems had had some backing as more worthy to be included in the Seven and made canonical than some of those chosen by Ibn Mujahid, but which had failed to find any very general acceptance. The famous work al-Ithaf of al-Banna', for example, records the readings of all fourteen. Here and there yet other claimants were supported, but for reasons which are not at all clear, Ibn Mujahid was able to gain official support for his seven, and within half a century they had gained very wide acceptance.

	We do not have the systems of any of these seven in the form given it by its founder. These seven systems were transmitted in the Schools, and very shortly after their acceptance as canonical we find a great many riwayas in existence as to how each of them read. In the case of one or two of them the riwayas were very considerable in number. By the time that ad-Dani, who died in 444 A.H. came to write his Taisir, two riwayas from each of the seven had been chosen as canonical, and as alone having official sanction. As to how these were chosen we have no information whatever, and at present cannot even venture a guess. All we know is that the process of fixing the text ne varietur had gone this further stage, and as such had been recorded by ad-Dani. For Nafi' were chosen the riwayas of Qalun and Warsh; for Ibn Kathir, the riwayas of Qunbul and al-Bazzi, for Ibn 'Amir the riwayas of Ibn Dhakwan and Hisham; for Abu 'Amr the riwayas of ad-Duri and as-Susi, for Hamza the riwayas of Khalaf and Khallad; for 'Asim the riwayas of Hafs and Abu Bakr; for al-Kisa'i the riwayas of ad-Duri and Abu 'l-Harith. Any reading from any of these riwayas is canonical. No official decision that we know of was taken to establish these particular riwayas as alone permissible, and so the use of the word "canonical" is not quite accurate, but these riwayas did come to take a position of unique authority for which we have no more appropriate word than canonical. As such, one or other of them would be followed when scribes were writing new Codices and indicating therein the pointing and the vowelling.

	These systems for marking the readings, however, were not the only signs now added to the text. Signs for verse endings appear in the very earliest fragments of Codices in our possession, though there was by no means universal agreement as to where these pausal marks fell, so that this now comes to be a matter to be settled in the Schools, and the masoretes record tables of Kufan verse endings, or Basran or Syrian or Madman verse endings, as the case may be, and at times signs to indicate where there was variant tradition as to the place where the ending should fall, were inserted in the text. The Suras had been marked off also from very early times, but without rubrics. Now begins the custom of setting at the head of each Sura its name. Different names were used in different localities and even to the present day there is no complete agreement as to the names that appear at the head of certain Suras in Qur'ans lithographed in different centuries. But besides Suras and verses other divisions of the text began to be marked. Some scribes placed a mark at the end of each group of ten or five verses; some divided the text into sevenths and marked the end of each in the text; some used special marks for the beginnings and endings of halves, fourths, eighths, etc. A more popular practice was to divide the text into thirty parts so that one part might be read each day for the month, and these divisions with the quarters and halves thereof, were carefully marked, and this division into ajza and ahzab became so popular that to this day old-style Muslim savants quote the Qur'an by juz' and hizb rather than by Sura and verse. Of more practical importance was the introduction of pausal signs, which, like the similar set of pausal signs in the Hebrew Bible, are a guide to the sense and serve precisely the same function as our punctuation marks. The earliest set of such pausal signs to come into use was a very simple one to indicate "no pause", "optional pause", and "necessary pause", but in the Schools these developed into more elaborate systems by increase in the types of optional pause recognized, though there was also considerable difference among the Schools as to precisely where some of the "no pause and "must pause" signs should be placed. The addition of these signs to the text, of course, represents a further step in the history of the process of fixing a type of received text, though it is not yet possible to write the whole story of the way in which these various systems of pause developed.

	One other step in this process. which was a step of great importance, but whose origin is also at present veiled in obscurity, was the selection of a standard exemplar. Students of the Old Testament will remember that the consonantal text in our Hebrew Bibles is derived from MSS which represent one standard exemplar, which once chosen had to be followed by the scribes and reproduced with minute faithfulness, so that even its misspellings and peculiarities of orthography had to be reproduced in all copies. The same is true of the Qur'an. By the time ad-Dani was writing his Muqni' and Taisir this standard exemplar had been chosen, for in his Muqni', which is a book of instructions for the scribes who are copying exemplars of the Qur'an, he gives them in detail the rules they must observe in the practice of their profession, and so carefully lists all the peculiar spellings and oddities of orthography which they must be careful to reproduce in their copies, even though they may know that these are mistakes. Thus in XIX, I must he written with final and not the normal ; in XVIII, 36 has to be written with a long at the end instead of the normal ; in XX,95 must be written instead of ; in XVIII,47 must be written instead of the correct form ; in XXXVII, 130 has to be written instead of and so on. Who the scribe of this standard exemplar was, and how it was chosen, are questions we cannot as yet answer. The orthodox theory is that these peculiarities were already present in the Imam, the standard consonantal text prepared by the orders of 'Uthman, but as these peculiarities do not always appear in the early fragments of Kufic Codices it is doubtful if this is so.

	All the Seven systems mentioned above are equally canonical, and the Qur'an may be recited according to either of the riwayas chosen for each. No written text, however, can express in the text all the variants of all the seven. There are a few known examples of fragments of Kufic Codices where, by the use of differently coloured dots, variant readings in the case of individual words are recorded. There are also some MSS known with marginal annotations which give a selection of the variant readings from among the Seven, or even from among the Ten. The usual, and in fact the only feasible practice, however, is to have the text written according to one of the systems from among the Seven. No systematic survey of all Qur'anic MSS with a view to determining their type of text, has ever been made, but so far as they have been examined the result is to show that only three of the possible fourteen riwayas are known to have had any considerable vogue in the writing of Codices. In the Sudan up to a generation ago, there were apparently texts written according to the Basran system of ad-Duri. In North Africa, from Tripoli along to Morocco, the common form of text found in the MSS, and in many lithographed editions, is the Madinan tradition of Warsh. Everywhere else in the Muslim world the only type of text found in use is that of the Kufan Hafs, the rawi of Asun. This Hafs text has in recent years entirely superseded that of ad-Duri in the Sudan, and is rapidly superseding that of Warsh in North Africa. Thus we reach the end of the history of the text of the Qur'an with the practical dominance of the text tradition of Hafs as the textus receptus for all Islam. It was in view of this that the Egyptian standard edition of 1344 A.H. made an attempt to clear the text from modernizations of orthography and an overloading of masoretic markings, and restore as far as possible a pure type of Hafs text. Owing to the use by its editors of relatively later authorities instead of going back to the earliest sources of our information as to this Hafs text, they have not quite succeeded in producing a pure type of Hafs text, but it is better than anything else available, and very much superior to the Flügel text, which has been used almost exclusively by European savants since it first appeared in 1834.

	The next stage will be that of a critical text. The ideal would be to print on one page a bare consonantal text in the Kufic script, based on the oldest MSS available to us, with a critically edited Hafs text facing it on the opposite pages and with a complete collection of all known variant readings given at the foot of the page. The present writer was collaborating with the late Professor Bergsträsser on such a project, and a beginning had been made on both the connected problems. The writer has gone through all the printed literature and a good deal of MSS material to collect all the variant readings. Bergsträsser established at Munich a Qur'anic Archive in which he commenced to gather photographs of all early Qur'anic MSS, and of all masoretic material connected therewith. After his untimely death this Archive was continued and developed by his successor Otto Pretzl, but Pretzl was killed outside Sebastopol during this late War, and the whole of the Archive at Munich was destroyed by bomb action and by fire, so that the whole of that gigantic task has to be started over again from the beginning. It is thus extremely doubtful if our generation will see the completion of a really critical edition of the text of the Qur'an.




	==Organization==		==Organization==

Revision as of 03:16, 25 May 2006

For other uses, including people named "Islam", see Islam (disambiguation).

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Islam (Arabic: Template:Ar; Template:ArabDIN listen) is a monotheistic religion based on the Qur'an. With approximately 1.2-1.3 billion adherents , it is the world's second-largest religion. Islam is considered an Abrahamic religion along with Judaism and Christianity. Followers of Islam are known as Muslims. Muslims believe in only one God (Arabic: Allāh) who has revealed his word to humanity through many earlier prophets, and that Muhammad was the final prophet. Muslims believe that the core message of Islam, submission to God, has been the essential message in the teaching of all God's prophets. The faith went through a period of rapid expansion after Muhammad's death in the 7th century, and its followers can be found all over the world today, especially in the Middle East and 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:

Salam, meaning "peace", also part of a common salutation, As-Salamu alaykum ("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").

Beliefs

Main article: Basic Muslim Beliefs

File:Aziz efendi-muhammad alayhi s-salam.jpg

"Muhammad" in Arabic calligraphy

The basic tenet of Islam is found in the shahādatān ("two testimonies"): Template:ArabDIN — "There is no deity worthy of worship other than God (Allah) and Muhammad is a messenger of God (Allah)." A person who truly believes in the meaning of these words is a Muslim. However, for practical reasons one may need to recite the words in the presence of witnesses to be considered one by other members of their faith.

Muslims believe that God (or, in Arabic, Allāh; also in Aramaic Alaha) revealed his direct word for humanity to Muhammad (c. 570–632) and earlier prophets, including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Muslims believe that Muhammad is the Last, or the Seal, of the prophets and that his teachings for humanity will last until Qiyamah (The Day of the Resurrection). Muslims assert that the main written record of revelation to humanity is the Qur'an (see below), which they believe to be flawless, immutable, and the final revelation of God to humanity.

Muslims believe that Jews have deliberately changed the text of the Hebrew Bible, and that Christians have deliberately changed the text of the New Testament, through altering words from their proper meaning, changing words in form, or substituting words or letters for others. This is considered by Islam to be a deliberate change which distorted the word of God, and which thus necessitated the giving of the Quran to Mohammed, to correct this perceived distortion. This perceived distortion of the Bible is known as tahrif; it is also termed tabdīl "alteration, substitution" (from the root bdl "substitute"), a wider term used also in other contexts, but in the Qur'an and later literature practically synonymous with tahrif (e.g. Commentaries of Mudjahid b. Djabr Al-makki).

The doctrine is accepted by most Muslims, excepting groups such as the Mu'tazili and Ismaili sects (who account for a fairly small percentage of the total Muslim population), as well as a few Islamic scholars and members of various liberal movements within Islam. With that perspective, Muslims view the Qur'an as a correction of Jewish and Christian scriptures, and a final revelation.

Muslims hold that Islam is essentially 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 thus acknowledge common Abrahamic roots. The Qur'an calls Jews and Christians (and sometimes people of other faiths) "People of the Book."

The tenets of Islam

Main article: ]

File:Mosque.Qibla.01.jpg

Muslims performing salat (prayer)

The two largest subgroups of the Muslims are the Sunni and the Shi'a. Sunni Muslims make up the largest percentage of the Muslim world, although large majorities of Shi'a Muslims are found in Middle Eastern countries such as Iran and Iraq. However, in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, Sunni Muslims are the majority.

Sunni Islam's fundamental tenets are referred to as the Five Pillars of Islam, while Shi’a Islam has a slightly different terminology, encompassing five core beliefs, the Roots of Religion and ten core practices, the Branches of Religion. All Muslims agree on the following five basic obligations of believers, which Sunnis term the Five Pillars of Islam, and which Shi’a Muslims would consider to be elements of the Roots of Religion and the Branches of Religion.

Five Pillars of Islam

There are five basic beliefs shared by all Muslims, which Sunni Muslims call the Five Pillars of Islam:

Shahādah: Testifying that there is none worthy of worship except God (Tawheed) and that Muhammad is his servant and messenger (Nubuwwah). The profession of faith in Allah.
Salah: Performing the five daily prayers.
Sawm: Fasting from dawn to dusk in the month of Ramadan.
Zakāt: Giving Zakaah (alms giving).
Hajj: The Pilgrimage to Mecca during the month of Dhul Hijjah, which is compulsory once in a lifetime for one who has the ability to do it.

Shi'a and Sunni also agree on the following beliefs, although they classify them differently:

Adl: The justice of God.
Qiyamah: The Day of Resurrection.
Amr-Bil-Ma'rūf: Commanding what is good.
Nahi-Anil-Munkar: Forbidding what is evil.
Al Jihad fi sabilillah: Striving to seek God's approval.

Distinctive Shi'a beliefs, not held by the Sunni, include:

Imamah: Leadership. The belief in the divinely appointed and guided imamate of Ali and some of his descendants.
Khums: Paying the tax on profit.

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. (6:159)

Other beliefs

Other beliefs which are not regarded as the Five Pillars include

Belief in the Angels (mala'ika).
Belief in the holy books (kutub) sent by God:
- The Suhuf-i-Ibrahim (Scrolls of Abraham);
- The Tawrat sent to Musa (Moses); (Also known as the Old Testament)
- The Zabur sent to Daud (David); (Also known as the Psalms)
- The Injil sent to Isa (Jesus); (Also known as the New Testament)
- The Qur'an sent to Muhammad.
Belief in all the prophets (nabi) and messengers (rasul) sent by God (see Prophets of Islam) (making no distinction between them i.e. one is not better then another.)
Belief in the Day of Judgement (qiyama) and in life after death - heaven (jannah) and hell (jahannam).
Belief in Fate (qadar).

The Muslim creed in English:

"I testify that there is no god but God Almighty, Who is One (and only One) and there is no associate with Him; and I testify that Muhammad (peace and blessings of God be upon him), is His Messenger."

"I believe in God; and in His Angels; and in His Scriptures; and in His Messengers; and in The Final Day; and in Fate, that All things are from God, and Resurrection after death be Truth."

God

Main article: ]

File:Islam.gif

Allah in Arabic

The fundamental concept in Islam is the oneness of God (tawhid). This monotheism is absolute, not relative or pluralistic in any sense of the word. God is described in Sura al-Ikhlas, (chapter 112) as follows:

Say "He is God, the one and only. God, the Eternal, Absolute the Self-Sufficient master. He begetteth not, nor is he begotten. And there is none like unto Him."

In Arabic, God is called Allāh. The word is etymologically connected to ʾilāh "deity", Allāh is also the word used by Christian and Jewish Arabs, translating ho theos of the New Testament and Septuagint; it predates Muhammad and in its origin does not specify a "God" different from the one worshipped by Judaism and Christianity, the other Abrahamic religions.

The name "Allah" shows no plural or gender. In Islam "Allah" Almighty as the Qur’an says:

"(He is) the Creator of the heavens and the earth: He has made for you pairs from among yourselves, and pairs among cattle: by this means does He multiply you: there is nothing whatever like unto Him, and He is the One that hears and sees (all things)" (42:11).

The implicit usage of the definite article in Allah linguistically indicates the divine unity. Muslims believe that the God they worship is the same God of Abraham. Muslims reject the Christian theology concerning the trinity of God (the doctrine of the Trinity which regards Jesus as the eternal Son of God), seeing it as akin to polytheism. Quoting from the Qur'an, sura An-Nisa(4:171):

"O People of the Scripture! Do not transgress the limits of your religion, and do not say about God except the truth. The Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, was only a messenger of God, and His word that He had sent to Mary, and a revelation from Him. Therefore, you shall believe in GOD and His messengers. You shall not say, "Trinity". You shall refrain from this for your own good. God is only one God. Be He glorified; He is much too glorious to have a son. To Him belongs everything in the heavens and everything on earth. God suffices as Lord and Master."

No Muslim visual images or depictions of God are meant to exist because such artistic depictions may lead to idolatry and are thus disdained. Such aniconism can also be found in Judeo-Christian theology. Moreover, most Muslims believe that God is incorporeal, making any two- or three- dimensional depictions impossible. Instead, Muslims describe God by His many Names and Attributes. All but one Sura (chapter) of the Qur'an begins with the phrase "In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful". These are regarded as the most important divine attributes, at least in the sense that Muslims repeat them most frequently during their prayers (salat) and throughout their daily lives.

The Qur'an

The first surah in a Qur'anic manuscript by Hattat Aziz Efendi.

Main article: Qur'an

The Qur'an is the sacred book of Islam. It has also been called, in English, "the Koran" and (archaically) "the Alcoran". Qur'an is the currently preferred English transliteration of the Arabic original (قرآن); it means “recitation”. Although the Qur'an is referred to as a "book", when a Muslim refers to the Qur'an, they are referring to the actual text, the words, rather than the printed work itself.

Muslims believe that the Qur'an was revealed to Muhammad by God through the Angel Gabriel on numerous occasions between the years 610 and up till his death in 632. In addition to memorizing his revelations, his followers are said to have written them down on parchments, stones, and leaves.

Muslims hold that the Qur'an available today is the same as that revealed to Muhammad and by him to his followers, who memorized and wrote down his words. Scholars generally accept that the version of the Qur'an used today was first compiled in writing by the third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, sometime between 650 and 656. He sent copies of his version to the various provinces of the new Muslim empire, and directed that all variant copies be destroyed. However, some skeptics doubt the recorded oral traditions (hadith) on which this account is based, and will concede only that the Qur'an must have been compiled before 750.

There are numerous traditions, and many conflicting academic theories, as to the provenance of the Qur'anic verses that were eventually assembled into a single volume. (This is covered in greater detail in Qur'an). Most Muslims accept the account recorded in several hadith, which state that Abu Bakr, The First Caliph, ordered his personal secretary Zayd ibn Thabit to collect and record all the authentic verses of the Qur'an, as preserved in written form or oral tradition. Zayd's written collection, privately treasured by Muhammad's wife Hafsa bint Umar, was, according to Muslim sources, later used by Uthman and is thus the basis of today's Qur'an.

Uthman's version, organized the suras roughly in order of length (excepting the brief opening sura Al-Fatiha), with the longest suras at the start of the Qur'an and the shortest ones at the end. More conservative views state that the order of most suras was divinely set. Later scholars have struggled to put the suras in chronological order, and at least among Muslim commentators, there is a rough consensus as to which suras were revealed in Mecca and which at Medina, with distinctive characteristics observed within these two subgroups. Some suras (e.g. surat Iqra) are thought to have been revealed in parts at separate times.

To understand the notion of "variants" within the received Qur'anic text, one must understand that Arabic had not yet fully developed as a written language. The Qur'an was first recorded in written form (date uncertain) in the Hijazi, Mashq, Ma'il, and Kufic scripts; these scripts write consonants only and do not supply vowels. (Imagine an English text that wrote the word 'bed' as "BD," and required the reader to infer, from context, that the reference was to "bed" - and not to 'bad" or "bide.") Because there were differing oral traditions of recitation as non-native Arabic speakers converted to Islam, there was some disagreement as to the exact reading of many (vowel-free) verses. Eventually, scripts were developed that used diacritical markings (known as points) to indicate the vowels. For hundreds of years after Uthman's recension, Muslim scholars argued as to the correct pointing and reading of Uthman's (unpointed) official text. Eventually, most commentators accepted seven variant readings (qira'at) of the Qur'an as canonical, while agreeing that the differences among the seven are minor and do not affect the meaning of the text.

The Qur'an early became a focus of Muslim devotion and eventually a subject of theological controversy among skeptics. In the 8th century, the Mu'tazilis claimed that the Qur'an was created in time and was not eternal. Their opponents, of various schools, claimed that the Qur'an was eternal and perfect, existing in heaven before it was revealed to Muhammad. The Ashari theology (which ultimately became predominant) held that the Qur'an was uncreated.

Most Muslims regard paper copies of the Qur'an with extreme veneration, wrapping them in a clean cloth, keeping them on a high shelf, and washing as for prayers before reading the Qur'an. Old Qur'ans are not destroyed as wastepaper, but buried in soil.

Most Muslims memorize for personal contact at least some portion of the Qur'an in the original language. Those who have memorized the entire Qur'an are known as hafiz (plural huffaz). This is not a rare achievement; it is believed that there are millions of huffaz that are alive today.

From the beginning of the faith, most Muslims believed that the Qur'an was perfect only as revealed in Arabic. Translations were the result of human effort and human fallibility, as well as lacking the inspired poetry believers find in the Qur'an. Translations are therefore only commentaries on the Qur'an, or "interpretations of its meaning", not the Qur'an itself. Many modern, printed versions of the Qur'an feature the Arabic text on one page, and a vernacular translation on the facing page.

Organization

Religious authority

There is no official authority who decides whether a person is accepted into, or dismissed from, the community of believers, known as the Ummah ("family" or "nation"). Islam is open to all, regardless of race, age, gender, or previous beliefs. It is enough to believe in the central beliefs of Islam. This is formally done by reciting the shahada; which should be made sincerely from the heart, the statement of belief of Islam, without which a person cannot be classed a Muslim. It is enough to believe and say that one is a Muslim, and behave in a manner befitting a Muslim to be accepted into the community of Islam.

Islamic Law

File:Masjid Nabawi. Medina, Saudi Arabia.jpg

Masjid al-Nabawi (Mosque of the Prophet)

Main article: Sharia

The Sharia (Arabic for "well-trodden path") is Islamic law, as shown by traditional Islamic scholarship. The Qur'an is the foremost source of Islamic jurisprudence. The second source is the sunnah of Muhammad and the early Muslim community. The sunnah is not itself a text like the Qur'an, but is extracted by analysis of the hadith (Arabic for report), which contain narrations of Muhammad's sayings, deeds, and actions. Ijma (consensus of the community of Muslims) and qiyas (analogical reasoning) are the third and fourth sources of Sharia.

Islamic law covers all aspects of life, from the broad topics of governance and foreign relations all the way down to issues of daily living. Islamic laws that were covered expressly in the Qur’an were referred to as hudud laws and include specifically the five crimes of theft, highway robbery, intoxication, adultery and falsely accusing another of adultery, each of which has a prescribed "hadd" punishment that cannot be forgone or mitigated. The Qur'an also details laws of inheritance, marriage, restitution for injuries and murder, as well as rules for fasting, charity, and prayer. However, the prescriptions and prohibitions may be broad, so how they are applied in practice varies. Islamic scholars, the ulema, have elaborated systems of law on the basis of these broad rules, supplemented by the hadith reports of how Muhammad and his companions interpreted them. See Sin for further discussion about the concept of sin and its atonement according to the Islamic law.

In current times, not all Muslims understand the Qur'an in its original Arabic. Thus, when Muslims are divided in how to handle situations, they seek the assistance of a mufti (Islamic judge) who can advise them based on Islamic Sharia and hadith.

Apostasy and Blasphemy

Main article: Apostasy in Islam

Local Islamic communities may exclude those they regard as apostates and blasphemers. In states following more austere versions of Islamic law, apostasy from Islam and blasphemy are considered crimes and may be punished with execution or imprisonment.

Islamic calendar

Main article: Islamic calendar

Islam dates from the Hijra, or migration from Mecca to Medina. Year 1, AH (Anno Hegira) corresponds to AD 622 or 622 CE, depending on the notation preferred (see Common era). It is a lunar calendar, but differs from other such calendars (e.g. the Celtic calendar) in that it omits intercalary months, being synchronized only with lunations, but not with the solar year, resulting in years of either 354 or 355 days. Therefore, Islamic dates cannot be converted to the usual CE/AD dates simply by adding 622 years. Islamic holy days fall on fixed dates of the lunar calendar, which means that they occur in different seasons in different years in the Gregorian calendar...

Schools (denominations)

Main article: Divisions of Islam

There are a number of Islamic religious denominations, each of which have significant theological and legal differences from each other but possess similar essential beliefs. The major schools of thought are Sunni and Shi'a; Sufism is generally considered to be a mystical inflection of Islam rather than a distinct school. According to most sources, present estimates indicate that approximately 85% of the world's Muslims are Sunni and approximately 15% are Shi'a.

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. In fact, the Qur'an states that the character of Muhammad was a good example to follow. Because of this reason, the Hadith in which those words and acts are described are a main pillar of Sunni doctrine.

Sunnis recognize four 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 traditions (hadith) and have their own legal traditions. Shi'a scholars have a larger authority than Sunni scholars and have greater room for interpretation. The Imams play a central role in Shi'a doctrine. Shi'a Muslims hold that Muhammad, his daughter Fatima and the twelve descendants of Muhammad, the Imams, were all sinless and pure. This is based on Qur'anic verses (such as 33:33) and Hadith narrations such as the Event of the Cloak.

The Arabic word Shi'a literally translates into the word 'supporters' or 'followers'. Originally known as Shi'at ul Ali (the supporters of Ali), the group formed shortly after the death of Ali, in Iraq. Ali ibn Abi Talib was the cousin of prophet Muhammad, and after marriage to Fatima, he also became Muhammad's son-in-law. Muhammad was raised in the house of Abi Taleb after he became an orphan; therefore he and Ali were raised as brothers.

The Shi'a consist of one major school of thought known as the Ithna 'ashariyah or the "Twelvers", and a few minor schools of thought, as the "Seveners" or the "Fivers" referring to the number of infallible leaders they recognize after the death of prophet Muhammad. The term Shi'a, when used without qualification, is usually taken to be synonymous with the Ithna Ashariyya or Twelvers. Most Shi'a live in Iran, Iraq (the country where Ali died), Bahrain, Lebanon, India, Azerbaijan, Yemen and Pakistan. A minority group (about 4 million) of Shi'a is known as Ismaili. The Shia Ismaili branch is subdivided into Nizari Ismaili and Mustaali Bohra subbranches. The Nizari Ismaili or are led by the Aga Khan and are found mainly in Pakistan, Tajikistan, Bangladesh, India, Canada and United States, although the modern day practices of this branch are very different from that of the mainstream Twelvers. The Mustaali Bohra branch is further subdivided into Dawoodi and Sulaimanis subsects. The Dawoodi Bohras are concentrated in Pakistan and India. The Sulaimani Bohras are concentrated in Yemen and Najran province of Saudi Arabia.

Sufism

Sufism is an innovated 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.

Sunni and Shi'a have often clashed. Some Sunni believe that Shi’a are heretics while very few Sunni recognize Shi'a as fellow Muslims. According to Shaikh Mahmood Shaltoot, head of the al-Azhar University in the middle part of the 20th century, "the Ja'fari school of thought, which is also known as "al-Shi'a al- Imamiyyah al-Ithna Ashariyyah" (i.e. The Twelver Imami Shi'ites) is a school of thought that is religiously correct to follow in worship as are other Sunni schools of thought." Al-Azhar later distanced itself from this position.

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.

Religions based on Islam

The following consider themselves Muslims but acceptance by the larger Muslim community varies:

The Druze
The Alawites (Alnusairiya)

The following groups are not considered Islamic by the majority of Muslims or Muslim authorities:

The Nation of Islam (based in the United States)
The Zikris
The Ahmadiyya Movement (also called Qadiani)
The Al-Ahbash (also called Habashies / AICP)

The following religions are said by some to have evolved or borrowed from Islam, in almost all cases influenced by traditional beliefs in the regions where they emerged, but consider themselves independent religions with distinct laws and institutions:

The claim of the adherents of the Bahá'í Faith that it represents an independent religion was upheld by the Muslim ecclesiastical courts in Egypt during the 1920s. As of January 1926, their final ruling on the matter of the origins of the Bahá'í Faith and its relationship to Islam was that the Bahá'í Faith was neither a sect of Islam, nor a religion based on Islam, but a clearly defined, independently founded faith. This was seen as a considerate act on the part of the ecclesiastical court and favorable to followers of the Bahá'í Faith, since the majority of Muslims regard a religion based on Islam as a heresy.

The following religions might have been said to have evolved from Islam, but are not considered part of Islam, and no longer exist:

The religion of the medieval Berghouata
The religion of Ha-Mim

Islam and other religions

Main article: Islam and other religions

The Qur'an contains both injunctions to respect other religions, and to fight and subdue unbelievers. 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. See the article on Dhimmis.

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. See the main article, Islam and other religions, for further discussion.

History

Main article: History of Islam

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, 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 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. (See Modern Islamic philosophy for more on this subject.)

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

Main article: ]

Distribution of Islam per country. Green represents a Sunni majority and blue represents a Shia majority.

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. 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, however, 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 is said to have 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.

Symbols of Islam

Main article: Islamic symbols

Muslims do not accept any icon or color as sacred to Islam, as 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.

References

About Islam and American Muslims cair-net.org, retrieved on May 2, 2006.
Religions and Ethics adherents bbc.co.uk retrieved on May 2, 2006. Statistic taken from adherents.com, October 20, 2005.
The Qur'an (Koran), spaceandmotion.com, retrieved March 27, 2006
Sunni and Shia Islam, Country Studies, retrieved April 04, 2006
Stats > People > Birth rate > Top 10, NationMaster.com, retrieved March 27, 2006
"The demographics of radical Islam", by Spengler, Asia Time Online, August 23, 2005, retrieved March 27, 2006
France, CIA - The World Factbook, January, 2006, retrieved March 27, 2006
Crescent Moon: Symbol of Islam?, by Huda, About, retrieved April 01, 2006

Bibliography

Encyclopedia of Islam Online Edition
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 sources

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
Dmoz.org Open Directory Project: Islam (a list of links of Islam)

Islam and the arts, sciences, & 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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