islam essay meaning in english

An Educational Resource on Islam for the Public

What does Islam actually mean?

The word “Islam” is often literally translated as “submission,” but upon further linguistic analysis we see a much deeper meaning emerge. The Arabic root of Islam is s-l-m meaning “peace” (salam). Therefore, the meaning of submission in Islam is not a forceful submission. Rather, it is a peaceful, willing submission where the individual realizes a higher power and submits fully to God’s teachings and preferences or will over their own ego and vices.The vision of Islam is that this coming into harmony with divine will creates an internal and external peace for the soul and for society at large.

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The Meaning, Pillars And Spreading of Islam

The word Islam has an Arabic root that means, To accept peace, complete submission, surrender, and obedience. The religion of Islam is defined as ” the complete and total submission to no other person than Allah (SWT) ”. This is the beauty of Islam: following one creator gives the follower strength, removes ambiguity, and increases their obedience.

Is Islam the True Religion? Prove It!

Characteristics of islam.

Islam, which means submission to Allah, is the only true religion in the world. Islam has different characteristics, which makes it a unique, eternal, complete, and the true path of life. Although Islam, which is completely indigenous and natural, is helping the followers in every aspect, These properties are mentioned in the Qur’an and hadiths. The important and basic characteristics of Islam are summarised in the figure.

The Five Pillars of Islam

Our beloved Prophet Muhammad said Islam has been built on five pillars which are;

• Testifying that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah
• Establishing the Salah (Namaz, Prayer)
• Paying the Zakat (Obligatory charity)
• Performing the Hajj (Pilgrimage to Makkah) to the House of Kaaba
• Fasting in Ramadan.” (Bukhari)

The Spreading of Islam

Religion has a fundamental role in societal, political, financial, and international relationships. It role is also important, even in these modern and industrialised periods. It is the blessing of Almighty Allah that created us Muslims and gave us the true, natural, and complete code of life. In the world today, there are more than 4000 religions, faiths, and denominations. The top five dominant religions are Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism.   Currently, Islam is considered the world’s fastest-growing religion. The reasons behind the fast spreading of Islam are its truthfulness, completion, solution to every problem, natural versatility, freedom from race and region, and love. Today, Islam is the second-largest religion in the world, with 1.8 billion followers. The major reason for its attractiveness is that it is the gift of Allah, the Creator, the Mighty, and the Lord of the Universe. In the Qur’an, it is mentioned that Allah says to His messenger and last Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W);

‘Indeed, you do not guide whom you like, but Allah guides whom He wills. And He is most knowing of the rightly guided. (Surah Al-Qasas; 56).

It’s clearly shown that accepting Islam is nothing more than the mercy and blessing of Allah. Being a Muslim, it is our prime responsibility to understand and learn Islam, and once we know more about our true religion, we definitely will follow it better and convey the message to others as well.

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Therefore, the aim of this article is to provide meaningful and easy-to-understand materials to the followers (Muslims), and hence they will know more and will help in the preaching of Islam.

In conclusion, Islam is the true religion of the world and the only divine religion to follow. The basics of Islam are solid concepts and are like a building with five key pillars. To sustain the building of Islam, it is mandatory to keep its pillars constant. Besides these basic pillars, other properties like universality, truthfulness, humanity, rights of others, and comprehensive nature are the main characteristics of the religion of Islam. The followers of Islam are called Muslims, and their number is increasing rapidly. May Allah keep us true followers of Islam.

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Introduction to Islam: An Online Text

M. Cherif Bassiouni

Introduction

The purpose of this book is to convey to a non-Muslim audience an understanding of Islam, its history, culture, and contribution to civilization.

The mix of an easy-to-read text and visual representations including maps, charts, pictures, and drawings with informative captions explains the important message of Islam in a way that the reader will hopefully find thoughtful and appealing. Relevant verses of the Qur'an and sayings of the Prophet (Hadith) have been included where appropriate, as support for the narrative, and their interspersing sets out their relevant importance. The Arabic text of the Qur'an was also included because no translation can do it justice.

Most of the Qur'an quotes were translated by me in reliance upon several published translations, especially The Holy Qur'an translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali (Khalil Al-Rawaf, 1946). My translation was done with a view to make the non-Arabic reader better understand the intended meaning.

This is both an informative and an artistic book which covers many aspects of Islam: religious, historical, geographic, social, legal, political, economic, cultural, scientific, and artistic. These aspects are dealt with in a way which at times may seem cursory but this does not forsake accuracy or depth.

The primary goal of this book is to inform those who know little or nothing about Islam and to enhance their understanding. As an educator that is all I can ask for and as a Muslim, that is all I can aspire to. But as a member of the family of humankind I would feel gratified if this book can lead to a better understanding among peoples of the world and thus contribute to peace and harmony in our universe. Whether all or some of these expectations will be fulfilled is some thing the reader will have to judge.

M. Cherif Bassiouni Chicago, September 1988-H. 1409

In the Beginning

The religion of islam, islamic law - the shariah, schools of thought in islam, the social system and morality of islam, economic aspects of islam, islamic civilization, the present and the future, about the author, acknowledgements.

It is estimated that there are over 900 million Muslims today. Many live in the Arab World (estimated at 120 million), but many more live in countries such as Iran, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, China, the USSR, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Sudan. An estimated 3 million Muslims reside in the United States.

The world's three monotheistic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—were born and developed in that small region called the Middle East. Abraham was born in the city of Ur, Mesopotamia (Iraq), some 1900 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Palestine). Muhammad was born in Mecca (Saudi Arabia) in 570 A.D. Moses lived in Egypt, as did Jesus for a brief period in his infancy; Muhammad traveled throughout the Arabian Peninsula.

The Middle East straddles Africa and Asia Minor It is bordered on the north from Turkey to Tunisia by the Mediterranean. To the southeast it is bordered by the Indian Ocean, which encircles the Arabian Peninsula, and to the east by the mountains of Iran and Turkey. To the west of Egypt lies the Sahara Desert. The races which inhabited these territories were the Semites, Hammites, Aryans, and the Indo-Europeans.

The Middle East region is the cradle of all the ancient civilizations. The oldest of these civilizations, the Egyptian, extended over five millennia. The fourth millennium B.C. witnessed the birth of the great civilizations along the Tigris-Euphrates valley (Turkey, Syria, Iraq). The Nile-centered Egyptian civilization was largely self-contained; those of the Tigris-Euphrates valley had more frequent contacts with other civilizations. As a result, they were periodically transformed as they came in contact with different cultures and peoples. The most important of these ancient civilizations were the Sumerian, Mesopotamian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Assyro-Babylonian, Aramean, Phoenician, Carthagenian, Canaanite, Hebrew, Philistine, Chaldean, Hurrian, Hittite, Kassite, and Mitani. Their peoples spoke a number of languages including Akkadian, Aramaic, Syriac, Sumerian, Hebrew (the language of the Torah), and Arabic (the language of the Qur'an).

In the first century BC the Greeks and then the Romans through conquest established their presence in the region. Then from the seventh to the eighteenth centuries AD the Arabs extended their presence to Europe and Asia. The ebb and flow of their conquests enriched the cultures with which they came in contact through the intermingling of peoples and the transfer of values and knowledge. The richness of Arab Islamic culture in the arts and sciences and the dissemination of Arab Islamic culture throughout the Mediterranean basin and Asia Minor and into Europe and portions of Asia and Africa has served to make it one of the foundations of today's civilizations.

He it is who created the heavens and the earth in six days; then mounted the throne. He knoweth all that entereth therefrom and all that cometh down from the sky and that ascendeth therein; and He is with you wheresoever ye may be. And Allah is Seer of what ye do. Qur'an 57:4

Prophet Muhammad and the Birth of Islam

The word "Islam" is derived from the same root as the words salaam (peace) and silm (the condition of peace). Islam means to abandon oneself in peace. A Muslim, consequently, is one who in peace gives or surrenders himself or herself to God. Islam means accepting the faith freely—heart, mind, and soul. Surrendering to Islam, as a result, means giving oneself to belief without reservation, accepting the tenets of faith, and following both the letter and the spirit of the Qur'an's prescriptions.

Abraham, also called "The Patriarch," is the most important of the early prophets to the Jews, Christians, and Muslims. He founded, in what is now Mecca, the first temple in the world for the worship of a single god. He was also the father of lsma'il (Ishmael) and Ishaq (Isaac). The descendants of Isaac ultimately formed what became the Hebrew tribes. The tribes of the Arabian Peninsula, the descendants of Isma'il, were the first people to become Muslims.

Until the 7th century the entire area of the Arabian Peninsula bordered on the west by the Red Sea, on the east by the Gulf, on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Fertile Crescent (now Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, portions of Palestine and Jordan) was inhabited for the most part by nomadic tribes. There were three Jewish tribes in Yathrib near Madina and others in Yemen. There were also a few Christians in the north and west of the Peninsula and in Yemen. Most of the inhabitants, however, were pagans. Muhammad was known to meditate in the solitude of the desert. He frequently visited a cave called Hira just outside Mecca. During one of his meditations—he was 40 years old at the time—he received the first of his revelations from God. The Qur'an identifies the bearer of the message as the angel Gabriel, who commanded the Prophet Muhammad to read. When Muhammad responded that he didn't know how, Gabriel replied, "Read in the name of your Lord Who created man from a clot of blood..." In this way Muhammad became the bearer of the divine message.

Proclaim! (or Read!) In the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created— Created man, out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood: Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful,— He Who taught (the use of) the Pen... Qur'an 96:1-5

In Islam there can be no confusion or doubt that Muhammad was a man, and only a man, chosen by the Creator to fulfill a divine mission as a prophet. Muhammad's mission was literally to "read" what Allah had ordered and ordained, nothing more. The Prophet received his revelations from God, sometimes in solitude sometimes in the presence of others. Words flowed from his mouth in a way that others described as inspired. This was Muhammad's wahy (divine inspiration or revelation). Muslims believe that the Qur'an is the Word of Allah expressed through the revelations to the Prophet.

Among the Arab tribes, the most powerful and noble was the Quraysh, into which Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah ibn 'Abd al-Muttalib was born on Monday at dawn on the 12th of Rabi' Awal (the year 571 in the common era calendar). That year was known as the year of the Elephant—the year the Abyssinians invaded Mecca to destroy the Ka'ba. The year received its name from the fact that the army of the Abyssinians was supported by elephants!

According to tradition, the Prophet Muhammad is a direct descendent of Ishma'el, the son of Abraham. Muhammad's mission was presaged by the deliverance of his father, 'Abd Allah, after he had been chosen for sacrifice. The story is this. 'Abd Allah had nine brothers, but he was the favorite son. His father 'Abd al-Muttalib was in charge of the well of the pilgrims. When the water of the well, Zamzam, dried up, he was at a loss as to what to do. He was advised to make offerings to the gods of one of his sons. Muhammad's father was chosen by lot. Reluctant to carry out the act, 'Abd Allah's father beseeched the pagan priests to spare his favorite son. They suggested that camels be offered in his stead. It took one hundred camels to satisfy the gods. The well filled again, and the life of 'Abd Allah was spared. This recalls the saying of the Prophet: "I am the son of the sacrificed..."

After his birth, as was the custom of the Arabs, Muhammad was given to a wet nurse, a nomad named Halimah as-Sa'diyah, to learn the ways of the desert early on in life. She recounted the following story about the Prophet. When the boy was four years old, two men dressed in white came, took the child, and removed something black from his chest. This story is often used to interpret Surah 94, Verses 1-3, of the Qur'an, which reads: "Have we not Expanded thee thy breast?, And removed from thee thy burden, the which did gall Thy back?"

At the age six, Muhammad lost his mother, Aminah of the clan of az-Zuhrah. 'Abd al-Muttalib cared for him until the age of eight. His uncle, Abu Talib raised him, and taught him caravan trade after the death of his grandfather. Over the years Muhammad earned the name al-Amin—the honest—for his rare qualities of character.

The history of the Prophet, his deeds and sayings, were at first memorized by his companions and passed on as oral record. They were first comprehensively recorded by the historian Ishaq ibn Yasar (ca. 768). Later the deeds and sayings of the Prophet (the Hadith), the circumstances surrounding their occurrence, and the evidence of those who first witnessed and reported them to others were recorded by a number of scholars. The most authoritative is al-Bukhari. His text is still relied upon today.

Interior of the Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem. The uppermost inscription in the dome is a Qur'anic verse which begins, "God there is no god but He, the Living, the Self-Subsisting Eternal...." The lower inscription, above the windows, records the restoration of the building by Saladin in the late 12th century. (Aramco World Magazine, September-October 1996; photo Peter Sanders). The Spread of lslam

After discussing his message secretly with his wife, Khadijah, his cousin Ali, and his friend Abu Bakr, the Prophet decided in the year 622 to leave Mecca, where he had lived in some danger. He migrated to Yathrib (later Madina), whose inhabitants had invited him to come and spread his message. For this reason the history of the Islamic community is considered to have been formally born on the night of the hejira, the night of migration, when the Prophet departed Mecca for Madina. The city became the caliphate seat until Damascus replaced it in the year 661. The people of Madina embraced Islam, and gradually, through a series of both military engagements and acts of diplomacy, Muhammad was able to reenter Mecca and to spread the word of Islam throughout the Arabian Peninsula.

The beginning of the risala, the message from a transcendental perspective, might be said to have begun with Creation, which is when God ordained things to be. From a temporal perspective, however, it began with the first revelation of the Prophet.

After the death of the Prophet in 632 AD, his message spread north of the peninsula into Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, and Persia. In 638, after the battle of Yarmouk against the Romans, the victorious Arab Muslims entered Palestine. The Romans, during their occupation of Palestine—particularly after their occupation of Jerusalem— had destroyed the Jewish temple and expelled the Jews from Jerusalem in 70 AD They had subsequently prevented freedom of religion for Jews and Christians in Palestine until Constantine officially recognized Christianity in the fourth century.

It must be noted that the official church of Byzantium (Eastern Roman Empire), at al-Roum, was equally oppressive as its pagan forebearers. In particular, it vigorously suppressed the Eastern Christian churches of Syria and the Coptic Church of Egypt. However, since Muslims were by the Qur'an's mandate obligated to respect the "People of the Book," their predecessors in receiving divine revelation, they established a covenant with Christians and Jews. Earlier, when the Prophet had migrated to Madina in 622, he had entered into an agreement with the Jewish tribes of Yathrib (later called Madina) when he had journeyed to that city. However, when they joined forces with the Meccans against him, he was forced to turn against them. This brief episode did not harm subsequent Muslim Jewish relations.

Umar ibn al-Khattab was the second elected khalifa or caliph (successor) after the death of the Prophet. He was the head of state of the Muslim nation at the time. About to enter Jerusalem in 638 after his forces had triumphed over the Romans at the Battle of Yarmouk, Umar descended from his horse and called at the gates of the city for all of the leaders of the Christian Church to meet him there. Addressing their elder, Bishop Sophronious, he made the historic Covenant of Umar, requiring all Muslims forever to guarantee Christians freedom of religion, use of their houses of worship, and the right of their followers and pilgrims to visit their holy places. Umar also rescinded the Roman decree banishing Jews from Jerusalem and pledged to protect their freedom of religious practice. The Covenant of Umar was, in effect, the first international guarantee of the protection of religious freedom.

Islam then spread to Egypt in 641 and to all of North Africa by 654. Until the Middle Ages, Islam was present from southern France to China—virtually the entire known world. The spread of Islam was due in part to the military prowess of the Muslim forces. But the message the Muslims were spreading and the manner in which they administered the conquered regions were their strongest asset. They brought with them not only a new and uplifting faith but a system of government which was honest and efficient. They established a civilization that was to flourish for hundreds of years.

Man reads the Qur'an atop an old fort in Hunza, a remote valley in the the Karakorum Mountains in northern Pakistan, possibly the highest outpost of Islam in the world. (Aramco World Magazine, January-February 1983; photo S. M. Amin).

By establishing freedom of religion and religious practice for Christians and Jews, they made the followers of these two faiths their principal allies in the countries they sought to enter. In Egypt, for example, it was the Archbishop of the Coptic Church who invited the Muslims to free Egypt from the Roman occupiers in 641. The Coptic Church had been established by St. Mark shortly after the death of Jesus. However, it had been persecuted on religious grounds by the Byzantine Church ever since the Council of Chalcedon had declared monophysitism a heresy in 451. Promises of Coptic support caused Umar ibn al-Khattab to send Amr ibn al-As, the leader of the Muslim forces, into Egypt. With less than 2,000 men, Amr defeated the 12 Roman legions stationed there. The support given the Muslims by the Copts of Egypt insured the success of the campaign.

Although the primary objective of Muslim administration in every new territory was the establishment and propagation of Islam. Muslims also brought to the conquered peoples more effective government administration with a high level of motivation, integrity, and service. Frequently they ended tyrannies that had long existed in many of these countries, liberating rather than subjugating the population.

Throughout the history of Muslim rule, relations between Muslims, Christians, and Jews varied. The Muslims as a rule used leaders drawn from the indigenous population in public administration and did not seek to destroy the local identity of the various areas in which they became implanted. This is why centuries later, notwithstanding the fact that much of the Arab portion of the Islamic nation had been absorbed into the Turkish Ottoman Empire, most of these areas continued to be separate regions with their own institutions, leaders, and particular characteristics. Thus, for example, Egypt and Morocco were entities administered most of the time by their own people. They enjoyed a territorial, administrative, and cultural identity distinct from other regions of Islam. The concept of Ummah or nation of Islam never precluded regional and local identity. Islam did not seek to impose radical cultural changes. In fact, because of the flexibility of Islam, it readily became part not only of the belief of the people but of the popular culture.

Islam was also spread by Muslim merchants throughout the known world along the ancient trade routes. People readily converted to a simple religion that appealed to individualism, dignity, logic, and reason. Moreover, it didn't require an organized clergy or the power of a state to propagate or enforce it.

The spread of Islam was halted in France in the year 732 at the battle of Poitiers, but it continued to expand into parts of Asia (e.g., into what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, parts of the Soviet Union, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and China) and into Africa. After the eleventh century, a succession of power struggles among Muslim leaders, as well as regional jealousies and a resurgence of Christian power in the West and in Byzantium, caused the Islamic nation to weaken. The Christian crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries battered the Islamic nation, although they were finally brought to an end in 1187 by the famous Muslim general leader of the Ayyubi dynasty of Egypt, Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi. The Ottoman Turkish Empire's expansion was stopped at Vienna in 1683. By the fifteenth century, however, the Arab portion of the Islamic nation had become part of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, which in turn broke apart and was ultimately dismantled by the Western European allies after World War I. Thereafter, the Arab Muslim world fell under the colonial occupation of France and England. Each country in the Arab region obtained its independence from England and France between the years 1922 and 1965, except for Palestine.

A variety of factors brought about the decline of the Islamic state between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. But the spread of the faith continues even today. The clarity, simplicity, and logic of the faith embodied in its tenets and religious practices are its principal attractions. In addition, the emphasis on individual responsibility and personal commitment as well as the absence of an organized clergy, makes Islam readily transmittable. As the Qur'an states Allah is closer to each one than his own jugular vein.

An historical chronology of the Islamic state and its various rulers follows. It shows the temporal reach and geographic spread of Islamic influence. Islam is a complex political, historical, social, and economic phenomenon; it can be studied and interpreted from a variety of philosophical, historical, and social perspectives. As a faith, however, Islam continues to speak to the modern world irrespective of its other meanings. What constitutes the Ummah, the Community of Islam, is not the existence of a political structure but the conscious acceptance of its Muslim participants of Allah's will and their mission on earth.

Mosque at Panfilov, Kazakstan, near the Chinese border. The facade is typical of the austere Islamic architecture of Central Asia, while the minaret is shaped like an ornate Chinese pagoda. (Aramco World Magazine, July-August 1988; photo Tor Eigeland). We have honoured the sons of Adam; provided them with transport on land and sea; given them for sustenance things good and pure; and conferred on them special favours, above a great part of our Creation. Qur'an 17:70

It was We who created man, and We know that dark suggestions his soul makes to him: for We are nearer him than (his) jugular vein. Qur'an 50:16

Islam in Andalusia The history of Islam in Spain is the history of one of the most brilliant Islamic civilizations the world has known, the "Golden Caliphate" of the Umayyads. The caliphate was founded by Abd al-Rahman, the sole surviving member of the Umayyad dynasty of Damascus. He had been forced to flee for his life with a younger brother when the Abbasids of Baghdad overthrew the Umayyads as the ruling dynasty in 750. His brother was captured and killed. But, enduring great hardship and peril, Abd al-Rahman—a tall, red-haired, poet warrior was able to make his way to Spain and Cordoba, the leading city, to claim his rightful position as the surviving head of the Umayyad dynasty.

Islam had come to Spain or to "Al-Andalus" as it was known to its Moorish rulers a scant 40 years before when in 710 a raiding party led by a Berber officer, Tariq ibn Malik, crossed the narrow eight mile straight separating Africa from Europe. Less than a year later an invading force of 7,000 men led by Tariq ibn Ziyad landed at Gibraltar (in Arabic "Jabal Tariq" or the Mountain of Tariq). And by 718—despite some initial resistance from the Visigoth Christian rulers and their King, Roderick— nearly the whole of the Iberian peninsula was firmly under Muslim control.

So begins the story of the rise of a caliphate that was to become the cultural center of western Islam and seat of learning for Christian Europe. Abd al-Rahman was not able to consolidate his rule for 20 years, since his claim to rule did not go uncontested either in Baghdad or Cordoba. Thus Cordoba's era of splendor really began with his successors, principally Abd al-Rahman II. It was he who imported fashion and culture from the East and set the foundations for the later cultural flowering. He even recruited scholars from the East by offering handsome inducements to overcome their initial reluctance to live in so provincial a city.

By the time of Abd al-Rahman III (912-61), the culture and civilization of Islam in Al-Andalus were in full bloom. Cordoba was a large and vibrant metropolis with a population of roughly 500,000 persons (compared to 40,000 for Paris at the time). There was a university and some 70 libraries containing hundreds of thousands of volumes. Al-Hakim II's library alone contained some 400,000 books, whereas the library of the monastery of St. Gall, had only a few volumes. Science, philosophy, and the arts flourished. The greatest minds in every discipline and from all over Europe and the Levant journeyed to Cordoba to study and learn.

The greatest of these scholars made enduring contributions to science and letters. Many have become familiar to students in the west under their Latin names, men such as the philosopher Averroes (Ibn Rushd), the mathematicians Arzachel (al-Zarqali) and Alpetragius (al-Bitruji), and the physician Avenzoar (Ibn Zuhr) to name a few.

Perhaps the most notable of all contributions of Muslim scholars to science lay in the field of medicine. Muslim physicians made important additions to the body of knowledge which they inherited from the Greeks. Ibn al-Nafis, for example, discovered the lesser circulation of the blood hundreds of years before Harvey. Al-Zahrawi wrote a masterwork on anatomy and dissection, the Tasrif, which was translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona and became a standard text in European medical schools throughout the Middle Ages. Ibn Baitar wrote a famous work on drugs called Collection of Simple Drugs and Food. This work served for centuries as an invaluable reference guide to medicinal plants native to Spain and North Africa.

The greatest contribution of Muslim medicine—as it was in other fields—was to distinguish science from pseudo-science. Indeed, in an era of pervasive superstition and ignorance, the great achievement of Islamic scholars was to place the study of medicine and other subjects on a scientific footing. The West didn't achieve a comparable clarity of vision until the Enlightenment. The strongly rationalist orientation of Islamic scholars was especially pronounced in Andalusia, where new scientific developments and fashions coming from the East were often viewed with suspicion. Ibn Hazm, a prominent 11th century Andalusian scholar, put the matter this way. "Those," he said, "who advocate the use of talismans, alchemy, astrology, and other black arts are shameless liars." This pervasively rationalist attitude did much to recommend Islamic science to the rest of the world.

It is a quirk of history that, after periods of exceptional cultural brilliance, periods of decline and decay seem to come most quickly. So it was in Andalusia. With Abd al-Rahman III's successor, the effective but unpopular al-Mansur, the long decline of Muslim rule in Andalusia began. The vibrancy and energy of the culture was sapped by internal strife, as minor Muslim principalities revolted, and by the long and costly effort against the Christian reconquista. Muslim religious vigor was periodically renewed by successive Almoravid and Almohad invasions, but the culture was never again to attain the heights it had during the Golden Caliphate.

By 1248 the stronghold in Seville had fallen, and the area of Spain under Muslim control was reduced to the Kingdom of Granada. There, miraculously, Islamic culture survived and prospered for more than two and a half centuries. Ironically, however, it was most likely the Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1453 that sealed Granada's fate. Soon after, fueled by the Christian fear of Islam, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile—the future patrons of Christopher Columbus—brought the curtain down on one of the most remarkable and glorious civilizations inspired by Islam. The date was January of 1492.

The Creator has periodically chosen human beings to reveal His messages to humankind. Indeed, the Qur'an refers to many Prophets such as Abraham, Noah, David, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Jesus. These messages and revelations culminated in Islam and in Muhammed as the last Prophet. The historical evolution and incorporation of prior messages into Islam are clearly stated in the Qur'an. Thus Islam is not a new religion. The Qur'an refers to Islam as the religion of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets. It is simply the last of the divine messages to reach humankind through Prophet Muhammad, who was chosen by the Creator as the bearer of his last and all-encompassing revelation. This explains why there exists a strong link between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Christians and Jews are referred to in the Qur'an as the "People of the Book" because they are the recipients of the messages of the Creator through Moses and the Old Testament prophets and through Jesus, who is believed in Islam to be the fruit of a miracle birth by the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Qur'an (literally, recitation) contains 114 chapters revealed to the Prophet during a period of 23 years from 609 to 632, the year of his death. The divine revelations were manifested in divine inspiration, which the Prophet sometimes uttered in the presence of his companions. His words were passed on in the oral tradition of his Arabic culture. Some forty years after his death they were transcribed in the written form that has been preserved to date without change. The 114 Suwar (plural of Surah) chapters were revealed to Muhammad in Mecca and Madina. They vary in length. The Qur'an is arranged not in the chronological order of its revelation but according to the length of each Surah. The longest is first, and the shortest last. No one throughout the history of Islam has challenged the accuracy of the Qur'an.

The Arabian peninsula had a long tradition of literary achievement: Prose and poetry of all types were widely cultivated. The original miracle of the Qur'an, however, is its enduring literary achievement. Many people refuse to believe that any human being, particularly an illiterate man, could have produced it. indeed, the belief that the message was revealed by God contributed to the early conversion to Islam of the pagan tribes in the Arabian peninsula. The fact that Prophet Muhammad was a trustworthy person and that his early followers were people whose rectitude was well- established and enduring among the various Arab tribes also contributed to early conversions.

The Qur'an is written in such a way that it evokes profound emotions in the reader. The analogies, maxims, and stories provide imagery of great "psychological moment." full of an elan which imparts an uplifting sense of great destiny in life and lasting fulfillment in heaven. The richness of its form and content invites constant rereading. Moral values are intertwined with history, and the details of daily life are based on a continuum with life in the hereafter. Its topics range from the most specific to the most general and include the past and future, life on earth, and existence of the soul after death. its topics cover all aspects of human interaction as well as relations between man and his Creator. It is, in short, a comprehensive and integrated guide to life.

A man studies a copy of the Qur'an as he sits by a carved column in the Upper Swat village of Bahrain, south of Kalam, Pakistan. (Aramco World Magazine, January-February 1997; photo Luke Powell).

Say, Oh Muslims, we believe in Alllah and that which is revealed unto Abraham and Isma'il and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes and that which Moses and Jesus received and that which the Prophet received from the Lord. We make no distinction between any of them and unto them we have surrendered. (We are Muslims.) Qur'an 2:136

The Three Fundamental Unities of Islam: God, Humankind, and Religion

Islam is a universal faith for all times, all places, and all peoples. It is predicated on the belief that there is but one God, Allah, the Creator of the universe and of humankind. The Qur'an opens with the words, "In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate." Mercy and compassion are his principal qualities. The relationship which exists between God and His creation is based on one religion. These fundamental unities are the foundation of faith.

The Qur'an refers to the creation of the earth and other celestial bodies out of the darkness of chaos. Scientific theories that hive evolved about the creation highlight the unity of the universe. If God created this unique universe and shaped humankind to inhabit it, it follows that God would also have communicated with humankind through a single religion, even though it be in successive revelations. Islam is the last and most all- encompassing message of God.

If one believes that there is but one humankind which is part of a single universe created by one God, then one believes in an interrelationship among all created things. Religion in this context is a set of rules that regulate the relationship between the Creator and the created and establish the basis of accountability in the hereafter. It also sets forth the framework for permissible economic, social and political systems and formulates the principles and rules through which people should deal with one another. In effect, it provides a variety of prescriptions and guidelines as well as inspiration.

In this respect, Islam is very much a law-oriented religion. It provides the guidelines and principles upon which laws and regulations can be established. The influence of Islam must not be viewed in a narrowly legalistic light but rather as providing a framework which guarantees basic fairness and justice to all.

Islam is holistic, requiring that its followers have iman (faith) to fulfill the requirements of its religious tenets. The Muslim is required to express his Ibada, service to Allah, through his deeds, conduct, and words. The Qur'an enjoins that Muslims do good and abjure evil. Life in this world is a passage, and the eternal soul shall be judged by the Almighty on Judgment Day by intentions as well as by deeds. Reward and punishment shall be meted out in heaven and hell, but Allah is merciful to those who repent and do good. Repentance and mercy are among Islam's great themes.

"Islam is built on five (pillars) testifying that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, performing the prayers, paying the zakat, making the pilgrimage to the House, and fasting in Ramadan." The Prophet's Hadith

Bearing Witness to the One and Only God (shehada)

Allah in Arabic implies the one and only true God, the beginning and the end of everything, neither born nor giving birth. The Qur'an states that He is beyond human description, but is referred to in the Qur'an by ninety-nine attributes, such as the merciful, the compassionate, the forgiving. Together with the command to bear witness and acknowledge the singularity, centrality, unity, and uniqueness of God, the believer is enjoined to confess that Muhammad is God's messenger and prophet.

Religious Tax (zakat)

Although required by the Qur'an, zakat is specified in detail only in the practice and teachings of the Prophet and in later interpretations. It is the payment of a certain percentage of one's income to support the needy and to fulfill other objectives of the community. While this can be rightly equated to a combination of taxation and charity, zakat is different from sadaqa, charity, which is equally mandated by the Qur'an but left to the discretion of the individual Muslim, depending upon circumstances. Sadaqa is both tangible and intangible a kind word, for example, may be a form of Sadaqa. But Zakat is tangible. It is paid at the end of the Ramadan fast. Non-Muslims, the people of the book (Christians and Jews), are not required to pay Zakat but another tax, called Jizyah.

Fasting during Ramadan (siyam)

Fasting from dawn to sunset during the month of Ramadan, the ninth month in the Islamic lunar calendar, is required of those whose health permits. (The Islamic lunar calendar is 11 days shorter than the Gregorian calendar, thus the annual shift of Ramadan's occurrence in relationship to the Gregorian calendar.) It is a complete fast, requiring that nothing be taken into the body but needed medication. During Ramadan there is an emphasis on piety and religious observances. Those who are ill or traveling do not have to fast during Ramadan but must compensate by fasting and by contributing to the Zakat.

Ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, That ye may (learn) self-restraint,... Qur'an 2:183

The Pilgrimage (hajj)

The pilgrimage to Mecca once in one's lifetime is required of all those who have the physical and financial ability to make the journey. The practice derives from the divine mandate given Muhammad to rebuild the first temple of worship to God in Mecca. The pilgrimage requirement makes this desert city a gathering place for people from all parts of the world once a year. The rituals of the hajj were established by the Prophet. They emphasize repentance, resulting in forgiveness by God. The practice also strengthens the bond among the faithful from all walks of life and regions of the world. It is performed during the Islamic lunar month of Dhu al-hijja.

Makkah al-Mukarramah—"Makkah the Honored"—was the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad in 570. Within today's city, at the center of the Sacred Mosque is the focal point of Islamic prayer worldwide—the Ka'ba. The 15-meter-high (48'), roughly cubical structure was first built as a place for worship of the one God by Ibrahim (Abraham) and Isma'il (Ishmael), and it is thus a physical reminder of the links between Islam and the dawn of monotheism, between the Qur'an and previous revelations, and between the Prophet Muhammad and earlier Messengers of God. (Aramco World Magazine, January-February 1999; photo Peter Sanders).

And remember Abraham and Isma'il raised the foundations of the House (With this prayer): "Our Lord! Accept (this service) from us: For Thou art the All-Hearing, the All-knowing. Qur'an 2:127

Prayers (salat)

The Qur'an does not state the number and manner of prayers; these were established by the Prophet. The required individual prayers are said five times a day: at dawn, noon (when the sun is at the center of the sky), afternoon (when the sun is halfway to sunset) sunset, and night (after sunset but before sunrise). The only required communal prayer is the Friday noon prayer. Like the Christians' Sunday or the Jews' Sabbath, Muslims consider Friday the last day of Creation.

Prayers can also be communal; that is, in fact, the preferred way. When so conducted, the prayers are led by an im am, who is usually either a person schooled in Islam or simply one among the group who is more knowledgeable, older, or recognized by the others as being especially pious.

Muslims stand shoulder to shoulder and kneel a number of times, depending on whether it is the morning prayer (twice) or the late-night prayer (four times). Standing shoulder to shoulder, irrespective of status in life, symbolizes equality before God. In Islam, as the Prophet said, no man is better than another save for his piety, which only Allah can judge. At each kneeling, the Muslim places his forehead on the ground, a symbol of the equality of all men, humility, worship of the Creator, and the fact that from earth we come and to earth we return. All praying Muslims face Mecca, where the Ka'ba is located. It is the qibla (the direction) which provides unity and uniformity for all Muslims. At an earlier time, it was the practice to face Jerusalem, the second holiest city in Islam. The Ka'ba holds the remnants of Abraham's temple.

In the only European nation with a Muslim majority, Albania's population again throngs to the mosques since the downfall of Communism in 1990. (Aramco World Magazine, July-August 1992; photo Larry Luxner). The imam does not necessarily have any special religious status in Sunni tradition just because he is the prayer leader However, he could be a person whose schooling or training conferred on him special status, as is the case with the ulema (or scholars, plural of alem). One attains this status after having pursued an extensive education in theology throughout secondary, college, and graduate study at a theological university.

Before prayers, Muslims are required to perform ablutions, which include washing the face, arms, and feet in a ritual prescribed by the Prophet. This is not only for the purposes of cleanliness, but to provide a break from prior activity. Before ablutions and prayers, a Muslim must confirm within himself his intention to pray.

The prayers are usually announced by means of a summons or call to prayer (the adhan) by the muadhin, who chants or intones it. There is no particular religious status conveyed by this responsibility; the muadhin is usually a pious member of the community who has a particularly strong or resonant voice. The call to prayer starts with "Allahu akbar" (God is great), words frequently used by Muslims either in prayers or in other contexts as a reaffirmation of the oneness and omnipotence of the Creator. The expression "al-hamdu lillah" (thanks be to God) is also among the phrases most commonly used by Muslims. They are used in any situation in which a grateful or thankful response is apposite. They are a reminder that God's will and bounty are everything.

The mosque is a symbol of the uncompromising nature of Islamic monotheism. It has a distinctive architecture, which includes a minaret for the call to prayer. It does not contain any images that might be associated with religious idolatry, which Islam forbids. The architecture of mosques built over fourteen centuries in various parts of the Muslim world is an unsurpassed artistic legacy. The floors of mosque are sometimes covered with straw mats or rugs. Muslims remove their shoes before entering so as not to soil the place where they touch their foreheads to the floor to pray.

Let there be no no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in God hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And God heareth and knoweth all things. Qur'an 2:256

"The best of you are those who have the most excellent morals." The Prophet's Hadith

The Qur'an is the principal source of Islamic law, the Sharia. It contains the rules by which the Muslim world is governed (or should govern itself) and forms the basis for relations between man and God, between individuals, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, as well as between man and things which are part of creation. The Sharia contains the rules by which a Muslim society is organized and governed, and it provides the means to resolve conflicts among individuals and between the individual and the state.

There is no dispute among Muslims that the Qur'an is the basis of the Sharia and that its specific provisions are to be scrupulously observed. The Hadith and Sunna are complementary sources to the Qur'an and consist of the sayings of the Prophet and accounts of his deeds. The Sunna helps to explain the Qur'an, but it may not be interpreted or applied in any way which is inconsistent with the Qur'an.

Copy-boards held safely out of view on their heads, students in Djenné, Mali recite a Qur'an passage from memory. (Aramco World Magazine, September-October, 1991; photo Brynn Bruijn). Though there are other sources of law—i.e., ijma', (consensus), qiyas, (analogy), ijtihad, (progressive reasoning by analogy)—the Qur'an is the first and foremost source, followed by the Hadith and Sunna. Other sources of law and rules of interpretation of the Qur'an and the Hadith and Sunna follow in accordance with a generally accepted jurisprudential scheme.

And nor shall we be punishing until we had sent them an Apostle. Qur'an 17:15

The Qur'an contains a variety of law-making provisions and legal proscriptions interspersed throughout its chapters (suwar) and verses (ayat). A number of rules exist for interpreting these provisions, such as the position of a given ayah within the context of the surah, which in turn is interpreted in accordance with its place in the sequence of revelations, its reference to other revelations, and its historical context in relation to particular conditions which existed at the time of the given revelation. These and other rules are known as the science of interpretation (ilm usul aI-fiqh). According to these rules, for example, one initially is to refer to a specific provision and then to a general provision dealing with a particular situation. No general provision can be interpreted to contradict a specific provision, and a specific rule will supersede a general proposition. A general provision, however, is always interpreted in the broadest manner, while a specific provision is interpreted in the narrowest manner. Reasoning by analogy is permitted, as are applications by analogy, except where expressly prohibited. Simplicity and clear language are always preferred. Similarly, the clear spirit of certain prescriptions cannot be altered by inconsistent interpretations. A policy-oriented interpretation within the confines of the rules of jurisprudence is permissible and even recommended, as is the case with the doctrine of ijtihad (progressive reasoning by analogy).

"Avoid condemning the Muslim to Hudud whenever you can, and when you can find a way out for the Muslim then release him for it. If the Imam errs it is better that he errs in favor of innocence (pardon) than in favor of guilt (punishment)." The Prophet's Hadith

"Were people to be given in accordance with their claim, men would claim the fortunes and lives of (other) people, but the onus of proof is on the claimant and the taking of an oath is incumbent upon him who denies." The Prophet's Hadith

Muslim scholars do not consider Islam to be an evolving religion, but rather a religion and legal system which applies to all times. It is, therefore, the application that is susceptible to evolution. Indeed, the provisions of the Qur'an are such that by their disciplined interpretation, with the aid of the Hadith and Sunna and other sources of interpretation, Islam can, as intended, provide the solution to contemporary social problems.

Fourteen centuries ago Islam was a spiritual, social, and legal revolution. Its potential for effecting progress remains unchanged. This is essentially the belief of enlightened fundamentalist Muslims. Islamic fundamentalism is not, therefore, a regressive view of history and contemporary reality. Islam at the height of its civilization, between the seventh and eleventh centuries, was neither repressive nor regressive. It was a progressive, humanistic, and legalistic force for reform and justice.

Lo! Allah commandeth you that ye restore deposits to their owners, and , if ye judge between mankind, that ye judge justly. Lo! comely is this which Allah admonisheth you. Lo! Allah is ever Hearer, Seer. Qur'an 4:58

Islamic jurisprudence has developed over fourteen centuries. Over that span of time, various schools of jurisprudence have emerged, each with its own interpretation and application of the Sharia. Many schools splintered farther, creating schools following different interpretive approaches and applications.

The flourishing abundance of ideas and views attests to the intellectual depth and breadth of Islamic jurisprudence. However, nothing precludes a given state from codifying the Sharia so as to provide for more certainty of the law and clarity and consistency in its application. Many Muslim states have done so, the most advanced being Egypt, where the presence of the thousand-year-old Al-Azhar University (originally devoted solely to Islamic studies but now to all disciplines) and centuries of legal tradition have converged to make Islamic law a source of inspiration for the entire Muslim world.

The interior of the Prophet's Mosque at Madinah with its qiblah, or prayer niche, which indicates the direction of Makkah. (Aramco World Magazine, November-December, 1991; photo Abdullah Dobais). The Sunni and the Shia

The Sunni tradition, which today comprises approximately 85-90 percent of all Muslims, differs from Shia tradition, which comprises the remainder of the Muslim world. The distinction between the two traditions essentially derives from different approaches to governance. The Sunni believe, based on specific provisions of the Qur'an and the Sunna, that the Muslim people are to be governed by consensus (ijma') through an elected head of state, the khalifa, according to democratic principles. The Shia, however, believe that the leader of Islam, whom they refer to as the imam rather than the khalifa, must be a descendant of the Prophet. The concept is the basis for a hereditary hierarchy in the Shia tradition.

The Shia movement dates from the period when a group of Muslims wanted Ali ibn abu Talib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, to become the khalifa instead of Abu Bakr, who had been elected the first khalifa following the death of Muhammad in 632. They advanced his candidacy on the basis of heredity. However, they were out voted. Ali ultimately became the fourth khalifa, succeeding Uthman, who succeeded Umar, who succeeded Abu Bakr. But Ali was overthrown by the rebellion of Muawia, the governor of Syria, whose seat was in Damascus. Muawia rebelled against Ali because he attributed the assassination of his kinsman Uthman to Ali's followers. Ali was subsequently assassinated after losing the Tahkim (arbitration) to Muawia. His followers then constituted what would today be cal led a political party to reinstate him and to secure succession to the Khalifa.

In 680 Hussain, one of Ali's sons, led a number of Muslims who were then rebelling against the ruling khalifa to try to establish in the area between Iran and Iraq a caliphate based on heredity from the Prophet. However, Hussain was lured into Iraq, and there at a place called Karbala he and his followers were massacred. Hussain's martyrdom spurred the Shia movement in Iraq and Iran. The anniversary of Karbala is commemorated every year by the Shia population. In Iran, in particular, it is conducted by means of a large popular demonstration in which people publicly weep and flagellate themselves as a sign of their remorse.

The political rift between followers of the principle of election and those favoring descent from the Prophet generated some other differences between Sunni and Shia approaches to jurisprudence. For example, the Shia view the sayings of Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, and his cousin Ali (Fatima's husband), the fourth khalifa of the Islam, as equally authoritative as the Sunna of the Prophet. The Sunni do not. There are other differences involving the structure of Islam, such as existence of an organized Shia clergy, which does not exist in the Sunni tradition. Among them the Shia allow the imam much wider latitude in government than the Sunni ever could in light of the principles of consensus and equality. The most important of all differences between Sunni and Shia relates to the interpretation of the Qur'an. The Sunni look more to the letter of the Qur'an; the Shia look more to its spirit. In Arabic the distinction is referred to as al-dhaher (the apparent) versus al-baten (the hidden) meaning of the Qur'an. Thus the Shia religious hierarchy plays a determining role in interpreting the Qur'an. This role reinforces their spiritual and temporal influence in Shia society.

O ye who believe! Be steadfast witness for Allah in equity, and let not hatred of any people seduce you that ye deal not justly. Deal justly, that is nearer to your duty. Observe your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is informed of what we do. Qur'an 5:8

And hold fast, All together, by the rope which God (stretches out for you), and be not divided among yourselves; and remember with gratitude God's favour on you; For ye were enemies and He joined your hearts in love, so that by His grace, Ye became brethren; And ye were on the brink of the pit of fire, and He saved you from it. Thus doth God make His signs clear to you: that ye may be guided. Qur'an 3:103

Sunni Jurisprudence

The Sunni follow any one of four major schools on jurisprudence founded by imams ibn Hanbal, abu Hanifa, Malek, and el-Shafei, scholars of the ninth to eleventh centuries. These schools, referred to respectively as the Hanbali, Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafei, are followed by different Muslim states either entirely or in part. Egypt is traditionally Maliki. Saudi Arabia is traditionally Hanbali, although the country follows more closely the teachings of imam Muhammad Abdal-Wahab, a Hanbali reformer of the early 1800's. Even though there are differences in interpretation of the Sharia among these authorities, they are all recognized as valid.

In its most glorious period, from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries, Islam produced a legal system founded on scientific knowledge and nurtured by a faith that has endured the test of time. But during that period it was ijtihad (progressive reasoning by analogy) which produced the most far-reaching developments. Reformers like ibn Taymiyah (late 1200's) was one of many great jurist-philosophers who opened new horizons in the knowledge and understanding of Islam's application to the needs of society. But in the twelfth century, ijtihad was pronounced ended by some theologians of the time. They argued that all was to be known was known. Consequently, Islamic jurisprudence became somewhat stagnant until its contemporary resurgence under the aegis of Al-Azhar scholars and other modern reformers of the last two centuries, such as al-Ghazali, al-Afghani, and Muhammad Abdu. Contemporary jurisprudential developments continue the work begun in past ages, meeting individual requirements and collective demands for resolving the problems and conflicts of modern life, while remaining compatible with Islam.

Laila and Majnun from the famous poem by Jami, 1571. (Aramco World Magazine, March-April 1987; photo Ergun Çagatay) Sufism

The Sufi movement is a mystical strain in Islam which reflects the need of individuals to transcend formal religious practices in order to attain higher levels of spiritual fulfillment. The Sufis are represented in all schools of thought in Islam and found in all Muslim communities. Because of its mystical, spiritual character, Sufism appeals more to individuals and small groups. It does not constitute either a sect or a school of thought, but is rather a spiritual or transcendental practice which persists despite criticism from orthodox theologians. Sufis believe they follow the Prophet's mysticism, particularly during the Meccan period of the revelations. Thus, in their practices there is much meditation and solitary or group recitation of prayers and incantations of their own religious formulas. They seek a life of ascetic pietism, shunning worldly pleasures and seeking the inward purity of a relationship with God through love, patience, forgiveness, and other higher spiritual qualities.

The tomb in Lahore of Data Ganu Bakhsh, one of the many sufis who brought Islam to Asia by peaceful means. (Aramco World Magazine, November-December, 1991; photo Nik Wheeler). Their influence on the development of Islam is more significant than is usually recognized. Their ascetic piety and rigidly ethical conception of Islamic society have influenced generations of Muslims. They have also had from time to time strong political influence. What characterizes Sufis the most is their "inwardism" or belief that the Sharia only regulates external conduct, whereas inward feelings are matter strictly between each person and the Creator. Because of their emphasis on the love of God, they have developed the doctrine of Tawakul (reliance on God), which is central to the relationship between Man and God. Sufism also has had a significant impact on the practical aspects of administering a state.

An important Hadith (saying) of the Prophet is that religion is not what one formally or ritualistically practices but how one deals with others. It is therefore not sufficient to be pious without performing deeds which demonstrate one's beliefs. It is reported that the Prophet once entered a mosque and saw at prayer a venerable old man with a long white beard. He was told that the man was in the mosque all day long, worshipping and dispensing the words of Allah to others. The Prophet then asked how he earned his living and was told that a merchant, not known for his piety, supported him. The Prophet remarked that of the two, the merchant was indeed the more worthy.

Every Muslim is the recipient, guardian, and executor of God's will on earth; his responsibilities are all encompassing. A Muslim's duty to act in defense of what is right is as much part of his faith as is his duty to oppose wrong. The Prophet once said, "If someone among you sees wrong he must right it by his hand if he can (deed, conduct, action). If he cannot, then by his tongue (speak up, verbally oppose); if he cannot, then by his gaze (silent expression of disapproval); and if he cannot, then in his heart. The last is the minimum expression of his conviction (faith, courage)."

Living the faith is ibada, service to God through service to humankind.

A view inside the ninth-century Karaouine Mosque, Fez, Morocco. (Aramco World Magazine, May-June 1993; photo Nik Wheeler).

By no means shall ye attain righteousness unless ye give (freely) of that which ye love; and whatever ye give, of a truth God knoweth it well. Qur'an 3:92

The preservation of a social order depends on each and every member of that society freely adhering to the same moral principles and practices. Islam, founded on individual and collective morality and responsibility, introduced a social revolution in the context in which it was first revealed. Collective morality is expressed in the Qur'an in such terms as equality, justice, fairness, brotherhood, mercy, compassion, solidarity, and freedom of choice. Leaders are responsible for the application of these principles and are accountable to God and man for their administration. It is reported that a man went to Umar, the second khalifa, to talk to him. It was nighttime, and a candle burned on Umar's desk. Umar asked the man if what he wanted to discuss was personal. The man said that it was, and Umar extinguished the candle so as not burn public funds for a private purpose. Leaders in Islam, whether heads of state or heads of family or private enterprise, have a higher burden or responsibility than others.

There is a relation in Islam between individual responsibility and the rights and privileges derived from membership in the community. Individual obligations must be met before one can claim a portion from the community of which he is part. Each member of a society must fulfill his own obligations and rely on others to fulfill theirs before that society can acquire the necessary reservoir of social rights and privileges which can then be shared by all. The notions of brotherhood and solidarity not only impose upon the community the duty to care for' its members, but also require each person to use his initiative to carry out individual and social responsibilities according to his ability.

And to be firm and patient, in pain (or suffering) and adversity, And throughout all periods of panic. Such are the people of truth, the God-fearing. Qur'an 2:177

"Whosoever of you sees an evil action, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then with his tongue; and if he is not able to do so, then with his heart—and that is the weakest of faith." The Prophet's Hadith

The equality of all Muslims is emphasized repeatedly throughout the Qur'an. It is because of that concept that Islam under the Sunni tradition does not have an ordained clergy. There is a direct relationship between every man and his Creator, and there can be no intermediary. This particular closeness between the individual and God is paramount in belief as well as in practice.

It is frequently argued that Islam is not a religion that provides for full equity among Muslims. Indeed, because Islam makes distinctions between men and women; not all rights and privileges available to men are available to women. For example, a male Muslim inherits twice the share of the female, but then a male relative has the financial responsibility to care for a needy female relative. Also, a male Muslim has the right to unilaterally divorce his wife, while she can only divorce her husband through a judge's determination. Custody of children from a divorce is given the mother, boys till age 9 and girls till age 12. Thereafter custody reverts to the father, provided that he is fit. However, the fact that there is not absolute parity in all rights and privileges does not mean that women do not share an overall equality with men. It must also be noted that certain social practices in some Muslim countries are not required by Islam, but have simply evolved in the course of time as a result of indigenous cultural factors.

Islam differentiates between Muslims and non-Muslims and between the "People of the Book" (dhimmi) and others. Only Muslims have the right to elect the khalifa. In judicial matters the oath of the Muslim prevails over that of the non-Muslim. There are therefore some differences between males and females in Islam, between Muslims and Dhimmis, and Muslims and non-Dhimmis.

One of almost 300 mosques on the Tunisian island of Jerba. These glimmering, whitewashed structures dominate the landscape, their colors shift with the changing light, and their flights of architectural fantasy seem to come in an infinite variety. (Aramco World Magazine, July-August 1994; photo Nik Wheeler). Individual Responsibility

The search for justice is one of the continuing quests of humankind. It is the quest that is prescribed by the Qur'an for every Muslim. Social and individual justice are evolving concepts which depend largely upon a variety of external considerations. Above all, Islam seeks to inculcate within every Muslim the need to seek justice and to apply it to himself as well as to others. Because Muslims believe that God is the beginning and the end of everything, all is preordained by Qadar (divine will). Qadar does not imply inaction, but, rather, acceptance. It requires the strength to change what can be changed and the fortitude to accept what cannot.

Individual responsibility is a cornerstone of Islam. Every Muslim is accountable to his Creator for what he himself does or fails to do—as well as for others for whom he may be accountable—and for things that he has control over. As in Western legal codes, individual responsibility is predicated on the intent and motive of the actor in light of his ability to do good and to avoid evil or harm to others. Thus Islam believes in free will, and to the extent that this exists a person is responsible for its exercise in the framework of Islamic morality. But the relativity of human justice is not to be confused with the absoluteness of divine justice whose application every Muslim expects without fail on judgment day. Because of the Muslim's belief in accountability in the hereafter, his oath is valid evidence in any judicial or extra-judicial process.

Serve God, and join not any partners with Him; and do good—To parents, orphans, those in need, neighbours who are near, neighbours who are strangers; the companion by your side, the way-farer (ye meet), and what your right hands possess: For God loveth not the arrogant, the vainglorious;— Qur'an 4:36

"Actions are but by intention and every man shall have but that which he intended." The Prophet's Hadith

"None of you (truly) believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself." The Prophet's Hadith

Forbearance and Forgiveness

A Muslim is accountable for what he does and what he fails to do in accordance with not only the letter but also the spirit of the law. However, even though Islam imposes a number of very rigid requirements and appears formalistic and inflexible, one of the basic premises of the relationship among Muslims, and between Muslims and others, is derived from one of the basic premises of the relationship between a Muslim and his Creator, namely, forbearance and forgiveness.

In one of the Prophet's Hadiths it is stated that a person could do such evil during his lifetime that there might be between him and the doors to hell only one step and then he could repent and ask for God's forgiveness and do one good deed and enter heaven. By the same token, a person may during his life do so much good as to be one step removed from heaven and then do one evil deed that would be sufficient to earn him hell. The meaning of the Hadith is to emphasize that, even though a person may do good throughout his life, he should never be absolutely certain that the good he has done all along is sufficient to carry him through; he should not forget that one bad deed could overcome all the good ones. Conversely, a person who has done evil all his life may repent even at the last moment and with one good deed earn paradise.

The element of forbearance and forgiveness has to be predicated on knowledge, awareness, and truth. Forbearance and forgiveness depend on the believer's recognition and acceptance of what he has done and his genuine repentance with an intent not to repeat the misdeed. That is why Muslims are encouraged to forgive the bad deeds of others committed against them.

Allah is described in the Qur'an as the Forgiving and the Merciful. Everything is forgivable by Allah except Shirk (the negation of the existence of the Singularity, Uniqueness and Oneness of the Creator.) Even so the mercy of God is infinite. A man was once brought to the Prophet for trial because he denied the existence of God. Upon review of the facts, it appeared that the man was in despair over a personal tragedy. He had been found in the desert throwing his spear to the sky and screaming that he wanted to kill God for the injustice that he had suffered. The Prophet replied, "Is it not enough that he acknowledged the existence of God to want to kill him?." The man was set free.

Women in Islam

As in most of the nomadic tribes of the ancient world, women were deemed unimportant in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, in a society shaped by the rigors of desert life, women were relegated to the margins of community life.

The advent of Islam fundamentally altered the status of women in several ways. First, and most importantly, it overturned tradition by according women equal status before Allah. No longer were women denied a human face. Their souls like the souls of men were precious to Allah. They, like men, were worthy of dignity and respect. As a result of this new status and the revolution it worked on Arab society—women became pillars of early Muslim society and were counted among its strongest supporters. Several women—notably Fatimah, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad and wife of Ali, the fourth caliph—even played important roles in the propagation of the faith. To the Shia, for example; Fatimah is an authoritative source of the Prophet's sayings and deeds.

Tibetan Muslim sisters in the doorway of their home in Lhasa. (Aramco World Magazine, January-February 1998; photo Kevin Bubriski). The status of women under Islam also altered as a consequence of the spread of the religion itself. As Islam became a world religion and its influence spread the character of Arab society changed, requiring that women take a larger role in society. As men hurriedly left their flocks and businesses to fight for Islam, women readily assumed the burdens and responsibilities of the home.

The Prophet set an example for the treatment of women in marriage through his relationship with his first wife Khadijah. Although fifteen years his elder, Muhammad remained a faithful and devoted husband for twenty-six years, contrary to the tradition of polygamy which prevailed at the time in Arabia. After her death Muhammad remarried, but he always remembered Khadijah with love and spoke of her with reverence. Khadijah was, in fact, Muhammad's first convert to Islam and his strongest supporter in the struggle to establish the new faith.

Aishah bint abu Bakr (613-678) was Muhammad's favorite wife of later years. Noted for her education and intelligence, in particular her ability to read and write, she was often consulted about the teachings of the Prophet after his death. She played an important role in the life of the early community, most famously by opposing the succession of Ali after the death of Uthman, the third khalifa.

Behold! the angels said: "O Mary! God giveth thee glad tidings of a word from Him: his name will be Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, held in honour in this world and the hereafter and of (the company of) those nearest to God;... Qur'an 3:45

The new, elevated status of women is apparent in numerous Qur'anic proscriptions which set out women's rights and obligations. On protecting the dignity and self-respect of women, for example, the Qur'an is emphatic and unequivocal: One of the seven hudud crimes is maligning a woman's reputation.

O Mankind: Be careful of your duty to your Lord who created its mate and from them twain hath spread abroad a multitude of men and women. Be careful of your duty toward Allah in who ye claim (your rights) of one another. Qur'an 4:1

O mankind! Lo! We have created you male and female and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another. Lo! The noblest of you in the sight of Allah is the best in conduct. Qur'an 49:13

"Jahimah came to the Prophet, said 'O Messenger of Allah! I intended that I should enlist in the fighting force and I have come to consult thee.' He said: 'Then stick to her, for paradise is beneath her two feet.'" The Prophet's Hadith

"The most perfect of the believers in faith is the best of them in moral excellence, and the best of you are the kindest of you to their wives." The Prophet's Hadith

The Qur'an, of course, acknowledges and makes provision for differences between men and women. Indeed, on these differences is erected an elaborate structure of individual and social rights and obligations. Some appear inequitable on the surface but on examination reveal a deeper logic and reasonableness. A man, for example, stands to inherit twice as much as a woman, but then he must provide for his own wife and family and relatives should the need arise.

The same holds true of traditional rules of dress and behavior. Women are enjoined to cover their bodies (except for the face and hands) and lower their gaze in the presence of men not related to them. Moreover, although women and men are subject to the same religious obligations—such as prayer, fasting, pilgrimage to Mecca—women pray separately from men. Nonetheless, these rules of dress and behavior—however restrictive they may appear to Western eyes—serve a social function. In societies which by tradition provide few protections outside the family, they insure a woman's integrity and dignity. For that reason, too, men are enjoined to lower their eyes before women and to be appropriately covered from above the chest to the knees.

In other areas, women enjoy a strict parity with men. A woman's right to own property is just as absolute as a man's. Male kin cannot handle a woman 5 financial interests without her permission. A woman must specifically consent to marriage and cannot be forced to accept a husband she does not approve of. In cases of divorce—in a prominent departure from traditional practice—women have exclusive guardianship rights over children up to early puberty. Although a husband has the right to divorce his wife unilaterally—a right not shared by women—a wife can divorce her husband on specific legal grounds by court order.

In education, too, women have the same rights as men. In contemporary Muslim society, in fact, women have attained the same levels of education as men and in many countries occupy positions of power and influence.

Nothing in Islam prevents a woman from accomplishing herself or attaining her goals. Societies may erect barriers, but nothing in the spirit of the Qur'an subjugates women to men. In time, of course, social barriers will disappear—as they are disappearing now—because Muslim women will expect and demand it. As a result, it can only be expected that women will play an increasingly larger role in Islamic society and surpass the contributions of early Muslim women.

The parties should either hold Together on equitable terms, Or separate with kindness. Qur'an 2:229

Lo! Allah enjoineth (orders) justice (or injustice) and kindness (or unkindness) and to give to (one's) kinsfolk... Qur'an 16:90

"What did the Prophet do when in his house? She said, 'He served his wife." The Prophet's Hadith

The Islamic Calendar

The Islamic calendar is unique among the major calendars of the world. Unlike the Gregorian calendar and others based on the astronomical solar year—the length of time it takes for the earth to revolve around the sun—the Islamic calendar is based on the lunar year.

The lunar calendar is comprised of 12 lunar months like the calendar based on the solar year. However, since each month begins and ends with the new moon—a period lasting 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 2.8 seconds—each lunar year contains only 354 days (or 355 on leap years) as opposed to 365 and 1/4 days for the astronomical year. There are 11 leap years in every cycle of 30 years, the intercalated day always being added to the last day of Dhu al-Hijjah, the last month of the year.

As a consequence of the fewer number of days in the lunar year, the lunar calendar is unrelated to the progression of the seasons. The month of Rajab, for example, could occur in summer in one year and the middle of winter 15 years later. Relative to the solar year, the lunar calendar progresses by 10 or 11 days each year so that 33 Muslim years are approximately equal to 32 Gregorian years.

The difference in the length of the lunar year accounts for some of the difficulty in converting dates from the Islamic (Hijri or "Hijrah") system to the Gregorian and vice versa. The following equation can be used to calculate the Hijrah year in which the corresponding Gregorian year began:

A.D. = 622 + (32/33 x A.H.)

The Islamic calendar was devised in the seventh century in response to the exigencies of governing the far-flung Abbasid empire. It also was created, not incidentally, to glorify the triumph of the new religion. Other calendars in use at the time were tied to other states and religions, and so, the historian al-Biruni tells us, the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab decided to develop a new calendar based on the advent of Islam, taking July 16, 622 A.D., the date of the Hijrah or the Prophet's sojourn from Mecca to Madina, as the starting point of the calendar of the Muslim era.

The Muslim months are: Muharram Jumada al-Awwal Ramadan Safar Jumada al-Thani Shawwal Rabi' al-Awwal Rajab Dhu al-Qi'dah Rabi' al-Thani Sha'ban Dhu al-Hijjah

The following holidays are observed among Muslim communities throughout the world: 'Id al-Fitr, also known as the Little Feast, marks the end of the great fast of Ramadan. It occurs on the first day of the month of Shawwal. 'Id al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, also known as the Great Feast, falls seventy days after 'Id al-Fitr, on the 10th of the month of Dhu al-Hijjah. Ra's al-Sannah, New Year's Festival, falls on the first day of the month of Muharram. Mawlid an-Nabi, the Prophet's Birthday, is celebrated on the 12th day of the month of Rabi' al-Awwal. Lailat al Isra' wa al-Mi'raj, this festival commemorates the Prophet's miraculous journey, from Mecca to Jerusalem to heaven and then back to Mecca in the same night, is celebrated on the 27th day of the month of Rajab.

The Sharia contains prescriptions, proscriptions, recommendations, suggestions, general principles, and guidelines that may be considered the basis for an overall economic theory. It is important to remember, however, that such a theory must be part of the holistic vision of Islam and the integration of all aspects of human endeavor and interaction.

In one Hadith, the Prophet said that one should work in life as if one were going to live forever. This saying does not mean that there should be no sense of immediacy or urgency to action. Rather it suggests that there should be continuity in life. It also suggests that one should not be obsessed with attaining immediate results and worldly success. On the other hand, the Hadith goes on to state that one should act with respect to life in the hereafter as if one were to die tomorrow. In this, it conveys a sense of urgency about having one's conscience in good order. These correlative maxims rest on the ethical-moral prescription in the Qur'an to do good and abjure evil.

In antiquity, especially in Asia, the gates of a city were part of a larger structure that often had several levels, with towers and interior rooms. The connecting walls and arch above this gate have collapsed, and this is all that is left of one of the gates of Tashkurghan, a city that housed a thousand shops and a score of caravanserais when it was an important trading center on the many-branched Silk Roads. (Aramco World Magazine, May-June 1991; photo by Luke Powell). While there exist numerous economic theories consistent with the Qur'an, the ethical-moral basis of all of them must be the same. Because Islam is a way of life as well as a form of government, a social structure as well as a regulatory norm for interpersonal relationships, business is not something different and apart from all these other aspects of social life. It is a part of human life like any other. Islamic society preserves the notions of free enterprise and social solidarity, social responsibility and humanistic concern for all. It precedes self-interest, though that also is the object of many specific guarantees.

The Prophet, in another Hadith, once said that nine-tenths of all rizk (the bounty of God, which includes income) is derived from commerce. That, to a large extent, explains the drive of Muslims over the centuries to meet their economic needs through commerce, industry, agriculture and various forms of free enterprise. Profits are very much a part of such activities, provided they are lawfully obtained (halal). However, profits cannot overshadow the duties of brotherhood, solidarity, charity and they are, of course, subject to zakat.

It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces towards east or west; but it is righteousness—To believe in God and the Last Day, and the Angels, and the Book, and the Messengers; to spend of your substance, out of love for Him, for your kin, for orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask, and for the ransom of slaves to be steadfast in prayer, and practice regular charity; to fulfill the contracts which ye have made; Qur'an 2:177

Legitimacy of Profit

Islam distinguishes between legitimate (halal) and illegitimate (haram) profit, of which usury (riba) is a part. To a large extent, the problem of defining usury has arisen over matters dealing with the practices of financial institutions in the West, namely the payment of interest which in the traditional Islamic view is considered a form of riba. By collecting a predetermined, fixed interest, the Muslim neither earns a profit from his work nor shares in risk of his capital. Speculation is prohibited, as is undue profiting from the need or misery of others. Nothing, however, proscribes income derived from what would be equivalent to mutual fund or special trust earnings or other contemporary forms of financing investments where the investor also bears the burden of potential loss. In fact, there exists in Islamic law a form of contract called muqaradah. Here a person entrusts capital to another person for commercial investment. The risk-taking elements justifies the profits, which are neither fixed nor predetermined.

The ethical-moral foundation of all economic relations is based on the distinction between halal and haram as set forth in the Sharia. The particular context of a given action, considering the interests of the community and the rights of all individuals involved, determines whether it may be deemed halal or haram. Although this may appear to be vague to the non-Muslim, it is nonetheless sufficiently clear to the Muslim because of his belief in the omniscience of God.

Fulfillment of Obligations

In all of his dealings, the Muslim is required to pay his debts as well as due compensation to those who work for him. He is to honor his obligations and stand by his word. Rectitude in business dealings and personal relations is as important to the Muslim as is any other tenet of faith. Religion must be lived. Thus ethics, morality, and religion are inseparable. That is why Muslims frequently do business by means of oral agreements or a handshake as opposed to a written contract. This also explains why there is usually a reluctance to adjudicate claims on an adversarial basis, where artful arguments may be found to rationalize or justify changing positions. Therefore, in cases of disagreement in business practices, Muslims frequently resort to arbitration. The practice is no different from that which has developed in non-Muslim societies: Each side selects an arbitrator who in turn selects a third person. It is common for both sides to agree on the arbitrator, usually a person whose faith, piety, and reputation for fairness is well-established in the community.

Because of the role of the individual in Islam as the recipient and bearer of God's will on earth, the sense of individual dignity, pride, and honor is very marked in the Muslim. Ideally, position in life and economic status should not be distinguishing factors in Islam, though in modern societies these distinctions have developed. Respect for the individual applies to form as well as substance and extends to all aspects of human interaction. A Muslim's word is still his bond, and his dignity is his most cherished attribute. An appeal to higher values is more convincing than an appeal to practicality and pragmatism. Human relations are more important than practical considerations Loyalty and fidelity are among the most highly regarded qualities. Rectitude is expected, and undue advantage is considered base. Fairness is both a means and an end, irrespective of the practical realities. Honesty is not a virtue but an expected trait in every Muslim. In today's world of business these values have eroded.

Role of Work

In Islam, work, intellectual as well as physical, is considered the basis of all richness and property. There is both a right to work and a right to the product of that work, as well as a right to benefit from the rewards of divine providence. Work must always have an ethical-moral component, either in itself or in its outcome (i.e., charity, contributing to the community, etc.). There is in the philosophical sense no intrinsic wealth, although the right of inheritance is protected and specifically prescribed under Sharia, which allows for the preservation of property, its devolution and accumulation. Nonetheless, there is the implied premise that wealth should be legitimized through work. In addition, wealth must also be used for good of others, such as the needy, and for the community as a whole. The greater one's wealth and power, the greater is the responsibility to use them properly. In many respects work is considered a form of piety.

Economic freedom extends to work, property, and the choice of how to use one's capabilities and resources. The individual has the freedom to choose the type of work he does, and he has the right to work in an environment that does not impinge upon his personal dignity. Only in freedom can an individual choose how to use the fruits of his labor, that is, to use his wealth for personal aggrandizement or for the benefit of the community. There is a prohibition against jah, the flaunting of one's achievement in the face of others, particularly the less fortunate. This reflects the values of equality and humility symbolically manifested in the five daily prayers, when people stand side by side, shoulder to shoulder, kneeling in unison and putting their foreheads to the ground.

O ye who believe do not eat up your property among yourselves in wrong. But there be amongst you trade in mutual good will. Qur'an 4:29

"The buyer and seller have the option (of cancelling the contract) as long as they have not separated, then if they both speak the truth and make manifest, their transaction shall be blessed, and if they conceal and tell lies, the blessing of their transaction shall be obliterated." The Prophet's Hadith

"The truthful, honest merchant is with the prophets and the truthful ones and the martyrs." The Prophet's Hadith

"Whoever cultivates land which is not the property of any one has a better title to it." The Prophet's Hadith

The Sharia recognizes the right to private property and its uses (provided it is halal), save for the right of the community to "eminent domain." The use of property in accordance with the best interests and dictates of the owner is safeguarded, provided the rights of others are protected. There is throughout the notion that the utilization of wealth must balance the rights of the owner against the rights and interests of the community, which extends to the preservation of the property itself. Use is permissible; abuse and destruction are forbidden.

Property of whatever sort is not considered merely the personal privilege of the one who owns it. Ownership brings with it a certain responsibility towards the property itself, its use and benefits. The relationship between man and his Creator and the social responsibilities of a Muslim require that property be used not only for one's personal advantage and benefit but also for the advantage and benefit of the community. This does not mean that every commercial, industrial, or agricultural enterprise must ultimately turn into a charitable activity, hut there must be human, ethical, and moral factors that relate to the use of property. Thus, if the choice is between an ethical-moral consideration and profit, the former prevails over the latter, other things being equal.

Members of the congregation shake hands and chat near the northern entrance of the Great Mosque in Djenné, Mali. (Aramco World Magazine, November-December 1990; photo Brynn Bruijn). Contracts

Because every Muslim is accountable before both Allah and his community, a great deal of faith is placed in a Muslim's word. Contractual freedom is required and implies the ability to make free choices without undue influence. The attempt to control certain segments of the market or certain phases of a given mechanism that may either control prices or affect the natural laws of a free economy is considered haram. Thus Islamic economic liberty is inherently similar to the notion of free enterprise and socially responsible capitalism. The principles of Islamic economic theory would invalidate transactions in which deceit or undue influence is used by one person against another.

Contracts of various types are regulated by the Sharia and are subject to the concepts of halal and haram. Contracts are essentially predicated on the free will of the parties and must manifest the true expression of their intent. Economic activities based on implied contracts are also balanced by a variety of what would now be called equitable principles to insure against undue influence and lack of fairness, which affect questions of competence, validity, rescission, and damages. Thus the theory of market observation (hisba) postulates that there is a notion of accountability for the market and responsibility for its supervision. The theory originally applied to the traditional agricultural markets and their related commercial markets in the period from the seventh to the twelfth century. It can be compared to market and control mechanisms such as the Federal Reserve Board's control of currency or the Securities and Exchange Commission's control of stock transactions.

Individual contracts, implied contracts, and contracts of adhesion are to be regulated in such a way as to enhance fairness, produce equity, protect the weak and the unwary, and promote social interests. The logical extension of these principles is that no one can enrich himself to the detriment of others. In such a case the injured party has a right to compensation for his loss, not to exceed the extent of profit of the one causing the unjust loss. All of these notions of equity, including protection of the public (consumers, users, etc.), have now emerged in the legal systems of the modern world.

Four-minaret mosque, Bukhara. (Aramco World Magazine, July-August 1988; photo Tor Eigeland). Modern Legal Systems

All Muslim states have legal systems with courts, laws and judges, like elsewhere in the world. There are, however, differences among Muslim states. In some countries, such as Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria ad Tunisia, there is a tradition of legal codification and jurisprudence. Structures for the administration of justice are also well-developed. There is a three-level judiciary comprising trial courts, appellate courts, and a supreme court. The practice of adjudication of claims with representation by counsel is well-established. In some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf states, there is less of a tradition of codification and a greater reliance on the Sharia. But there are also in these countries a number of laws applying to contracts, commercial relations, agency and the like, in addition to a judicial system and a jurisprudence specific to commercial matters. In the last decade, moreover, many countries have enacted civil and commercial codes—Algeria, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, for example—which are mostly mostly modeled after the Egyptian Civil Code of 1948. The Egyptian code was taken in turn from the French Civil Code and adapted to the Sharia. In the 1980's, Pakistan and the Sudan, which have codified legal systems, have been in the process of changing their laws to conform to the Sharia.

And O my people! give just measure and weight, nor withhold from the people the things that are their due: Commit not evil in the land with intent to do mischief. Qur'an 11:85

It is We who have place you with authority on earth, and provided you therein with means for the fulfillment of your life: Small are the thanks that ye give! Qur'an 7:10

Because Islam originated and has developed in an Arab culture, other cultures which have adopted Islam have tended to be influenced by Arab customs. Thus Arab Muslim societies and other Muslims have cultural affinities, though every society has preserved its distinguishing characteristics. Islamic culture inherited an Arab culture born in the desert, simple but by no means simplistic. It has an oral tradition based on the transmission of culture through poetry and narrative. However, it has been the written record that has had the greatest impact on civilization. Islam civilization is based on the value of education, which both the Qur'an and the Prophet stressed.

This dark green jade pot, 14 cm. (5½"), once furnished the Safavid palace at Tabriz, and probably passed into Ottoman hands after the Battle of Çaldiran in 1514. Before that, the dragon-headed handle suggests it may have belonged to a Timurid ruler. (Aramco World Magazine, January-February 1995; photo Ergun Çagatay). Knowledge and Education

In the Pre-Islamic period, one of the traditions was that of the mu'allaquat (literally "the hangings"). In the city of Mecca, poets and writers would hang their writings on a certain wall in the city so that others could read about the virtues of their respective tribes. Their travels from city to city and tribe to tribe were the means by which news, legends, and exploits would become known. The tradition continued as the Qur'an was first memorized and transmitted by word of mouth and then recorded for following generations. This popular expression of the Arab Muslim peoples became an indelible part of Islamic culture. Even today Muslims quote the Qur'an as a way of expressing their views and refer to certain maxims and popular tales to make a point.

Great centers of religious learning were also centers of knowledge and scientific development. Such formal centers began during the Abbasid period (750-1258 A.D.) when thousands of mosque schools were established. In the tenth century Baghdad had some 300 schools. Alexandria in the fourteenth century had 12,000 students. It was in the tenth century that the formal concept of the Madrassah (school) was developed in Baghdad. The Madrassah had a curriculum and full-time and part-time teachers, many of whom were women. Rich and poor alike received free education. From there Maktabat (libraries) were developed and foreign books acquired. The two most famous are Bait al-Hikmah in Baghdad (ca. 820) and Dar al-Ilm in Cairo (ca. 998). Universities such as Al-Azhar (969 A.D.) were also established long before those in Europe.

Then exalted be Allah the True King! And hasten not (O Muhammad) with the Qur'an ere its revelation hath been perfected unto thee, and say: My Lord! Increase me in knowledge. Qur'an 20:114

Islamic history and culture can be traced through the written records: Pre-Islamic, early Islamic, Umayyad, the first and second Abbasid, the Hispano-Arabic, the Persian and the modern periods. The various influences of these different periods can be readily perceived, as can traces of the Greek, the Indian, and the Pre-Islamic Persian cultures. Throughout the first four centuries of Islam, one does not witness the synthesis or homogenization of different cultures but rather their transmittal through, and at times their absorption into, the Islamic framework of values. Islam has been a conduit for Western civilization of cultural forms which might otherwise have died out. Pre-Islamic poetry and prose, which was transmitted orally, was recorded mostly during the Umayyad period (661-750 A.D.) when the Arab way of life began shifting from the simple nomadic life prevalent in the peninsula to an urban and sophisticated one. Contacts with Greece and Persia gave a greater impulse to music, which frequently accompanied the recitation of prose and poetry. By the mid-800's in the Baghdad capital of Abbassids under Harun al-Rashid and al-Ma'mun, Islamic culture as well as commerce and contacts with many other parts of the world flourished.

In the fourth century B.C., when Alexander the Great conquered Asia Minor and founded Alexandria, he set the stage for the great migration of Greek philosophy and science to that part of the world. During the Ptolemaic period, Alexandria, Egypt, was the radiant center for the development and spread of Greek culture throughout the Mediterranean. That great center of learning continued after 641, when Egypt became part of the Muslim state. Thereafter Syria, Baghdad, and Persia became similar channels for the communication of essentially Greek, Syriac, pre-Islamic Persian and Indian cultural values. As a result, Islamic philosophy was influenced by the writings of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The great Muslim philosophers such as Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), Ibn Sina (Avicenna, d. 1037), Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 1198), al-Farabi and al-Ghazali translated the works of earlier Greek philosophers and added their own significant contributions. It was essentially through such works, intellectually faithful to the originals, that Western civilization was able to benefit from these earlier legacies. In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas, the founder of Catholic naturalism, developed his views of Aristotle through the translation of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes). These great philosophers produced a wealth of new ideas that enriched civilization, particularly Western civilization which has depended so much on their works. The influence of Islam ultimately made possible the European Renaissance, which was generated by the ideas of the Greeks filtered through the Muslim philosophers. The same is true of early legal writings of Muslim scholars such as al-Shaybani, who in the seventh century started the case method of teaching Islamic international law that was subsequently put into writing in the twelfth century by a disciple in India. It was the basis for the writings of the legal canonists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries on certain aspects of international law, in particular the laws of war and peace.

The study of history held a particular fascination for Arab Muslims imbued with a sense of mission. Indeed, because Islam is a religion for all peoples and all times, and because the Qur'an states that God created the universe and caused it to be inhabited by men and women and peoples and tribes so that they may know each other, there was a quest for discovery and knowledge. As a result Muslims recorded their own history and that of others. But they added insight to facts and gave to events, people, and places a philosophical dimension expressed in the universal history written by al-Tabari of Baghdad (838-923). In the introduction to his multi-volume work he devoted an entire volume to the science of history and its implications. Al-Tabari also wrote an authoritative text on the history of prophets and kings which continues to be a most comprehensive record of the period from Abraham to the tenth century.

The West's fascination with Arabo-Islamic (culture can be seen in many ways. "The Thousand and One Nights" captured Western Europe's cultural and popular fancy in the 1700's (first translated into French by Galland in 1704, then into English). Dante's "Divine Comedy" contains reference to the Prophet's ascension to Heaven. Shakespeare in "Othello" and the "Merchant of Venice" describes Moorish subjects. Victor Hugo writes of Persians as do Boccaccio and (Chaucer. Even "Robinson Crusoe" and "Gulliver's Tales" are adaptations of "The Thousand and One Nights." Arabo-Islamic culture, knowledge, scholarship, and science fed the Western world's development for five hundred years between the tenth and fifteenth centuries.

The Sciences

From the second half of the eighth century to the end of the eleventh century, Islamic scientific developments were the basis of knowledge in the world. At a period of history when the scientific and philosophical heritage of the ancient world was about to be lost, Islamic scholars stepped in to preserve that heritage from destruction. Indeed, without the cultivation of science in these early centuries by Islamic scholars, it is probable that texts which later exercised a formative influence over Western culture would never have survived intact. It is certain, moreover, that the modern world would look much different than it does today. For the culture and civilization that were founded on Islam not only preserved the heritage of the ancient world but codified, systematized, explained, criticized, modified, and, finally, built on past contributions in the process of making distinctive contributions of their own.

The Wonders and Curiosities of Creation Iran or Iraq 14th c. (Aramco World Magazine, November-December 1995; photo courtesy of ARCH). The story of Islam's role in the preservation and transmission of ancient science, to say nothing of its own lasting contributions, is truly fascinating—and a bit of a puzzle. Why is it that so many ancient Greek texts survive only in Arabic translations? How did the Arabs, who had no direct contact with the science and learning of the Greeks, come to be the inheritors of the classical tradition?

The answers to these questions are to be found in a unique conjunction of historical forces. From the first, it appears, the Umayyad dynasty located in Damascus evinced an interest in things Greek, for they employed educated Greek-speaking civil servants extensively. Early friezes on mosques from the period show a familiarity with the astrological lore of late antiquity.

The theory of numbers, developed and expanded from the original Indian contribution, resulted in the "Arabic numbers" 1 through 9. Islamic scholars also used the concept of zero, which was a Hindu concept. Without the zero, neither mathematics, algebra, nor cybernetics would have developed. Algebra was essentially developed by the Arab Muslims; the very word derives from the Arabic al-jabr. Among the most prominent scholars is the Basra born Ibn al-Haytham (965-1030), who developed the "Alhazen problem," one of the basic algebraic problems, and who made great contributions to optics and physics. He had advanced long before Newton the thesis that extraterrestrial scientific phenomena governed the motion of the earth and stars. He also developed experiments on light which were nothing short of extraordinary at that time. He demonstrated the theory of parallels, based on the finding that light travels in straight lines, and the passing of light through glass. Astronomy, developed by the Babylonians, continued to flourish under Islam. It soon expanded beyond the science of observation into the design of measuring instruments. In addition, it gave rise to the development of planetary theory.

The Arabic alphabet developed from the ancient script used for Nabataean, a dialect of Aramaic, in a region now part of Jordan. The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters. However, additional letters have been added to serve the need of other languages using the Arabic script; such as Farsi, Dari, and Urdu, and Turkish until the early part of the 20th century. The Qur'an was revealed in Arabic.

Traditionally the Semites and the Greeks assigned numerical values to their letters and used them as numerals. But the Arabs developed the numbers now used in languages. The invention of the "zero" is credited to the Arabs though it has its origins in Hindu scholarship. The Arab scholars recognized the need for a sign representing "nothing," because the place of a sign gave as much information as its unitary value did. The Arabic zero proved indispensable as a basis for all modern science.

The medical sciences were largely developed throughout the works of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al-Razzi, and Husayn bin Ishak al-Ibadi, who translated Hippocrates and other Greeks. Razi (860-940) is reported to have written 200 books on medicine, one of them on medical ethics, and the Hawi, a 25 volume practical encyclopedia. Ibn Sina (980-1037) became a famed physician at 18 who wrote 16 books and the Canoun, an encyclopedia on all known diseases in the world. It was translated into many languages. But medical science soon led into zoology, veterinary medicine, pharmacy, pharmacology and chemistry. Indeed the word "chemistry" derives from the Arabic word al-kemia or alchemy as it was later known. The most important medical school was that of Judishapur, Iran, which after 738 became part of the Muslim world. It was managed by Syrian Christians and became the center for most Muslim practical learning and the model for the hospitals built under the Abbasids (between 749-1258).

The Arabs clearly followed the Hadith of the Prophet urging them to pursue knowledge from birth to death, even if that search was to be in China (deemed the most remote place on the earth.)

The Abbasids, who displaced the Umayyads and moved the seat of government from Damascus to Baghdad, made the first serious effort to accommodate Greek science and philosophy to Islam. The Abbasid rulers, unlike the Umayyads who remained Arab in their tastes and customs, conceived an Islamic polity based on religious affiliation rather than nationality or race. This made it easier for people of differing cultural, racial, and intellectual heritages to mingle and exchange ideas as equals. Persian astronomers from Gandeshapur could work side by side with mathematicians from Alexandria in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Baghdad.

Then, too, the success of the Islamic conquest had erased existing national boundaries which had worked to keep peoples linguistically, politically, and intellectually apart. For the first time since Alexander the Great former rivals could meet and exchange ideas under the protection of a single state. The rise of Arabic as the international language of science and government administration helped matters along. As the cultivation of the sciences intensified and the high civilization of the Abbasids blossomed, the expressive resources of Arabic blossomed as well, soon making Arabic the language of choice for international commerce and scholarship as well as divine revelation.

Most important of all, however, it was the attitude that developed within the Islamic state toward the suspect writings of the Greeks. Unlike the Christian communities of late antiquity, whose attitudes toward the pagan philosophers were shaped by the experience of Roman persecution, Muslims did not suffer—or at least to the same degree—the conflict between faith and reason. On the contrary, the Qur'an enjoined Muslims to seek knowledge all their lives, no matter what the source or where it might lead. As a result, Muslims of the Abbasid period quickly set about recovering the scientific and philosophical works of the classical past—lying neglected in the libraries of Byzantium—and translating them into Arabic.

The task was herculean and complicated by the fact that texts of the classical period could not be translated directly from Greek into Arabic. Rather, they had first to be rendered in Syriac, the language with which Christian translators were most familiar, and then translated into Arabic by native speakers. This circuitous route was made necessary by the fact that Christian communities, whose language was Syriac, tended to know Greek, whereas Muslims generally found it easier to learn Syriac, which is closer to Arabic.

A doctor and patient discuss vitrified lead poisoning on this page from the Materia Medica of Dioscorides. The Greek work, from the first century BC, was translated into Arabic in the ninth century; this is a 13th-century copy made in Iraq. (Aramco World Magazine, January-February 1989; photo Jeffrey Crespi). The translation effort began in earnest under the reign of the second Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur (754-75). He sent emissaries to the Byzantine emperor requesting mathematical texts and received in response a copy of Euclid's Elements. This single gift, more than any other perhaps, ignited a passion for learning that was to last throughout the golden age of Islam and beyond. The effort was subsequently systematized under al-Ma'mun, who founded an institution expressly for the purpose, called the Bait al-Hikmah or House of Wisdom, which was staffed with salaried Muslim and Christian scholars. The output of the House of Wisdom over the centuries was prodigious, encompassing as it did nearly the entire corpus of the Greek scientific and philosophical thought. Not only Euclid but Aristotle, Galen and Hippocrates, and Archimedes were among the authors to receive early treatment.

It would be wrong to suggest that the scholars of the House of Wisdom were occupied with task of translation only. Muslim scholars generally were concerned to understand, codify, correct, and, most importantly, assimilate the learning of the ancients to the conceptual framework of Islam. The greatest of these scholars were original and systematic thinkers of the first order, like the great Arab philosopher al-Farabi who died in 950. His Catalog of Sciences had a tremendous effect on the curricula of medieval universities.

Perhaps the most distinctive and noteworthy contributions occurred in the field of mathematics, where scholars from the House of Wisdom played a critical role in fusing the Indian and classical traditions, thus inaugurating the great age of Islamic mathematical speculation. The first great advance consisted in the introduction of Arabic numerals—which, as far as can be determined, were Indian in origin. They embody the "place-value" theory, which permits numbers to be expressed by nine figures plus zero. This development not only simplified calculation but paved the way for the development of an entirely new branch of mathematics, algebra.

The study of geometry was sustained by a remarkable series of scholars, the Banu Musa or "Sons of Musa," who were all, quite literally, sons of the al-Ma'mun's court astronomer, Musa ibn Shakir. Their activities were all the more noteworthy because they carried on their research and writing as private citizens, devoting their lives and expending their fortunes in the pursuit of knowledge. Not only did they sponsor the translation of numerous Greek works but contributed substantial works of their own. Al-Hasan, one of the sons, was perhaps the foremost geometrician of his time, translating six books of the Elements and working out the remainder of the proofs on his own.

Arabic Words That Entered the Western Vocabulary AL-JABR = ALGEBRA AL-KEMIA = CHEMISTRY AL-KUHL = ALCOHOL AL-MIRAL = ADMIRAL AL'UD = LUTE 'ANBAR = AMBER BAWRAQ = BORAX GHARBALA = GARBLE GHOL = GHOUL LAYMUN = LEMON MAKHZAN = MAGASIN (French) NARANJ = ORANGE QAHWAH = COFFEE, CAFE QANAH = CANE QITAR = GUITAR SAFARA = SAFARI SUKKAR = SUGAR = ASUKAR (Spanish) TAFRIK = TRAFFIC TA'RIF = TARIFF TUNBAR = TAMBOURINE (French) ZIRAFAH = GIRAFFE The enormous intellectual energy unleashed by the Abbasid dynasty left no field of knowledge and speculation untouched. In addition to mathematics and geometry, Abbasid scholars in the House of Wisdom made important and lasting contributions in astronomy, ethics, mechanics, music, medicine, physics, and philosophy to name a few. In the process men of enormous intellect and productivity rose to prominence. One of these was Thabit ibn Qurra. Recruited from the provinces—where he had worked in obscurity as a money changer—he came to the Bait al-Hikmah to work as a translator. There his exemplary grasp of Syriac, Creek, and Arabic made him invaluable. In addition to his translations of key works, such as Archimedes' Measurement of the Circle (later translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the 12th century), he also wrote over 70 original works on a wide range of subjects. His sons, too, were to found a dynasty of scholars that lasted until the 10th century.

But it wasn't only the pure or abstract sciences that received emphasis in these early years. The practical and technical arts made advances as well, medicine the first among them. Here several great scholars deserve mention. Hunain ibn lshaq not only translated the entire canon of Greek medical works into Arabic—including the Hippocratic oath, obligatory for doctors then as now—but wrote 29 works by his own pen, the most important a collection of ten essays on ophthalmology. The greatest of the 9th century physician-philosophers was perhaps Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi, known to the west as Rhazes. He wrote over 184 books and was an early advocate of experiment and observation in science.

Simultaneously, in far off Spain (al-Andalus), the social and natural sciences were being advanced by men such as Ibn Khaldun, the first historian to explicate the laws governing the rise and fall of civilizations. The brilliant flowering of Islamic science in Andalusia was directly stimulated by the renaissance in Baghdad. Scholars regularly traveled the length of the known world to sit and learn at the feet of a renowned teacher.

With the death of the philosopher al-Farabi in 950 the first and most brilliant period of Islamic scientific thought drew to a close. As the political empire fragmented over the next 300 years, leadership would pass to the provinces, principally Khorasan and Andalusia. Indeed, Spain was to serve as a conduit through which the learning of the ancient world, augmented and transformed by the Islamic experience, was to pass to medieval Europe and the modern world. At the very time that Baghdad fell to the Mongols in 1258, and the Abbasid caliphate came to an end, scribes in Europe were preserving the Muslim scientific tradition. This is why, just as many Greek texts now survive only in Arabic dress, many Arabic scientific works only survive in Latin.

The death of al-Farabi is perhaps a fitting event to mark the end of the golden age of Muslim science. His masterwork, The Perfect City, exemplifies the extent to which Greek culture and science had been successfully and productively assimilated and then impressed with the indelible stamp of Islam. The perfect city, in al-Farabi's view, is founded on moral and ethical principles; from these flow its perfect shape and physical infrastructure. Undoubtedly he had in mind the round city of Baghdad, The City of Peace.

Trade and Commerce as a Cultural Vehicle

Because Arabs historically had a tradition of trade and commerce, the Muslims continued that tradition. It was due to their superiority in navigation, shipbuilding, astronomy, and scientific measuring devices that Arab and Muslim commerce and trade developed and reached so many peoples throughout the world. The Arabs were at the crossroads of the ancient trade routes from the Mediterranean, the Gulf, East Africa, and the Indian subcontinent, all the way to China.

One of the interesting results of these trading relations occurred during the caliphate of Harun al-Rashid (786-809) when he exchanged envoys and gifts with Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor. As a result, Harun al-Rashid established the Christian Pilgrims' Inn in Jerusalem, fulfilling Umar's pledge to Bishop Sophronious, when he first entered Jerusalem, to allow freedom of religion and access to Jerusalem to Christian religious pilgrims.

A number of Arabic words relating to the trade and commerce have found their way into modern Western languages. (See list of words.) Muslin cotton developed in Mosul (Iraq) became a favorite commodity and a new word in the Western vocabulary, as did damask fabric (from Damascus), fustain cloth (from Fustat, Egypt).

The most interesting accounts of other cultures encountered by Arab Muslims are contained in a book on the travels of Ibn Battutah of Tangier (1304-1377), who over a period of 25 years traveled to Asia Minor, Mongolia, Russia, China, the Maldives, Southeast Asia and Africa and recounted his travels and the influence of early Muslim traders in those regions. He was the precursor of Marco Polo, whose accounts contained detailed descriptions of various cultures with which Arab and Muslims traders had long been in contact. Islamic craftsmanship in bookmaking and bookbinding were items of trade which carried the message of Islamic civilization far and wide.

Architecture and music

The word "Arabesque" entered into the Western lexicon as a description of the intricate design that characterized Arab Muslim art. But the great mosques that were first built throughout the Islamic world were not only places of worship but places of learning which remained as great examples of architecture and design. Through them civilization was transmitted in an artistic environment that was at once intellectually inspiring and emotionally uplifting. The Haram Mosque of Mecca, the Mosque of Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, the numerous mosques in Cairo—Al-Azhar, Amr, Sultan Hassan, Baybars—the Great Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, the Quairawan in Tunisia, the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, the Cordoba Mosque in Spain and the Kutubiyah in Marakesh are among the most noteworthy. In addition to distinctive architectural characteristics, such as magnificent geometric designs, many of these contain mosaics of rare beauty, frequently painted in the blue and green of the sea, sky, and vegetation. The wood carving (masharabiyah) in most mosques are equally distinctive and characteristic of Islamic art.

At times of prayer, individuals and congregations—indeed the entire Muslim world—face Mecca. The mosque is usually a domed structure with one or more minarets from which the muadhin gives the call to prayer five times a day. The direction of Mecca is clearly indicated by the mihrab, a decorated niche in the wall. The larger mosques have a minbar or pulpit. Since the worshipers should be in a pure state of mind and body before they begin to pray, a fountain is placed in the courtyard for ritual ablutions. Shoes are removed on entering the prayer hall, which is usually carpeted.

For Muslims the mosque is a place for worship and education, a refuge from the cares of the world. Its function is best described in the Prophet's own words, namely that the mosque should be a garden of paradise. Islam's greatest architect was Sinan, a 16th century Ottoman builder who was responsible for the Sulaimaniye mosque in Istanbul. His mosques visibly display the discipline, might, and splendor of Islam.

The most notable examples of masharabiyah are in the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo, the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, and the Mosque of Isfahan. After the Ka'ba in Mecca, the "Dome of the Rock" or Mosque of Umar in Jerusalem built in 685 is the oldest example of Muslim architectural genius. The technique of dome construction was perfected and passed on to the West. The technique of dome structural support was used in the Capella Palatine in Palermo (1132), while the campaniles or steeples of the Palazza Vecchio of Florence and of San Marco in Venice are inspired by the minaret which was first built in Qairawan, Tunisia (670). Similarly, the horseshoe arch, which was so prevalent in Islamic form and particularly well realized in the Great Mosque of Damascus (707), has since been copied all over the world. Probably the best known example of Islamic architecture is the Alhambra (meaning al-Harnra or the red one) palace built in 1230 in Granada, Spain.

But artistic contributions were not limited to architecture, construction, decoration, painting, mosaic, calligraphy, design, metalcraft and wood carving. They extended to music through the development of new instruments and new techniques of sound and rhythm. The Arab Muslims (al-Farabi in particular) were the first to develop a technique of musical harmony paralleling mathematical science. Arabic-Islamic music was characterized by the harmony of sound and evocative emotional expression. Musiqa is the Arabic word for music.

Islamic Fundamentalism

Many non-Muslims perceive Islamic Fundamentalism as a form of revolutionary ideology and associate it with groups and movements which engage in violent acts or advocate violence. This must be distinguished from Islamic revival which is a peaceful movement calling for the return to basic traditional values and practices. Adherents to and followers of such a movement believe that the best way to achieve the "true path of Islam" is to develop an integrated social and political system based on Islamic ideals and the teachings of the Qur'an and the Sunna. To that extent they are fundamentalists.

Reform ideas which derive from revival movements are not new to the history of Islam, nor do they advocate resorting to violence in order to achieve such a goal except where rebellion against unjust rule is legally justified. Examples of peaceful reform ideas are found in the learned teachings of the 13th century philosopher-scholar Ibn Taymiyya in Syria. In the 18th century the Wahabi reform movement developed in Saudi Arabia and its orthodox teachings continue to the present. Also in the 19th century the ideal of the "true path to justice" or al-salaf al-salih was eloquently propounded by Sheik Muhammad Abduh in Egypt, and his views continue to be studied by religious and secular scholars all over the world. These and other reform ideas have in common the search for Islamic truth and justice and their applicability to the solutions to Muslim societies' problems.

Because Islam is a holistic religion integrating all aspects of life, it follows that a reform movement predicated on religion necessarily confronts the social, economic, and political realities of the society in which it develops. Muslim societies, however, have emerged from colonialism and neo-colonialism and are seeking to develop free from certain western influences which may corrupt or subvert basic Islamic values. Furthermore in Islam there is no division or distinction between what in the West is called "Church and State". In fact westerners refer to the Islamic form of government as a theocracy. Thus contemporary political-religious groups focus on social, political, and economic aspects of Muslim societies. They oppose the secular state and instead call for the establishment of a "Muslim State".

A distinction must be made between Islamic reform and Islamic political activism conducted under the banner of Islam. The latter is sometimes characterized by extremism, fanaticism, and violence, which are contrary to Islamic precepts. But these manifestations of a socio-political nature must not be confused with the ideals and values of Islam.

Enlightened reform ideas continue to develop in the Muslim world. Institutions like Al-Azhar University in Cairo, which is the oldest university in the world, the Muslim World League in Mecca, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference headquartered in Jeddah are the examples of the contemporary, intellectual, educational, and diplomatic forces in the resurgence of Islam. The contributions they make toward a better understanding of Islam, as well as its peaceful propagation, are free from extremism and violence.

The resurgence of Islam is flourishing in every part of the world and dedicated Muslims are trying hard to meet the challenges of modern times while remaining faithful to the values of their past. This is enlightened Islamic Fundamentalism. Its continuation and growth are ongoing. But since all mass movements carry the risk of excess, extremism by some is likely to occur at times. However, one should not judge the higher values shared by the many on the basis of the extreme deeds committed by the few.

Muslims, irrespective of whether they come from the Arab world, Africa, Asia Minor, Central Asia, China, the Soviet Union or Western societies, still feel strongly united in their shared beliefs and values. Muslims believe that they have a contribution to make in this world, either as individuals or as a community, and that their behavior and demeanor can set an example to others. In Muslim countries the problems, dilemmas, and frustrations are numerous. With the gradual disintegration of the Muslim state, beginning in the twelfth century, many of the countries fell under foreign rule for extensive periods of time, Ottoman Turkish domination for some at first, and then European colonialism. They have had to make up for many years during which their economic, social, and cultural development was blunted by both external and internal causes. To do so they have to struggle not only against problems of underdevelopment but also forces of rapid change.

The search for an Islamic way is ongoing throughout the Muslim world. It is an uneasy search seeking to link the fundamentals of a glorious past with a future that offers only hopeful promises dimmed by present difficulties. Most Muslims as individuals are undaunted, for every Muslim believes that he has to act during his lifetime as if he will live forever. He has a sense of permanence and continuity, knowing that the work begun by one person will be carried on by another. There is a constant hope for a better tomorrow; but then, what counts is the hereafter. Ours is not to insure a result but to try our best to achieve it in the right way. However, the end does not justify the means. The moral-ethical dimension of conduct and method must always predominate.

Second-grader Samiya Rahman and her classmates in Morton Grove, Illinois can choose from more study and reading resources on Islamic subjects than American-born, English-speaking Muslim children could do just a few years ago. (Aramco World Magazine, January-February 1998; photo Kathleen Burke). The challenge of Islam is a challenge to all Muslim societies: to create the types of economic, social, and political institutions that will preserve the basic ethical and moral values of Islam together with the individual freedom of every Muslim. This involves achieving a delicate balance between the needs of the community and the right of the individual to the full attainment of freedom, equality, justice and what under the U.S. Constitution is called "the pursuit of happiness." This also is a legitimate goal in Islam, as set forth by the tenth century Muslim philosopher—the mathematician al-Farabi. A significant part of his major text on truth is devoted to the attainment of happiness.

"Everyone of you is a shepherd, and everyone of you will be questioned about those under his rule: The Amir is a shepherd and he will be questioned about his subjects, the man is a ruler in his family and he will be questioned about those under his care; and the woman is a ruler in the house of her husband and she will be questioned about those under her care." The Prophet's Hadith

O my son! Observe your prayers, order (enjoin or command) with what is just (right and fair) and admonish (forbid) what is wrong; and bear with patience on what befalls upon you; for this is determination of purpose. Qur'an 31:17

Professor of Law, DePaul University, since 1964; 1970 Fulbright-Hays Professor of International Criminal Law, The University of Freiburg, Germany; 1971 Visiting Professor of Law, N.Y.U.; 1972 Guest Scholar Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. He is non-resident Dean of The International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences (Siracusa, Italy) since 1976.

He studied law in the three major legal systems of the world: civil law, common law, and Islamic Sharia, at Dijon University, France, The University of Geneva Switzerland, and the University of Cairo, Egypt. His degrees are: J.D., Indiana University; LL.M., John Marshall Law School; S.J.D., George Washington University. In 1981 he was awarded the degree: Doctor of Law Honoris causa (Dottore in Giurisprudenza) from the University of Torino, Italy, and in 1988, the degree: Doctor of Law Honoris causa (Docteur d'Etat en Droit) conferred at The University of Pau, France.

He is the author of twenty-two books on U.S. Criminal Law and International and comparative Criminal Law and over 100 law review articles.

Active in several scholarly and professional organizations, he has served as the Secretary-General of the International Association of Penal Law since 1974; chairman of the International Law Section of the Illinois State Bar Association for several years, and chairman of several committees of the Chicago Bar and American Bar Associations.

A frequent lecturer at distinguished universities in the U.S. and abroad, he has also been a frequent U.N. consultant : Fifth U.N. Congress on Crime Prevention (1975) where he was elected Honorary Vice-President of the Congress; Sixth U.N. Congress (1980) where he presented a Draft International Criminal Code; U.N. Division of Human Rights in 1980-1981 for which he prepared a Draft Statute for the Creation of an International Criminal Court; Seventh U.N. Congress, for which he chaired two preparatory meetings of committees of experts in 1983-1984. He also served in 1978 as co-chairman of the committee of experts which prepared the U.N. Draft Convention of the Prevention and Suppression of Torture, and chairman of the committee of experts which prepared the U.N. Draft Convention on the Prevention of Unlawful Human Experimentation.

He was also a consultant to the Departments of State and Justice on projects relating to international traffic in drugs (1973) and control of terrorism (1975 and 1978) and the defense of the U.S. hostages in Iran (1979).

Among the distinctions and awards he received are: 1956, Order of Merit, Egypt; 1977, Order of Merit, Italy (Rank of Commendatore); 1978, Order of Merit, Italy, (Rank of Grand' Ufficiale); 1984, Order of Sciences, Egypt), (Rank of First Class). Also among others: 1967, Outstanding Citizen of the Year of Metropolitan Chicago; 1970, Outstanding Educator of America; 1973, Gold Medal of the Italian Press (Rome, Italy).

He has been admitted to practice in Illinois and Washington, D.C. and before the United States Supreme Court, the Second, Fifth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, the United States Court of Military Appeals, and the United States Court of International Trade.

Since 1973 he has served as member of the Board and President of the MidAmerica Arab Chamber of Commerce.

The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the MidAmerica Arab Chamber of Commerce in connection with the cost of preparing the manuscript for publication, which was approved by its Board of Directors, and expresses his deep appreciation to Rand McNally Corporation of Chicago for publishing this book as a sign of their interest in the world of Islam.

Most of the illustrations contained in this book have been graciously provided by Aramco World Magazine and Rand McNally whose assistance in this respect was most useful.

In the selection of illustrations, their integration in the text and other ministerial functions, I was assisted by Olfat El-Mallakh of the MidAmerica Arab Chamber of Commerce to whom I express my appreciation as well as to Tom Malueg who edited an earlier version of the text, and appreciation to Alfred Polus for proofreading the final text. The design and layout of the book was done by John Wetzel whom I wish to thank, especially for his patience in redoing the layout repeatedly to produce this excellent result. My appreciation is also extended to Walid M. Shaar who did the calligraphy on the cover and the Qur'anic verse at the conclusion of the book, and to Dr. Shafiq Ismail who prepared the current map of the "Muslim world" (based on a map from the Chicago Tribune) and the "Distribution of the Shia" map. Specific acknowledgments for maps and illustrations appear in the text.

Finally, my appreciation to the American Arab Affairs Council (Washington, D.C.) for having published in 1985 an abbreviated text with the same title, which subsequently and with significant changes became this book.

The Middle East Institute (MEI) is an independent, non-partisan, non-for-profit, educational organization. It does not engage in advocacy and its scholars’ opinions are their own. MEI welcomes financial donations, but retains sole editorial control over its work and its publications reflect only the authors’ views. For a listing of MEI donors, please click here .

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Islam: A Comprehensive Way of Life for Peace and Purpose

Islam is a faith and comprehensive way of life that literally means ‘peace through submission to God.’ It provides a clear understanding of a person’s relationship with God, purpose in life, and ultimate destiny. A Muslim is someone who adopts the Islamic way of life by believing in the Oneness of God and the prophethood of Muhammad (peace be upon him). Today, Islam is one of the fastest growing religions and is practiced by more than 1.2 billion Muslims across the world.

Islam: Monotheistic Belief in God

The most essential principle in Islam is the purely monotheistic belief in one God. God is the Creator of everything in the universe and is unique from His creation. Muslims are encouraged to develop a direct and personal relationship with God without any intermediaries. Muslims often refer to God as Allah , which simply means “God” in the Arabic language. Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians also refer to God as Allah . (Read more: Who is Allah? )

God describes Himself in the holy book of Muslims, the Quran (also spelled ‘Koran’), by stating: “Say, ‘He is God the One, God the eternal. He begot no one nor was He begotten. No one is comparable to Him.’” (112:1-4).

A Universal Faith

Islam is the culmination of the universal message of God taught by all of His prophets. Muslims believe that a prophet was chosen for every nation at some point in their history, enjoining them to worship God alone and delivering guidance on how to live peacefully with others. Some of the prophets of God include Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, peace be upon them all. The prophets all conveyed the consistent divine message of worshiping one God, along with specific societal laws for each nation’s circumstances.

Islam: The Final Prophet Restored the Original Message of God

However, after the prophets delivered the divine guidance to their people, their message was lost, abandoned, or changed over time, with only parts of the original message intact. God then sent another prophet to rectify their beliefs.

In order to restore the original call of all prophets, God sent Muhammad (peace be upon him) as the final prophet to all of humanity in the 7 th century C.E.

In 610 C.E., Angel Gabriel visited Muhammad (peace be upon him) with the first divine message. For the next 23 years, he continued to receive revelations until the message was completed. Muhammad (peace be upon him) called people towards the belief in one God and encouraged them to be just and merciful to one another. He was a living example of God’s guidance for the benefit of the entire humankind. (Learn more about Muhammad (peace be upon him) .)

“Then We revealed to you [Muhammad], ‘Follow the creed of Abraham, a man of pure faith who was not an idolater.’” (Quran, 16:123)

The Quran: A Message of Peace and Guidance from God

Muslims also believe that God sent revealed books as guidance to humanity through His prophets. These include the Torah given to Moses, the Gospel conferred upon Jesus, and the Quran received by Muhammad (peace be upon him). The Quran is the last revelation from God, consisting of God’s literal speech. It confirms truths from the previous scriptures and maintains the same core message of worshiping God and living righteously. God has ensured that the Quran is protected from corruption, safeguarding it for all of humanity to benefit from until the end of time. It is the only holy book that has been meticulously preserved in its original text. (Click here to find out more about the Quran .)

Purpose of Life

Islam clearly addresses one of the most central and challenging questions in human history: “What is the purpose of life?” God declares in the Quran, “And I did not create … mankind except to worship Me.” (51:56) For Muslims, the purpose of life is to worship God, the Creator of all things. Worship in Islam is a comprehensive concept that urges people to be conscious of God throughout their daily lives and provides a framework to help people live a balanced and virtuous life.

Islam: A Way of Life That Promotes Strong Moral Character and Just Societies

This way of life promotes strong moral character, good relations with people, and just and harmonious societies. Devoting one’s self to a life of submission to God is the key to attaining a true sense of peace because it produces a balance of spiritual needs with worldly affairs. It also lends special meaning to the concept of living one’s life responsibly, aware of the accountability to come in the hereafter.

Belief in the Day of Judgment is extremely important in Islam. This event will signal the transition between the temporary life of this world to the eternal life in the hereafter. On that day, people will be resurrected and held accountable for their deeds in life, which will determine their eternal destination in Heaven or Hell. Many verses in the Quran describe the events on the Day of Judgment in great detail and give a description of Heaven and Hell.

Worship in Islam

Worship in Islam is woven into the daily life of a Muslim and is not confined to a holy place. The fundamental aspects of worship in Islam are encompassed within five pillars, which enable Muslims to cultivate their relationship with God.

1. Testimony of Faith ( Shahadah ) : The first of the five basic foundations is knowingly and voluntarily asserting that, “There is nothing worthy of worship except God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” This statement is the basis of faith in Islam, affirming that no partners can be associated with God and Muhammad is His final prophet. As a result of this belief, Muslims seek guidance in life through God’s revelation (the Quran) and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

2. Prayer   ( Salah ) : Muslims are required to pray five times a day to maintain a spiritual connection with God and remind themselves of their ultimate purpose in life. Through sincerity, repentance, and direct prayer to God, Muslims strive to establish a personal spiritual relationship with their Creator all throughout the day. This prayer includes physical motions of bowing and prostrating, which were also performed by Jesus, Moses, and the prophets before them.

3. Charity ( Zakah ) : This  is an annual charity given to the poor. Muslims must give 2.5% of their yearly savings to help the poor, the needy, and the oppressed. Charity is one of the vital sources of social welfare in Islam, encouraging a just society where everyone’s basic needs are provided for.

4. Fasting ( Sawm ) :  Muslims fast during the month of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Muslim lunar calendar, by refraining from eating, drinking, and sexual interaction from dawn to sunset. It is an act of self-restraint and spiritual cleansing that increases one’s empathy for the less fortunate and enables one to consciously control bad habits such as foul language, idle talk, and anger. Fasting also helps people develop strong willpower as they overcome the essential desires of their body and the damaging acts of their tongue.

5. Pilgrimage ( Hajj ) :  The pilgrimage (journey) to Mecca is an act that every Muslim must perform once in their life if they are physically and financially able. It symbolizes the unity of humankind as Muslims from every race and nationality assemble together in equality to worship God, following the traditions of Prophet Abraham.

(To learn more, read Worship in Islam .)

A Holistic Approach

These primary acts of worship urge individuals to fulfill their purpose in life by becoming more conscious of God and serving the practical needs of society. However, worship is not limited to simply completing these acts.

Islam promotes a holistic approach to worship that encompasses spreading justice and compassion in the world through one’s daily interactions with people. Smiling at someone, visiting the sick, and defending an innocent person who is being oppressed are all considered acts of worship as well. These forms of worship exemplify the importance of good manners in Islam. Muhammad (peace be upon him) once said, “The best among you are those who have the best character.”

Islam: A Modest and Humble Way of Life

Islam has a practical approach to living that positively transforms people’s individual connection to God and fellow humans. Islam offers guidance on all matters of life, including one’s diet, manners, and social relationships. God tells Muslims to eat everything “good and pure” while adhering to simple dietary restrictions such as avoidance of pork, alcohol and anything slaughtered in the name of other than God.

When it comes to dressing and behavior, modesty and humility are ordained for both men and women. Muhammad (peace be upon him) has stated, “Every religion has an essential character and the essential character of Islam is modesty.”

Islam: A Way of Life That Promotes Spirituality and Humanity

Parental obedience and dutifulness is integral to Islam. Men and women are to sanctify their relations in a marital contract, taking their spousal roles and family units seriously. Raising children who are morally upright and responsible participants in their communities is also a significant obligation. The preservation of family ties is a fundamental principle of Islam, along with kind treatment of orphans, widows, travelers, and neighbors. Professional and philanthropic contributions to one’s society are encouraged in order to nurture individual and collective success.

God calls on people to remember Him in all of their actions and purify their hearts so that they can live a truly balanced life. Spirituality in Islam is about nurturing tolerance, kindness, control, righteousness, and forgiveness while shunning arrogance, pride, ego, anger and selfishness. This spirituality and God-consciousness should be reflected in a person’s interactions with other people. Therefore, Islam stresses the importance of treating people with respect, mercy, and dignity.

Islam: A Way of Life That Promotes Spirituality, Humanity, and Community

In conclusion, Islam is not a new way of life; rather, it maintains the same message God sent to humanity through all of His messengers. Islam teaches people how to have a meaningful relationship with God, without any intermediaries, and how to reform their souls, beautify their character, and be part of a vibrant, healthy community. Through this message, God encourages individuals to draw closer to Him and fulfill their purpose in life.

“ Is it not time for believers to humble their hearts to the remembrance of God and the Truth that has been revealed? ” (Quran, 57:16)

Note: The “peace be upon him” next to Prophet Muhammad represents the invocation Muslims say with his name as a form of respect.

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• Evidence Islam is Truth
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• How to Convert to Islam
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• The Hereafter
• Stories of New Muslims
• Comparative Religion
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The Prophet Muhammad

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Islam at a Glance

• Intro E-books

A Brief Introduction to Islam (part 1 of 2)

Description: a brief introduction to the meaning of islam, the notion of god in islam, and his basic message to humanity through the prophets..

• By Daniel Masters, AbdurRahman Squires, and I. Kaka
• Published on 21 Apr 2008
• Last modified on 24 Apr 2010
• Printed: 1,990
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Islam and Muslims

The word “Islam” is an Arabic word which means “submission to the will of God”.  This word comes from the same root as the Arabic word “salam”, which means “peace”.  As such, the religion of Islam teaches that in order to achieve true peace of mind and surety of heart, one must submit to God and live according to His Divinely revealed Law.  The most important truth that God revealed to mankind is that there is nothing divine or worthy of being worshipped except for Almighty God, thus all human beings should submit to Him.

The word “Muslim” means one who submits to the will of God, regardless of their race, nationality or ethnic background.  Being a Muslim entails wilful submission and active obedience to God, and living in accordance with His message.  Some people mistakenly believe that Islam is just a religion for Arabs, but nothing could be further from the truth.  Not only are there converts to Islam in every corner of the world, especially in England and America, but by taking a look at the Muslim World from Bosnia to Nigeria, and from Indonesia to Morocco, one can clearly see that Muslims come from many various races, ethnic groups and nationalities.  It is also interesting to note that in actuality, more than 80% of all Muslims are not Arabs - there are more Muslims in Indonesia than in the whole Arab World!  So, though even though it is true that most Arabs are Muslims, the large majority of Muslims are not Arabs.  However, anyone who submits completely to God and worships Him alone is a Muslim.

Continuity of the Message

Islam is not a new religion because “submission to the will of God”, i.e. Islam, has always been the only acceptable religion in the sight of God.  For this reason, Islam is the true “natural religion”, and it is the same eternal message revealed through the ages to all of God’s prophets and messengers.  Muslims believe that all of God’s prophets, which include Abraham, Noah, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, brought the same message of Pure Monotheism.  For this reason, the Prophet Muhammad was not the founder of a new religion, as many people mistakenly think, but he was the final Prophet of Islam.  By revealing His final message to Muhammad, which is an eternal and universal message for all of mankind, God finally fulfilled the covenant that He made with Abraham, who was one of the earliest and greatest prophets.

Sufficient is it to say that the way of Islam is the same as the way of the prophet Abraham, because both the Bible and the Quran portray Abraham as a towering example of someone who submitted himself completely to God and worshipped Him without intermediaries.  Once this is realized, it should be clear that Islam has the most continuous and universal message of any religion, because all prophets and messengers were “Muslims”, i.e.  those who submitted to God’s will, and they preached “Islam”, i.e. submission to the will of Almighty God.

The Oneness of God

The foundation of the Islamic faith is belief in the Oneness of Almighty God - the God of Abraham, Noah, Moses and Jesus.  Islam teaches that a pure belief in One God is intuitive in human beings and thus fulfils the natural inclination of the soul.  As such, Islam’s concept of God is straightforward, unambiguous and easy to understand.  Islam teaches that the hearts, minds and souls of human beings are fitting receptacles for clear divine revelation, and that God’s revelations to man are not clouded by self-contradictory mysteries or irrational ideas.  As such, Islam teaches that even though God cannot be fully comprehended and grasped by our finite human minds, He also does not expect us to accept absurd or demonstrably false beliefs about Him.

According to the teachings of Islam, Almighty God is absolutely One and His Oneness should never be compromised by associating partners with Him - neither in worship nor in belief.  Due to this, Muslims are required to maintain a direct relationship with God, and therefore all intermediaries are absolutely forbidden.  From the Islamic standpoint, believing in the Oneness of God means to realize that all prayer and worship should be exclusively for God, and that He alone deserves such titles as “Lord” and “Saviour”.  Some religions, even though they believe in “One God”, do not make all of their worship and prayers for Him alone.  Also, they also give the title of “Lord” to beings that are not All-Knowing, All-Powerful and Un-Changing - even according to their own scriptures.  Suffice it to say that according to Islam, it is not enough that people believe that “God is One”, but they must actualize this belief by proper conduct.

In short, in the Islamic concept of God, which is completely based on Divine Revelation, there is no ambiguity in divinity - God is God and man is man.  Since God is the only Creator and continual Sustainer of the Universe, He is transcendent above His creation - the Creator and the creature never mix.  Islam teaches that God has a unique nature and that He is free from gender, human weaknesses and beyond anything which human beings can imagine.  The Quran teaches that the signs and proofs of God’s wisdom, power and existence are evident in the world around us.  As such, God calls on man to ponder over the creation in order to build a better understanding of his Creator.  Muslims believe that God is Loving, Compassionate and Merciful, and that He is concerned with the daily affairs of human beings.  In this, Islam strikes a unique balance between false religious and philosophical extremes.  Some religions and philosophies portray God as just an impersonal “Higher Power” who is uninterested, or unaware, of the life of each individual human.  Other religions tend to give God human qualities and teach that He is present in His creation, by being incarnate in someone, something - or even everything.  In Islam, however, Almighty God has clarified the truth by letting mankind know that He is “Compassionate”, “Merciful”, “Loving” and the “Answerer of Prayers”.  But He has also emphasized strongly that “there is nothing like unto Him”, and that He is high above time, space and His creation.  Finally, it should be mentioned that the God that Muslims worship is the same God that Jews and Christians worship - because there is only one God.  It is unfortunate that some people mistakenly believe that Muslims worship a different God than Jews and Christians, and that “Allah” is just the “god of the Arabs”.  This myth, which has been propagated by the enemies of Islam, is completely false since the word “Allah” is simply the Arabic name for Almighty God.  It is the same word for God which is used by Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians.  However, it should be clarified that even though Muslims worship the same God as Jews and Christian, their concept of Him differs somewhat from the beliefs of other religions - mainly because it is based completely on Divine Revelation from God.  For example, Muslims reject the Christian belief that God is a Trinity, not only because the Quran rejects it, but also because if this was God’s true nature, He would have clearly revealed it to Abraham, Noah, Jesus and all of the other prophets.

A Brief Introduction to Islam (part 2 of 2)

Description: the role of the quran and prophet muhammad in delivering the pristine, unmodified message of god to mankind, and a description of how living the islamic way is the path to a better life..

• Published on 28 Apr 2008
• Last modified on 08 May 2014
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The Arabic word “Al-Quran” literally means “the recitation”.  When used in regards to Islam, the word Quran means God’s final message to mankind, which was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.  The Quran, sometimes spelled Koran, is the literal the word of God - as it clearly says time and time again.  Unlike other sacred scriptures, the Quran has been perfectly preserved in both its words and meaning in a living language.  The Quran is a living miracle in the Arabic language; and is know to be inimitable in its style, form and spiritual impact.  God’s final revelation to mankind, the Quran, was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad over a period of 23 years. 

The Quran, in contrast to many other religious books, was always thought to be the Word of God by those who believed in it, i.e. it wasn’t something decreed by a religious council many years after being written.  Also, the Quran was recited publicly in front of both the Muslim and non-Muslim communities during the life of the Prophet Muhammad.  The entire Quran was also completely written down in lifetime of the Prophet, and numerous companions of the Prophet memorized the entire Quran word-for-word as it was revealed.  So, unlike other scriptures, the Quran was always in the hands of the common believers; it was always thought to be God’s word and, due to wide-spread memorization,  it was perfectly preserved.

 In regards to the teachings of the Quran - it is a universal scripture addressed to all of mankind, and not addressed only to a particular tribe or “chosen people”.  The message that it brings is nothing new, but the same message of all of the prophets - submit to Almighty God and worship Him alone.  As such, God’s revelation in the Quran focuses on teaching human beings the importance of believing in the Oneness of God and framing their lives around the guidance which He has sent.  Additionally, the Quran contains the stories of the previous prophets, such as Abraham, Noah, Moses and Jesus; as well as many commands and prohibitions from God.  In modern times where so many people are caught up in doubt, spiritual despair and “political correctness”, the Quranic teachings offer solutions to the emptiness of our lives and the turmoil that is gripping the world today.  In short, the Quran is the book of guidance par excellence.

Unlike the founders of many religious, the final prophet of Islam is a real documented and historical figure.  He lived in the full light of history, and the most minute details of his life are known.  Not only do Muslims have the complete text of God’s words that were revealed to Muhammad, but they have also preserved his sayings and teachings in what is called “hadeeth” literature.  This having been said, it should be understood that Muslims believe that the Prophet Muhammad was only a man chosen by God, and that he is not divine in any way.  In order to avoid the misguided wish to deify him, the Prophet Muhammad taught Muslims to refer to him as “God’s Messenger and His Slave”.  The mission of the last and final prophet of God was to simply teach that “there is nothing divine or worthy of being worshipped except for Almighty God”, as well as being a living example of God’s revelation.  In simple terms, God sent the revelation to Muhammad, who in turn taught it, preached it, lived it and put it into practice. 

In this way, Muhammad was more than just a “prophet” in the sense of many of the Biblical prophets, since he was also a statesman and ruler.  He was a man who lived a humble life in the service of God, and established an all-encompassing religion and way of life by showing what it means to be an ideal friend, husband, teacher, ruler, warrior and judge.  For this reason, Muslims follow him not for his own sake, but in obedience to God, because Muhammad not only showed us how to deal with our fellow human beings, but more importantly, showed us how to relate to and worship God; worship Him in the only way pleasing to Him. 

Like other prophets, Muhammad faced a great deal of opposition and persecution during his mission.  However, he was always patient and just, and he treated his enemies well.  The results of his mission were very successful, and even though his mission started in one of the most backward and remotes places on earth, within a hundred years of the death of Muhammad, Islam had spread from Spain to China.  The Prophet Muhammad was the greatest of all of God’s prophets, not because he had new doctrines or greater miracles, but because it was him who was chosen to bear the last revelation which would come to humanity from God, one suitable for all places, times, and people, everlasting and unchanging until the Last Day.

The Islamic Way of Life

In the Holy Quran, God teaches human beings that they were created in order to worship Him, and that the basis of all true worship is God-consciousness.  Since the teachings of Islam encompass all aspects of life and ethics, God-consciousness is encouraged in all human affairs.  Islam makes it clear that all human acts are acts of worship if they are done for God alone and in accordance to His Divine Law.  As such, worship in Islam is not limited to religious rituals. 

The teachings of Islam act as a mercy and a healing for the human soul, and such qualities as humility, sincerity, patience and charity are strongly encouraged.  Additionally, Islam condemns pride and self-righteousness, since Almighty God is the only judge of human righteousness. 

The Islamic view of the nature of man is also realistic and well-balanced.  Human beings are not believed to be inherently sinful, but are seen as equally capable of both good and evil. 

Islam also teaches that faith and action go hand-in-hand.  God has given people free-will, and the measure of one’s faith is one’s deeds and actions.  However, human beings have also been created weak and regularly fall into sin.  This is the nature of the human being as created by God in His Wisdom, and it is not inherently “corrupt” or in need of repair.  This is why the avenue of repentance is always open to all human beings, and Almighty God loves the repentant sinner more than one who does not sin at all. 

The true balance of an Islamic life is established by having a healthy fear of God as well as a sincere belief in His infinite Mercy.  A life without fear of God leads to sin and disobedience, while believing that we have sinned so much that God will not possibly forgive us only leads to despair.  In light of this, Islam teaches that only the misguided despair of the Mercy of their Lord. 

Additionally, the Holy Quran, which was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, contains a great deal of teachings about the life in the hereafter and the Day of Judgment.  Due to this, Muslims believe that all human beings will ultimately be judged by God for their beliefs and actions in their earthly lives.  In judging human beings, Almighty God will be both Merciful and Just, and people will only be judged for what they were capable of. 

Sufficient is it to say that Islam teaches that life is a test, and that all human beings will be accountable before God.  A sincere belief in the life of the hereafter is the key to leading a well-balanced and moral life.  Otherwise, life is viewed as an end in itself, which causes human beings to become more selfish, materialistic and immoral.

Islam for a Better Life

Islam teaches that true happiness can only be obtained by living a life full of God-consciousness and being satisfied with what God has given us.  Additionally, true “freedom” is freedom from being controlled by our base human desires and being ruled by man-made ideologies.  This stands in stark contrast to the view of many people in the modern world, who consider “freedom” to be the ability to satisfy all of their desires without inhibition.  The clear and comprehensive guidance of Islam gives human-beings a well-defined purpose and direction in life.  In addition to being members of the human-brotherhood of Islam, its well-balanced and practical teachings are a source of spiritual comfort, guidance and morality.  A direct and clear relationship with Almighty God, as well as the sense of purpose and belonging that ones feels as a Muslim, frees a person from the many worries of everyday life. 

In short, the Islamic way of life is pure and wholesome.  It builds self-discipline and self-control through regular prayer and fasting, and frees human-beings from superstition and all sorts of racial, ethnic and national prejudices.  By accepting to live a God-conscious life, and realizing that the only thing that distinguishes people in the sight of God is their consciousness of Him, a person’s true human dignity is realized.

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Mormons and Muslims

Spencer j. palmer , arnold h. green , and daniel c. peterson , editors, understanding islam, daniel c. peterson.

Daniel C. Peterson, “Understanding Islam,” in  Mormons and Muslims: Spiritual Foundations and Modern Manifestations,  ed. Spencer J. Palmer (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University 2002), 11–43.

Daniel C. Peterson was associate executive director for Brigham Young University’s Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts when this was published.

Why should we seek to learn about and to understand Islam? If the attacks of September 11, 2001, and subsequent events haven’t made the answer to this question obvious, nothing else is likely to do so. But there are more fundamental reasons, and these far transcend the terrorist horrors of that morning. A sizable portion of the earth’s population adheres to the religion of Islam, and Islam—a major force in human history for a millennium and a half—is a powerful, living factor in international politics in the Near East, Africa, and Asia.

Moreover, even apart from the palpable shrinking of the globe that has resulted from modern communications, means of transportation, and the interlinking of national economies, Muslims can no longer be simply dismissed as people far away and “over there.” Increasingly, Muslims are our neighbors. By means of immigration, high birth rates, and conversions, Islam is rapidly becoming a mainstream religion throughout the West. There may well be more Muslims praying in the mosques of the United Kingdom on Fridays than there are worshipers in the Church of England on Sundays. A mosque stands prominently on the hills above Guatemala City. A few years ago, I spoke in a mosque in the relatively small city of Hamilton, New Zealand, and I have met with Muslim leaders in most of the major cities of Australia. And, although precise figures are difficult if not impossible to come by, Muslims may soon outnumber Jews in the United States of America.

However, for Latter-day Saints there is an even more fundamental reason for seeking to understand the faith of approximately a billion of God’s children on earth: He has commanded us to do so. The Lord has told us to seek after knowledge of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms—

That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you. (D&C 88:79–80)

In this essay, I will first offer an extremely basic summary of the history and theology of Islam. [1] Then I will offer background for apparent Muslim anger against the West to provide guidance on what lies behind current newspaper headlines. Although current events are ever-changing, the fundamental issues and historical facts will not be altered by breaking news.

A Basic History of Islam

On the eve of the birth of Islam—which is to say, in the late sixth and early seventh centuries after Christ—the Arabian peninsula was a place far removed from the major centers of culture and political power. A vast and desolate area, it was for the most part sparsely populated by Bedouin nomads and punctuated only occasionally by small oasis towns.

The two great powers of the day were the Byzantine empire, the Greek-speaking and Christian continuation of the old Roman empire (which now had its capital in Constantinople), and the Persian empire of the Sassanids. The Persians were followers of the prophet Zoroaster, or Zarathustra. Each empire was militantly dedicated to its own religion and to the destruction of the other. Perso-Roman hostilities were centuries old. However, when the seventh century dawned, the two empires were about to embark on a long war that would eventually leave each of them exhausted and vulnerable to a totally unexpected threat from Arabia.

The Arabians were polytheists but perhaps not very pious ones. [2] Somewhere up above the jinn (the “genies”) and the subordinate godlings to whom they occasionally paid a little attention was the distant and mysterious high god, Allah. His name—or, better his title, which takes its emphasis on the second syllable—is simply the Arabic equivalent of the English word God. Allah is a contraction of the Arabic words al and ilah, which, together, mean “the god.” In other words, it is related to the old Semitic names for the high god, EI and Elohim, the latter of which should be quite familiar to Latter-day Saints. Elohim is formed from the Hebrew word eloh, “god” and the masculine plural suffix -im. It should never be thought that Allah is the name of some strange idol or foreign deity. In fact, Arabic and Turkish Christians use the same word for God as do their Muslim counterparts, and Allah is the word used for God in the Arabic translation of the Book of Mormon and other Latter-day Saint materials.

To most of the pre-Islamic Arabians, though, Allah was too remote to pray to or even to think about. But things were changing. Arabia had long derived much of what wealth it possessed from the trade routes that ran its length, bringing frankincense and myrrh from Yemen, Ethiopia, Somalia, and even India. It was probably along the most important of these trade routes that Lehi had led his caravan six hundred years before Christ. [3] Not far from that same trade route was the ancient oasis of Mecca—hot and dusty, clustered around a brackish well called Zamzam. As our period opens, Mecca was beginning to grow very wealthy. It had managed to gain a major share of the caravan trade, and, with its shrine, called the Ka’ba, it had become a significant center of pilgrimage for the entire Arabian peninsula.

However, wealth brings change, and change brings problems. Class distinctions arose, and every man was after his own self-interest. The old values of family and tribe, which had taken the place of a government in the modern sense, fell victim to a new lust for gain. Widows and orphans, who had been secure and cared-for under the old tribal system, were now left largely on their own. Some men, though, seem to have been sensitive to these problems, and they began to look, or at least to yearn, for something better. They sought higher values than wealth, and a higher religion than the vague and primitive paganism around them.

Little was available. There were Jews in pre-Islamic Arabia, but they weren’t interested in converts. There were Christians, as well—but to align oneself with Christianity was, willingly or not, to make a political statement and to join the pro-Byzantine “party.” On the other hand, if one decided to become a Zoroastrian that could be seen as aligning oneself with the pro-Persian “party.” And such choices had consequences, because both the Byzantines and the Persians, as part of their ongoing rivalry, were becoming interested in the merchant wealth that traversed Arabia and were seeking control of peninsular trade routes.

So these seekers—or, as they are known in Arabic, these hunafa’—seem to have held to a non-aligned and simple monotheism, praying and fasting and hoping, perhaps, for something better.

Muhammad was one of them. [4] His father died before he was born in 570, and his mother died while he was a small boy. As an orphan, he was exposed to many of the rigors of life in Mecca. Even though he triumphed over his disadvantages by virtue of character and ability, and even though he became a caravan merchant himself and married a rich widow, he seems not to have forgotten his childhood. He always remained sensitive to children, to widows and orphans.

In the year 610, Muhammad was in a cave in the hills above Mecca, praying and engaging in religious devotions. According to later Muslim tradition, it was there that the angel Gabriel—he who made the Annunciation to Mary—came to Muhammad with the beginning of the revelation of the Qur’an, the holy book and bedrock of Islamic faith and doctrine.

Muslims today regard the Qur’an (or, as it is sometimes spelled, the Koran) as the literal word of God. That is, it is not about Muhammad (as the four Gospels are about Christ), nor is it by Muhammad. It is a collection of the actual words of God to Muhammad as God spoke them in Arabic. (A translation of the Qur’an, according to the orthodox Muslim view, is therefore not the Qur’an; only the Arabic original can claim to be the veritable words of God.) Muslims also view the Qur’an as the Word of God, a role which in Christianity is taken by Christ Himself, as the logos of John 1:1. The Qur’an is taken from the great, celestial Book, which was with God from all eternity, uncreated, as God’s everlasting and unchanging utterance. (The Torah and the Psalms and the Gospels come likewise from the heavenly tablet but are viewed as corrupted in their present form.) It might be helpful, for Latter-day Saints, to compare the Qur’an to the Doctrine and Covenants. Unlike the Old Testament or Book of Mormon, the Qur’an is not a narrative or history. But like the Doctrine and Covenants, it is a collection of revelations on many different subjects, arranged in a roughly chronological order. [5]

Muhammad’s early days as a prophet were spent in his hometown of Mecca. His revelations during this period were intense, poetic, vivid, apocalyptic, and concise. They proclaimed the reality of physical resurrection and the imminence of the end of the world and of judgment day. They called for social justice; they denounced the practice—widespread in pagan Arabia—of female infanticide. Muhammad preached against shirk (Arabic “association” or, more loosely, “polytheism”), the ultimate sin of worshiping something or someone else beside (or instead of) the one true God. His preaching earned him a small following at first, mostly of the insignificant and the disenfranchised, and a great deal of contempt, ridicule, and actual persecution.

It was perhaps during this period that Muhammad’s famous Night Vision occurred. Unfortunately, accounts of the vision are so garbled and contradictory that it is difficult to ascertain the real facts. In any case, the basic story as given by Islamic tradition is that Muhammad was taken during the night from Central Arabia to the holy city of Jerusalem, where he led several of the ancient prophets in prayer on the temple mount and from which he then ascended through the seven heavens into the presence of God. His ascent is said to have commenced from the very spot where Abraham was sent to sacrifice his son. This is the place now enclosed, on the temple mount, by the famous Dome of the Rock.

Muhammad’s situation in Mecca was not infinitely bearable. As the anger of Mecca’s city fathers against him intensified, they even began to plot against his life. So when a group of men came for the pilgrimage from a village called Yathrib and asked Muhammad to come and act as an arbitrator in the squabbles that were ruining their town, he jumped at the chance. First he sent his followers, and then he himself went to the town which would ever afterwards be known as Madinat al-Nabi, “the city of the Prophet”—or, simply, Medina (pronounced Meh -deen- ah ). This emigration, called in Arabic the hijra, took place in the year 622, and the Muslim calendar is dated from this year.

Muslims were entirely correct in seeing, in the hijra, a fundamental turning point in the life of the prophet and in the nature of Islam. From being a rejected preacher, Muhammad became a statesman, a diplomat, a judge. His revelations became longer, more prosaic, full of detail on inheritance law and the like. (It is something like the difference between Isaiah and Leviticus or even the difference between Doctrine and Covenants section 4 and a Brigham Young sermon on farming, mining, or irrigation canals.)

Muhammad was phenomenally successful. Within a few years, he conquered Mecca. Already, he had made the Ka’ba and its attendant pilgrimage rituals part of Islam. Today, Mecca and the Ka’ba are the geographical center of the universe to approximately a billion Muslims. (Medina is the second holiest city; Jerusalem is the third.) By the end of his career, he essentially ruled the entire Arabian peninsula. But the prophet died in 632. And, since the Qur’an had labeled him “the seal of the prophets,” in the view of the overwhelming majority of Muslims there can be no more.

Still, somebody had to succeed Muhammad as the political head of a now growing and quite powerful Muslim state. His followers divided, on the question of who this successor should be, into two major groups which still exist today. The Sunnis, the majority of Muslims, cared less about the identity of the ruler than about the fact that there must be one, in order to avoid anarchy and civil strife. The Shi’ites, on the other hand, insisted—somewhat as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now known as the Community of Christ) once did—that the leadership of the community legitimately belongs to the family of the prophet. That disagreement persists to the present time.

After Muhammad’s death, the Arabs poured out of their desert home. The ancient and mighty Persian empire, weakened and demoralized by its long war with Constantinople, collapsed before a ragtag army of Bedouin nomads. The Byzantines, too, lost much of their territory—including their breadbasket, the incredibly fertile province of Egypt. Within a hundred years, Arab armies were in India, as well as in what is today known as Spain and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

Islam, however, did not spread by the sword. While the Arabs conquered huge territories, they did not force conversions. In fact, for certain reasons they actually tended to discourage conversion, especially in the early days. Their general practice was to allow freedom of worship to Jews and Christians, merely taxing them at a somewhat higher rate—among other things, to maintain the armies, in which Jews and Christians did not have to serve. Islam was, in fact, uniformly more tolerant of minority religions than was medieval Christianity.

Another fact that it is important to recognize in this context is that the terms Arab and Muslim are not equivalent. While most Arabs are Muslims, not all are. And most Muslims are not Arabs. Indeed, the largest Muslim nation is non-Arab Indonesia. Iran and Afghanistan, too, though overwhelmingly Muslim, are not Arab. And Islam is a powerful and sometimes dominant presence in such varied places as China, Pakistan, India, Nigeria, Kenya, and Bangladesh.

The immense empire that the early Muslims suddenly controlled required laws and techniques of governing that were far different from those of the simple nomads of Arabia. Where was guidance to be found? The Qur’an, of course, was the most prestigious and the most authoritative source of legal and moral guidance. But it was also very limited in terms of the range of issues that it covered. So, for a while, the young Arab empire simply followed the laws and practices of the areas that it conquered and left much of the day-to-day government in the hands of the local population. But this was not a satisfactory solution. Many Muslims began to wonder, “What did Muhammad, our Prophet, do in situations like these? Is there an ideal Islamic way to govern?” And they began to gather information about what, in fact, he had done and said, on almost any question that could be imagined.

Eventually, this information took the form of reports called hadith (pronounced “ha -deeth” ) or, as the word is often (if not very precisely) translated, “traditions.” It is largely on the basis of these hadith that the all-inclusive legal code of Islam was constructed. The code is called the shari’a (roughly pronounced “shar- ee -ah”). Actually, it is somewhat misleading to call it a legal code, since it regulates things that are far removed from anything that would be recognized as “law” in the contemporary secular West. Not only does it deal with crimes, inheritance, marriage, and divorce, but, rather like the Talmudic law of Judaism, it lays down rules on prayer, fasting, etiquette, and virtually every other aspect of human existence.

Out of this mix of Qur’an and hadith, of Sunni and Shi’ite, of Arab and Persian and Turk and Mongol and African and Indian, grew a remarkably rich and complex culture. It drew on Jewish legends and on Greek philosophy, medicine, and science, on Indian mathematics and Persian manners. It produced lawyers and mystics and skeptics and poets. We must be careful, then, when we talk about Islam. Very few generalizations on this subject will be true of, say both a tenth-century surgeon in Baghdad and a twentieth-century Indonesian peasant. Although far fewer “denominations” exist in Islam than in Christianity, there are innumerable points of view, and Islam’s history is every bit as rich and complex as is Christendom’s.

The Five Pillars of Islam

We would be skeptical, wouldn’t we, of anyone who purported to tell us all about Christianity in fifty minutes or in a few pages. Would he or she be able to do justice to the Roman Catholics, the Unitarians, Christian Science, the Latter-day Saints, Eastern Orthodoxy? To Luther, St. Augustine, Jim Jones, Martin Luther King, Billy Graham, St. Francis, and the Apostle Paul? To the Jesuits and the Moonies and the Reformation and the Council of Nicea? To the philosophical theology of St. Thomas Aquinas as well as the beliefs of a television revivalist? And this is just scratching the surface!

With this warning in mind, though, I shall now proceed to explain some basic concepts of Islam. Perhaps the best way of doing it is to discuss, briefly, the basic principles known as the five pillars of Islam.

The first pillar is known as the shahada (pronounced “sheh- had- ah”), the “testimony” or the “profession of faith.” It is fulfilled when someone says, with full sincerity, “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is His Messenger.” The first part of the statement is a declaration of a timeless monotheistic principle, while the second half of the statement identifies the specific historical community of monotheists to which the speaker belongs.

Second is prayer. This may be performed anywhere, and should be done (minimally) five times daily. It involves a prescribed set of physical movements, as well, of course, as turning heart and mind toward God. On Friday’s, it usually is performed at least once in a building called, in English, a mosque (pronounced “mosk”). This word is a garbled version of the Arabic masjid , meaning “a place of bowing” ( sajada). Mosques are simply places of prayer. Islam has no priesthood and no ordinances or sacraments. Most mosques are open to visits by non-Muslims. Typically, each mosque has a highly ornamented niche in one of its walls, called a mihrab (pronounced “ mih -rob” ). This arched, recessed niche is designed merely to indicate the direction of Mecca, toward which all Muslims face during prayer. It is most definitely not, as some have supposed, some kind of idol or the actual object of prayer. Many mosques also feature a platform, called a minbar, that often resembles a flight of stairs. It is from this platform that the local religious official, the imam, gives his Friday sermon. One other characteristic feature of almost all mosques is the exterior tower called a minaret. From this tower, faithful Muslims are summoned to prayer five times each day. Loudspeakers have mostly replaced the old muezzin, or prayer-caller.

The third pillar is the practice of almsgiving. Muslims tend to take this principle very seriously, and Islamic governments typically levy a tax that is specifically designed to fulfill the requirement of giving to the poor.

Fourth is the practice of fasting, especially during the holy month of Ramadan, when no food or drink is consumed between sunrise and sunset for the entire month. Since the religious calendar of Islam is a lunar one, the month of Ramadan cycles through the seasons and through the solar calendar that we use and that even Muslims employ for their secular business and day-to-day lives.

The fifth and last pillar is the hajj, or the pilgrimage to Mecca. It is obligatory for every Muslim who is able to do so, that he or she complete the pilgrimage at least once in a lifetime. Pilgrims dress in white, and perform various rituals including circumambulation of the Ka’ba.

Some have tried to establish the principle of jihad (pronounced “ jee -had” ) as a sixth pillar. This word is usually translated into English as “holy war,” but it means, literally, “struggle” or “striving.” Drawing on a teaching generally ascribed to the Prophet Muhammad, Muslims often distinguish the “greater jihad”— struggle against one’s own evil, base, selfish, or unrighteous inclinations—from the “lesser jihad” of military struggle against the enemies of Islam. But even in military jihad, Islamic law has long held that the deliberate targeting of noncombatants, of children, women, and the elderly, is unjustifiable. And it has insisted that those launching a jihad must first summon their enemies to accept Islam (“submission”). Furthermore, at least in theory, jihad is supposed to be defensive. “Fight in the way of God with those who fight you,” says the Qur’an, “but aggress not: God loves not the aggressors.” [6] Nor is suicide acceptable: “Cast not yourselves by your own hands into destruction.” [7] Those who die on behalf of Islam are considered martyrs (shuhada’). [8]

Other Basic Beliefs

Muslims have traditionally expended more thought on law and ethics than on theology, but certain theological principles are reasonably clear and universal. For example, God is One. He is not a Trinity. He is completely different from anything earthly. He is purely spiritual and invisible. Moreover, He is all-powerful and probably determines all human actions. One of the most common Arabic phrases is In sha’ Allah, “If God wills,” which is repeated before almost any action or promise. This is sometimes seen as a kind of Muslim fatalism, but compare with James 4:13–15, where the same kind of respect for God’s sovereignty is enjoined.

Islam recognizes the biblical prophets and several others and believes that literally thousands of prophets are lost to history but known to God. Significantly among these, Muslims accept Jesus of Nazareth as a prophet and as having been born of a virgin. The Qur’an speaks of Jesus as a “word” of God. Islamic believers expect His Second Coming at the end of time. But most hold, on the basis of certain passages in the Qur’an, that His crucifixion was only an illusion of the Jews. They believe that He was not crucified and atones for no sins, that He is not the Son of God, and is not divine. Allah alone is God. “Say: He is God, the One and Only; God, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him.” [9]

Muhammad, too, is only a prophet. But, as noted above, he is the “seal of the prophets,” which is almost always taken to signify that he is the last of them. Muslims object greatly to their religion being called “Muhammadanism” and to being themselves termed “Muhammadans.” This implies, they say, that Muhammad occupies the place in their religion that Christ occupies in Christianity—and such a supposition is false. They do not worship him. The correct name of their faith is Islam (pronounced “Iss -lam ” ), meaning “submission (to God).” An adherent of the religion of Islam is a Muslim (“Muss- lim”), a “submitter.”

Muslims are noted for some of the prohibitions of their religion. Although, unsurprisingly, not all are faithful, they are directed to refrain from drinking wine, and, like Jews, to avoid pork. They are commanded by their religion not to make religious images and pictures—which is, again, reminiscent of Judaism.

Westerners have also been fascinated by such things as the veiling of women and “harems.” In passing, it is worth noting that the historical origins of the veiling of women are unclear but that it may well have been borrowed from Christians several centuries after Muhammad’s death. (Muhammad’s own wives veiled themselves because of their special status in the community, but the rule probably was not generally applied.) And harems, never very common, are almost extinct in the world of contemporary Islam.

What should Latter-day Saints make of Muhammad and Islam? If Qur’anic statements against the divinity of Christ accurately represent the teachings of Muhammad—and there is no evidence that they do not—then we cannot accept him as a true prophet in the full sense of the word. We have little choice in this matter because, as Revelation 19:10 explains, “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (emphasis added). But it is virtually certain that Muhammad was sincere, and it may well be that he was inspired by God to do and say much of what he said and did.

Elders George A. Smith and Parley P. Pratt of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles had a high opinion of him in 1855, at a time when just about everybody else in Europe and America thought it obvious that Muhammad—along with Joseph Smith, incidentally, who was often compared to him—was a cunning fraud. [10] And that high estimation has continued into recent times. In a 15 February 1978 declaration, the First Presidency paid tribute to Muhammad, among others, as a divinely inspired religious and moral leader: “The great religious leaders of the world such as Mohammed, Confucius, and the Reformers, as well as philosophers including Socrates, Plato, and others, received a portion of God’s light. Moral truths were given to them by God to enlighten whole nations and to bring a higher level of understanding to individuals.”

The History Behind the Headlines

As I write, slightly more than six months after the brutal attacks of September 11, 2001, portions of the Arab and Islamic world are gripped in mounting anguish and even despair, overflowing with seething anger, and oppressed by a growing sense of urgency. [11] It is important for people in the West to try to understand why this is so (though I should not be taken as claiming that to understand is wholly to excuse). In order to understand, however, we must once again look to the past.

For several centuries, Islam, along with the region and culture that it dominated, was at the forefront of civilization and human achievement. In fact, in Muslim eyes, Islam was civilization, and those who lived beyond the Islamic world were often regarded not only as infidels but as barbarians. [12] During the time of the Islamic world’s richest flourishing, only China could claim a comparable level of culture. But even China was not entirely to be compared, since its culture was basically confined to one ethnic group, while, by contrast, Islam’s dominion was vast, even intercontinental (including southeastern Europe, West Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, and North Africa) and its subjects were multiethnic and multiracial.

For most of its first thousand years, Islam clearly exercised the greatest military power on earth. From its homeland in Arabia, its armies came to dominate not only the Middle East but also parts of Europe, Central Asia, North Africa, portions of the eastern and western African coasts, and large areas of the Indian subcontinent. Only the threat of their eastern Islamic rivals in Persia kept the Ottoman Turks from deploying their armies westward and conquering Europe. [13] And, even so, by 1682–83 the Ottomans were conducting their second siege of Vienna.

Muslims had commerce and communications everywhere. They had inherited advanced knowledge and skills from their predecessors in the ancient Near East, Greece, and Persia. They had taken the decimal system from India and the art of making paper from China—and it is very difficult to imagine modern civilization without these two elements. In fact, the indebtedness of the West to the Islamic world is illustrated nicely by the number and nature of the words that we have borrowed from Arabic and cognate languages. These include such terms as algebra, alchemy, algorithm, nadir, zenith, and even punch. Such indebtedness was incurred, as well, by the influence of Islamic thinkers like Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Averroës (Ibn Rushd) upon St. Thomas Aquinas, the Doctor Angelicus, who was incomparably the greatest philosopher of the Latin Middle Ages and, for many years, effectively the official theologian of the Roman Catholic Church.

Islamic rulers were tolerant of their Christian and Jewish minorities not only because such tolerance was enjoined by Islam but also, very likely, because of a sense of comfortable security. Christians were looked down upon. As for today, although Islam’s record of pre-modern toleration is far better than Christendom’s, that toleration has receded under current conditions of threat, despair, and anger; and the links of Christian and Jewish minorities to the West, and their concomitant prosperity, have caused hatred in some circles.

The Crusades represented a brief interruption of the Muslims’ seemingly inevitable march toward ultimate triumph, but the Crusader states didn’t last very long and didn’t prove lastingly significant from the Near Eastern point of view—although they proved very fruitful for the Europeans, who were exposed, through them, to a much superior civilization. Byzantium continued to shrink. And, as for the rest of Europe, it was dismissed by those few Muslim writers who concerned themselves at all with it as a dark and barbarous place, valuable largely as a source of strong slaves and useful raw materials. Much of Europe depended, for its science and civilization, on translations from Arabic, sometimes even translations of works originally composed in Greek. Even Europe’s religion had been borrowed from the Near East.

In 1453, Constantinople finally fell to the Ottoman Turks. And, now that the Byzantine Empire had been conquered, the so-called Holy Roman Empire, in Europe proper, was slated to be next.

But that conquest did not happen.

In retrospect, we can see that a certain stagnation had entered into the Islamic world with the advent of the Mongols and the Turks, if not before. The great translation movement that had brought so much of Greek medicine, science, and philosophy to the Muslims was past by this time. New intellectual stimuli were no longer entering Islamic life at anything like the previous astonishing pace.

Meanwhile, Europe was surging forward. Chairs of Arabic and Persian (of “oriental” languages) began to appear in European universities such as Cambridge, Oxford, and Paris. But Muslims seems to have known little, and to have cared less, about such things. They knew nothing about the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the technological leaps associated with Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press and with the Industrial Revolution. While there have long been “Orientalists” in the West, it is only quite recently that “Occidentalists” began to appear in the Near East. And, for a long time after that, even those Near Easterners who knew Western languages tended to be not Muslims but Christians and Jews, who had a natural reason to cultivate ties with their fellow believers in Europe.

While Muslims traveled extensively within the Islamic world (in order to perform the hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, as well as for ordinary commercial purposes), they seldom if ever traveled to Europe. Unlike Europeans, many of whose holiest places were located in the Near East, Muslims had no objects of pilgrimage in Europe. Furthermore, for many centuries, Muslim merchants saw little in Europe to attract them. The slaves and raw materials of Europe could be purchased at trading posts located along the border between the predominantly Christian and predominantly Muslim lands, so there was no real need for Muslims to enter into Europe. And those few merchants from the Near East who actually penetrated Europe tended to be, once again, either Jews or Greek or Armenian Christians. And, again in stark distinction to Near Eastern attitudes, Western merchants tended to view the Mediterranean (and, hence, the Islamic world that occupied much of it) as a vast, sophisticated, and incredibly wealthy trade emporium—as, in fact, it had long been. Jewish and Christian commercial travelers had local communities of co-believers to help them both in Europe and the Near East, whereas, by contrast, no European communities of Muslims existed under Christian domination to facilitate trading by Islamic businessmen. Likewise, while Europeans maintained permanent embassies in the Near East, Islamic states dispatched only occasional envoys—who entered, disposed of their business, and left as soon as they possibly could. In fact, Muslims thought it ethically and theologically wrong to visit, let alone to live in, infidel territories. As believers in Muhammad’s message had fled pagan Mecca to join him in his exile in Medina, so too were later believers to flee the rule of unbelievers and gather with the faithful. Thus, while Europeans had considerable knowledge of and exposure to much of the heartland of the Islamic world, Muslims had little if any direct knowledge of Europe. Accordingly, long after the notion was out of date, Muslim residents of the Near East typically regarded Europeans as primitives who had little to offer to civilized people.

When Vasco da Gama pioneered his route around the cape of Africa at the end of the fifteenth century, he managed to connect Europe and Asia in a way that allowed European merchants to bypass the Near East. Accordingly, countries such as Egypt, which depended heavily upon revenue from tariffs on imports and transit goods—and which, as luck would have it, was in that very period under the rule of the architecture-loving and rather free-spending Circassian Mamluks—saw their income plunge. By the seventeenth century, the Portuguese, the Dutch, and other intrepid Europeans had established permanent bases in Asia that gradually evolved into colonies. The Islamic world was now outflanked.

But things became worse still. Columbus’s first voyage to the New World, also in the late fifteenth century, opened the Americas (with their gold and silver and other resources) to European exploitation and vastly increased the size of Christendom, both absolutely and relative to the by now fairly stable size of the Islamic world. Bernard Lewis, a brilliant Anglo-American scholar of Islam, uses coffee and sugar—significantly, both originally products of the Near East—to illustrate the economic consequences for the Islamic world of European colonization in Asia and the Americas: Coffee came from Ethiopia. Gradually, though, its use spread via Arabia and Egypt to Syria and Turkey, and then on to Europe. Sugar came originally from Persia and India. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, even Muslims in the Near East were drinking coffee from beans that had been cultivated in Dutch Java or in the colonies of New Spain, in the Americas. And they were mixing it with sugar from the British and French West Indies. Only the hot water with which they mixed these ingredients was local. And then, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, European companies gained control of the water and gas supplies in the Near East. [14]

Western commercial expansion meant that western legal principles guided the formation of international commercial law—even in the Muslim lands. Thus, the shari’a, which most Muslim rulers had honored in theory but ignored in practice (since they wanted laws they could shape or spin to their own advantage) became even further marginalized.

At the close of the fifteenth century, the Spanish had reconquered Spain after nearly 800 years of Muslim presence and cultural efflorescence there. As the last Muslim ruler of Granada rode away from his beloved palace, the Alhambra, he turned to take one last look at it in a pass still known as the Ultimo Suspiro del Moro, “The Last Sigh of the Moor.” A tear trickled down his cheek. Seeing it, his mother-in-law remarked, “It is fitting that you should weep like a woman for what you could not defend like a man.”

During this period, the Islamic world needed creative, dynamic, and resourceful leadership. Unfortunately, during this period the formerly dependable sources of its leaders failed. The Ottoman Empire, for example, had been founded and developed by a long and essentially unbroken series of extraordinarily competent (if seldom exactly saintly) sultans like Selim the Grim, Mehmet the Conqueror, and Suleyman the Magnificent. But then the empire passed into a period that has often been compared to a lengthy and eventually fatal illness, an epoch that can be illustrated by (but cannot be entirely laid at the feet of) a series of sultans who were as incompetent and ineffective as their predecessors had been brilliant. Not a few of them may even have been mad.

What had changed? One thing that had altered was the method of handling young Ottoman princes while they waited to take their turn on the sultan’s throne. In the earlier days of the Ottoman empire, the princes had been sent out to gain experience as army commanders and provincial governors. Thus, when a new sultan came to power, he already had considerable experience with both military and civil administration, and with the various peoples under Ottoman rule. However, young princes accustomed to command sometimes grew impatient when their fathers took too long to depart the scene, and fathers, watching them, grew nervous upon their imperial thrones. Accordingly, it was decided to keep the princes in the harem with their mothers, thus depriving them not only of the opportunity to launch a coup—which was the goal—but also, as a lamentable side effect, of any experience beyond the restricted environs of the women’s quarters of the palace. And then, in order to eliminate rival claimants and the instability that they could create, the custom arose of executing all of the other princes once one of them had succeeded to the sultanate. So what was left to the young princes and their mothers was constant palace intrigue, which they practiced as if their lives depended upon it—which, of course, they literally did. There can be little wonder, therefore, that many of those who came to the throne were not only inexperienced and untested but neurotic and paranoid. And then, suddenly, they were all-powerful. It was a perfect recipe for disaster.

The second siege of Vienna failed as the first had. Then, in 1686, the Ottomans lost Buda, and a century and a half of Muslim Turkish rule in Hungary came to an end. A Turkish lament of the time captures the impact that the loss carried:

In the fountains they no longer wash In the mosques they no longer pray The places that prospered are now desolate The Austrian has taken our beautiful Buda. [15]

Yet the defeats were by no means over. The Ottomans suffered several reverses, for example, at the hands of Peter the Great. In 1699, they were obliged to sign the Treaty of Carlowitz, in which they made concessions to victorious Christians, something previously unthinkable. Nobody in the Muslim world had seen the loss of Spain as terribly significant. It was, they imagined at the time, just part of the normal ebb and flow of war. Muslims would, it was thought, eventually take Andalusia back. In retrospect, however, the Spanish Reconquista began to be seen as one in a now long and menacing list of disasters and losses. Muslims began to perceive that Islam, or the Islamic world, had entered into a period of crisis and that something had to be done.

At first, it was assumed that military reforms were the primary need. Thus, very limited European help was sought by various Islamic rulers, most notably by the authorities of the Ottoman empire. They decided to buy what they needed, which was not limited merely to weapons but also included consultation on military organization, the conduct of warfare, and actual training.

Accordingly, Western experts begin to arrive, bringing with them expertise in military engineering, artillery and ballistics, and the mathematics associated with such subjects. They also brought Western military uniforms and, even, Western military music. [16] Improved administrative techniques were introduced into the civil bureaucracy as well as the military. For one thing, there were renewed efforts to base employment and promotion on merit and qualifications rather than, as was typically the case, on patronage and connections. Ironically, though, such reforms, in making autocratic regimes more efficient, also tended to make them more oppressive, which would have consequences for the future.

But such alterations were still not enough. Between 1768 and 1774, the Ottomans suffered further defeats at the hands of the Russians. And these defeats were particularly painful because their effects could not be dismissed as limited merely to outlying areas. On the contrary, their consequences could be felt in the Islamic heartland itself. The Treaty of Küçuk Kaynarca (1774), for instance, granted the Russians rights of navigation and even intervention within the Ottoman empire. Indeed, in 1783, Russia actually annexed the Crimea, a traditionally Muslim land.

Meanwhile, Portugal and the Netherlands—relatively tiny European countries—had come to dominate Asian trade and to control the seas. This occurred partly because of the manifest superiority of European sailing vessels over their Islamicate counterparts. So clear was this superiority that, by the eighteenth century, even Muslim pilgrims from India and Indonesia, finding them cheaper, safer, and more reliable, were booking passage to Mecca on Dutch, English, and Portuguese ships.

One thing that should be clear from this history is that, despite the differing and often impassioned accounts offered up by some contemporary Muslim political leaders and thinkers, Western imperialism was attracted by preexisting weakness in the Islamic world; it did not cause it. While colonialism certainly exacerbated many problems in the region, most of those problems—and the most fundamental of them—cannot actually be blamed on the West (nor, for that matter, attributed to any other external factor). Places like Hong Kong, with far fewer natural resources than the Islamic world, have nonetheless flourished economically. Moreover, strength repels colonization: even tiny Switzerland, surrounded during the Nazi period by Hitler’s Germany to the north, Mussolini’s Italy to the south, occupied Austria to the east, and Vichy France to the west, managed to maintain its independence. By contrast, the vast and populous Indian subcontinent, because it was divided among squabbling factions, fell prey to the armies of a small island off the coast of Europe, and Queen Victoria was able to claim the title of Empress of India.

It is tempting to say that unless and until Muslim leaders and thinkers recognize that they have a problem—in much the same way that those who attend Alcoholics Anonymous must recognize that they have a problem—they will never be able to solve it. So long as the CIA or the Zionists or the French or the British or Mossad or the United States are blamed for all of the weaknesses and frustrations in the region, there can be little or no substantial progress.

In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte conquered and occupied Egypt. The French were driven out of Egypt only a few years later, but, tellingly, not by the Egyptians and not by any coalition of Muslims. Instead, it was the British who claimed the honor, and French occupied Egypt now came effectively under British control. If the Crimea had been a traditionally Islamic land, and its surrender a terrible shock, Egypt was absolutely central to the Islamic world. It had been ruled by Muslims since roughly a decade after the death of Muhammad, and its loss to the European infidel—and the inability of the Islamic world to do anything about that loss—represented not merely a catastrophe but a revelation.

It was now impossible to miss the fact that the Islamic world was in actual decline. Merely military reforms had clearly not been sufficient to fix what was wrong. And, with Westerners now bestriding their heartland as conquerors and rulers, Muslims became painfully aware of European superiority in many aspects of political life and in technical and scientific achievement. Moreover, the French and British occupations spread to the Near East ideas that were beginning to circulate in Europe and that were, by the standards of the Islamic world, positively revolutionary. The French embassy in Istanbul had already established a newspaper there; Napoleon’s occupying forces founded newspapers in Egypt. The Jesuits in Beirut also recognized the powerful potential of newspaper journalism, and their publications soon acquired influence far beyond the Lebanese Christian community. Western ideals and concepts were circulating in Muslim cities.

Much against their traditional inclinations, Muslim leaders began to send student delegations to Europe for study. “Our countries,” declared Shaykh Hasan al-’Attar, an Egyptian cleric who had worked with Napoleon’s troops, “should be changed and renewed through knowledge and sciences that they do not possess.” The student delegates were intended to master the practices of Western civil administration and to learn what they could of Western science and technology. And this, to a certain extent, they did. But they also began to return with some of the ideas that were circulating on the Continent in the wake of the French Revolution. This was awkward for the old elites who had sent them, and probably for the returning students as well. Technology was one thing. Notions of representative democracy, human rights, and freedom of the press were quite another. Muslims wrestled, along with the world, with such concepts as liberty, equality, and fraternity. Although, as early as the era of Napoleon, some Muslims recognized the threat to Islam posed by the ideology of the French Revolution, many regarded it—precisely because it was non-Christian, or even anti-Christian—as relatively safe.

The movement known as the “Young Ottomans,” modeled on Giuseppi Mazzini’s “Young Italy,” which sought to unify Italy under a republican form of government, arose in the mid-1860s. The Young Ottomans and their allies sought to establish their own newspapers, to found parliamentary institutions, and to institute liberal reforms of various kinds. They called for representative democracy, fundamental changes in school and university curriculum, and alterations of the traditional agrarian and merchant economy in the direction of free-market capitalism. And, of course, the Christian and Jewish minorities of the Islamic world, with their long-standing ties to their fellow believers in Europe, rapidly developed a taste for progressive Western thinking and served as conduits for the entry of such ideas into the Near East.

Liberal reformers in the Near East were encouraged by the outcome of the 1905 Russo-Japanese War, in which the Japanese, the only Asian people to adopt parliamentary democracy, defeated Russia, the only European country to reject it. The precedent was inspiring. The future must have seemed bright with promise.

But liberal democratic reform too failed to solve the problems of the Near East and the Islamic world, largely because it failed to come to effective power in the region. The British, for example, lingered on in Egypt long after the time when the Wafd Party—which had staked its credibility on the promise that European colonialists would depart once local elites had shown themselves capable of democratic self-rule—expected to reclaim Egypt’s dignity as a fully sovereign, autonomous state. For their part, the Ottoman sultans and their courts were wary of democracy. Although they experimented with parliamentary representation, they dissolved such bodies at the first sign of genuine independence. The legacy of the failure of genuine democracy to take root in the Islamic world is still apparent, even in relatively benign places like modern Egypt. Ritualistic elections are held, yet there is little true choice for the electorate, and, while a great deal is said about freedom, it has little solid reality anywhere in either the Near East or, for that matter, in the Islamic world generally.

Such facts made the sense of backwardness and stagnation among Muslims even more painfully apparent. And not a few Europeans noticed it. With astonishing chauvinism (to say nothing of historical ignorance) some French voices—the self-announced French mission civilisatrice made for a form of colonialism that was arguably much harsher than that of the British—were heard to declare that Arabs and even the Arabic language were incapable of sustaining genuine civilization. This cannot have been other than humiliating to those sensitive and educated Arab souls who heard of it. Finally, and perhaps worst of all, the establishment of Israel—by people coming mostly from Europe and the West, recognized and legitimated with stunning speed by Western governments—represented, in the minds of many Muslims, the emergence of a European colonial outpost in some of the holiest of Islamic territory.

Some other remedy to the problems of the Islamic world had to be found. And many people soon came to believe that they had found that remedy in socialism and in nationalism, which had the distinct advantage over later proposals that members of all Near Eastern faiths could participate as equals in the furtherance of their cause. For example, prominent leaders in the older Palestinian movement included not merely Muslims but such notorious militants as the Christian George Habbash, of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. [17] It was Palestinian ethnicity that counted, not religious affiliation. The Palestine Liberation Organization (or PLO) continues to be a largely secular or, at least, non-sectarian operation. And pan-Arabism—the notion that all of the Arabs form one nation, and that political reality ought to reflect that ideal—came to dominate a substantial portion of the Islamic world under the inspiration of Gamal Abdel Nasser (d. 1970). However, to make a rather long and dismal story brief, socialism and Arab nationalism failed too. Just as Lenin’s and Stalin’s “five-year plans” and economic collectivization proved disastrous for the former Soviet Union, the command economies erected by Nasser and others led to economic ruin and, in many cases, to tyranny and oppression. Nasser’s attempt to unify Egypt and Syria in the United Arab Republic (1958–61) fell apart after only three years, his pan-Arabist military adventure in Yemen was a disaster, and the Six-Day War was, at best, a pan-Arab humiliation. Today, perhaps only Libya’s Qaddafi still holds to the old dream of Arab nationalism.

The sense of frustration and embarrassment among elites in the Islamic world grew even more acute with the failure of these latest attempts to cure their ever more obviously dysfunctional region. They could not fail to notice, for example, that the nations of East Asia, which had begun at an even lower economic and social level than had the Near East—and which had, in addition, been devastated by the horrors of the Second World War—were now competitive with the West, and not merely economically but scientifically and technologically. The situation in the Islamic world is, unfortunately, far different. In contrast to its golden age, many centuries ago, little if any original science is done by Muslims living in Muslim countries, and little if any new technology is created there. Still today, Western investments do not come, by and large, to the Near East and the Islamic world. Instead, Near Easterners and other Muslims prefer to invest outside of their region, often in the West. If fossil fuels (essentially petroleum products) are excluded from the calculation, the exports of the entire Arab world are roughly on a par with those of Finland, a country of five million people. [18] And, ominously, fossil fuels are a finite resource. They are not renewable and not exclusive to the Middle East.

The social, economic, and political problems in the region include oppressive and tyrannical regimes and, despite oil revenues, continuing widespread poverty and illiteracy. In fact, as democracy takes root throughout much of the former Eastern bloc, as well as in Latin America and the new economic powerhouses of the Pacific Rim, Muslim states can now be seen—and not a few Muslims see themselves—as bringing up the absolute rear. Even where money abounds, at least for the moment, oil shaykhs are hiring Koreans and other Asians to do much of their work. Large American and European engineering firms build their airports and palaces and desalinization plants. Filipinos do much of the menial work, including domestic service and construction. It is hardly a long-term formula for a vibrant economy, and that fact hasn’t escaped notice within Muslim and Near Eastern circles.

One way of conveying something of the sense of perplexity and despair that many thinking Muslims now feel is to compare it to a hypothetical case among Latter-day Saints. We are accustomed to hearing reports of the continued growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It has been steady almost from the beginning, and even spectacular. We see ourselves as fulfilling Daniel’s prophecy of the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, which will eventually come to fill the whole earth (see Daniel 2). We expect to grow, and we look confidently forward to the triumph of the cause in which we are engaged. How would it be, though, if we were to enter a prolonged period when the growth ceased—when, in fact, we began to lose members, and found ourselves forced to sell chapels off by the score, and perhaps even close down a few temples because we no longer had the resources to maintain them?

Some members of the Church of Jesus Christ, I’m sure, would conclude that the gospel must not be true. In their view, the prophecies would have been proven false and their faith misplaced. Likewise, some Muslims, in the face of Western dominance and influenced by secularized Western thought, have given up their belief in Muhammad, the Qur’an, and even God. For the most part, though, they have remained prudently silent.

Some members of the Church, when faced with declining success, would suggest that we simply needed to improve our methods and practices. With a little tinkering here and there, they would say, and perhaps after borrowing a few ideas from successful organizations, our missionary program would be up and running again, and we would be back on the prophesied path. This would be very much the same kind of response that we saw among the Ottomans, when they looked to European models to improve their military practices and civil administration.

Still other members of the Church, however, would suggest that we needed to get “back to basics,” that our real problem was to be more faithful, to read the scriptures more and more deeply, to live the gospel more vibrantly, to be better disciples. And that, in a nutshell, despite the cultural differences and the occasionally appalling form that the “back to basics” movement has taken among some Muslims, is essentially what Islamic fundamentalism seeks to do. Of course, not all committed Muslims are fundamentalists, and not all fundamentalists are terrorists. And many of their criticisms of the immorality of the West are not wildly different from those that will be heard from the pulpit at any given conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of the most obvious and substantial differences between Latter-day Saints and Islamic fundamentalists in this regard, though, emerges from our different views of human freedom. Although the Qur’an expressly declares that there should be “no coercion in religion” (la ikraha fi al-din) , [19] Islamic societies have typically tended toward control rather than freedom. Proper behavior should be imposed by strong social constraints and, in some cases, by force. The Wahhabi movement that provided ideological support for the establishment of the kingdom Saudi Arabia in 1932was a harbinger of the future for the rest of the Islamic world in calling for a return to simplicity and Islamic seriousness; and, backed by Saudi oil wealth, the Wahhabis have in fact been pivotal in the spread of fundamentalism among Muslims around the world.

A Return to Their Roots

The humiliating disaster of the Six-Day or 1967 War was a crucial turning point in the history of both the Near East in particular and the Islamic world in general. Since everything else had clearly failed, those who had been saying all along that, as one popular bumper sticker among American Muslims has it, “Islam is the Answer!” now began to receive a hearing. They could point out, with some plausibility, that all of the cures heretofore proposed for the malaise of the Islamic world—enhanced military technology, improved administrative techniques, parliamentary democracy, nationalism, even socialism and Marxism—had been based upon foreign, Western ideas. Why not go back to Islamic roots? The Muslims had been spectacularly successful in previous centuries on the basis of their own traditions and religious practices, without borrowing from Western culture. [20]

A good illustration of the rising demand that Muslims return to their own roots rather than seeking salvation in the West might be a 1962 book by Jalal Al-e Ahmad (Iranian, d. 1969) entitled Gharbzadegi. Its Persian title might be translated, roughly, as “Westtoxification” or “Occidentosis,” and it argues, passionately, that Iran in particular needed to escape what its author saw as the near-total political and cultural dominance of the West. Another illustration, even more powerful, is the changed character of the Arab-Israeli conflict as it was manifested in the 1973 War. Whereas the disastrous 1967 War had been fueled by Nasserite secular nationalism, Nasser had now departed the scene via a 1970 heart attack, and the new Egyptian leader, Anwar al-Sadat, turned to Islamic symbolism to label the next military effort the “Ramadan War.” And it was lost on nobody, on the Muslim side, that, for the first time in many years, Arab armies enjoyed at least some limited success during a war conducted under the aegis of Islam.

At the same time, the famous Arab oil embargo filled the Arabs and Muslims generally with renewed confidence, and believers began to suspect that it was not merely by chance that God had given petroleum—”the oil weapon”—in such vast quantities specifically to the “holy land” of the Muslims, the Arabian peninsula.

Then in 1977–78, the Islamic Revolution overthrew one of the secular West’s most important Near Eastern allies, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, the Shah of Iran. Once again, Muslim observers noted the power of Islam, or what some Western political analysts had initially dismissed as a ragtag bunch of mullahs and religious fanatics.

In 1989, the Afghan mujahidin drove the army of the mighty Soviet Union out of their country. Was it mere coincidence that the Berlin Wall came down during the same year and that, late in 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics broke up? After years of increasing frustration and apparent powerlessness, the strength of Islam had been made manifest and vindicated. The tide had clearly turned, many believers thought, and the future was now bright with assurance. In 1992, Afghanistan was declared an Islamic state.

The name most commonly given by outsiders to this surge of interest in getting back to the roots and in living more Islamically was “Islamic fundamentalism.” The term is, however, more than a little problematic. It originated, apparently, with the publication of a series of conservative Protestant Christian tracts called the Fundamentals, published between 1910 and 1915. Yet though Protestant fundamentalism is parallel in certain ways with Islamic “fundamentalism,” they are certainly not the same thing. For many years, in fact, no word equivalent to English fundamentalism even existed in Arabic and other Muslim languages. And scholars prefer, on the whole, to refer to “Islamism” and “Islamists,” so as to avoid undesirable and even misleading connotations. For example, fundamentalism seems to connote ignorance and backwardness. But many prominent Islamist leaders are quite well educated and are neither backward nor provincial. Osama bin Ladin was trained as an engineer. His chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was schooled as a physician in Egypt where, as in much of the Near East, physicians and engineers are at the very top of the educational ladder. Ironically, though, the word fundamentalism has now been adopted by journalists and other writers in the Islamic world itself, to denote a movement that, on the whole, rejects cultural borrowings from the West.

Islamic fundamentalism is dedicated to the purification and reformation of beliefs and practices in accordance with the “fundamentals” of the Islamic faith. As such, it is part of a general world phenomenon dedicated to restoring lost values, truths, and practices, or to what some scholars like to call, in a fancy but insightful word, “repristinizing” religious faiths that have grown old, sloppy, and lax. Parallel movements (all of them troubled by certain developments in the modern world, some of which truly are troubling by almost any standard) occur not merely among Muslims and Christians, but also among Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, and other large religious traditions. Fundamentalists are reluctant to adapt to what they see as the evil features of modernity. They repudiate compromises and “sell-outs.”

In the Islamic context, fundamentalists are often hostile to official clergy on the government payroll. More broadly, religious reform in Islam necessarily involves political reform. “Church” and state are not separate in Islam for the simple and sufficient reason that they were never separate in the life of Muhammad, the model Muslim. Some fundamentalists call for the return of the caliphate, which was abolished in 1924 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Most if not all call for a restoration of the shari’a, which, they argue with considerable justification, is just as sophisticated and complex as any code of law in the West.

Pan-Islamism, it seems, has virtually replaced nationalism as a driving force in the Islamic world. The more or less secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) now finds itself rivaled by the even more militant Hamas, an explicitly Islamic movement that has transformed the conflict from one between Arabs and Israelis into one pitting Muslims against Jews. A few years ago, sensing the way the wind was blowing, even Saddam Hussein, whose Arab Ba’th party has always been a quintessentially secular nationalistic and socialistic product of an earlier period, discovered the “fact” that he is a descendant of the prophet Muhammad and placed the traditional Islamic cry Allahu akbar! (“God is most great!”) on the Iraqi flag.

Islamic regimes now control Iran and the Sudan and, until they were recently overthrown by American military force, dominated Afghanistan. The precise details of their programs are often rather vague, apart from a promise to return to ostensibly Islamic ways of doing things. But they have been able to agree on their hostility toward the West and, specifically, toward the United States of America. They resent American economic hegemony (called by one wit, in India, “Cocacolonization”), but their attention is focused on the United States primarily because America is now the world’s only true superpower. This is, of course, rather ironic, since it can certainly be argued that British and especially French colonialism were far more deliberately injurious to Islamic interests than American foreign policy has been and that recent Russian behavior toward the Islamic world has been straightforwardly brutal. And it is doubly ironic, since Islamists tend to use Western devices—cassette tapes, for example—to spread their messages. When the Ayatollah Khomeini returned from his exile in France to a triumphant welcome in the streets of Tehran, he flew back in a Boeing jetliner and rode into the city in a Chevrolet. In fact, even the elaborate Shi’ite hierarchy in Iran, with its “ayatollahs” and “hujjatulislams,” can be viewed as something that developed under Western influence.

Why is much Muslim hostility so focused upon the United States? I believe that a bit of psychohistory may be appropriate here, although I generally abhor such an approach. It seems to me that the United States has an effect upon many Muslims that is simultaneously both repulsive and seductive. This was brought home to me during the last months of my residency in Cairo, Egypt. Soviet troops had invaded Afghanistan and were openly bombing and killing Muslims throughout that country. Yet nothing happened to Soviet embassies. Then came a disturbance at the Great Mosque in Mecca. A rumor circulated that the Americans had been involved, and United States embassies across the Islamic world were attacked. I began to ponder why the mere rumor of an American misdeed provoked violence in several different Muslim countries, while open and brutal injuries done by the Soviets to thousands of Muslims in Afghanistan drew virtually no public response.

Americans are the heirs of the resentment that Muslims feel about all of the colonialism and imperialism and oppression that they have endured or—and the difference is not especially important—that they feel they have endured at the hands of the West. They perceive a deep hypocrisy in American attitudes. While, for example, Americans seem to care about Israeli Jewish suffering, they turn a blind eye (at least in much Arab and Muslim opinion) to the suffering of Palestinian Muslims. [21] Americans seem, too, to be continuing the hypocrisy of imperialist predecessors in the sense that, while supporting democracy at home, they seem perfectly comfortable with repression abroad. Earlier colonialists were themselves repressive; American foreign policy, in pursuit of its objectives of containing international communism and assuring the stability of oil and other markets, has often found itself supporting undemocratic regimes. And, of course, blaming others—the Zionists, Israel’s Mossad, the CIA—serves the interests of more than a few failed governments in the Islamic world: it distracts popular attention from the poverty and tyranny that characterize the region. (The image of the Jews in the Muslim world has changed dramatically since the establishment of Israel in 1948. Where the Jews were once held in rather benign contempt, they are now commonly held in bitter awe as a race of malicious supermen.)

Many Muslims today live in a state of mind that must be much like that of Europeans in the medieval Age of Faith—even, alas, to the point, at least figuratively, of seeing malevolent demons behind the actions of their enemies. Islam has undergone no Reformation. Muslims have not yet learned, within their own societies, to live alongside adherents of other faiths as full equals—as Europeans were gradually forced, very reluctantly, to do. Their culture has not assumed the skeptical stance that, for both good and ill, has characterized Western civilization since the Enlightenment. Islamic civilization was once the greatest of its day and among the greatest in human history. The seeds of its decay were sown internally, and the steps that must be taken to restore it to its historic place in world culture must be taken by the Muslims themselves.

[1] I offer a longer and somewhat more complete survey in Daniel C. Peterson, Abraham Divided: An LDS Perspective on the Middle East, 2d ed. (Salt Lake City: Aspen Books, 1995). I might note here, incidentally, that, although their meanings were originally somewhat distinct, the terms Middle East and Near East are currently used as synonyms by virtually all specialists in the field.

[2] Most scholars believe that they did not take their pagan religion very seriously. I tend to believe that their religiosity has been underestimated. But this is not the place to argue that point.

[3] See Lynn M. Hilton and Hope Hilton, In Search of Lehi’s Trail (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976); Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert/ The World of the Jaredites/ There Were Jaredites (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1988), 1–149; Warren P.Aston and Michaela Knoth Aston, In the Footsteps of Lehi: New Evidence for Lehi’s Journey across Arabia to Bountiful (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994); Noel B. Reynolds, “Lehi’s Arabian Journey Updated,” in Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited: The Evidence for Ancient Origins, ed. Noel B. Reynolds (Provo: FARMS, 1997),379–89.

[4] There are many biographies of the prophet Muhammad, and many of them are quite good. I offer an approach of my own to the subject in Daniel C. Peterson, “Muhammad” in David Noel Freedman and Michael J. McClymond, eds., The Rivers of Paradise: Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Muhammad as Religious Founders (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 2001), 457–612.

[5] As a matter of fact, the chapters are in roughly reverse chronological order.

[6] Qur’an 2:190. Presumably, Osama bin Ladin’s justification for his actions against American targets was that, in his view, he was simply fighting a defensive struggle to combat ongoing American aggression against the Islamic world. That might eliminate the need for prior warning of a war since, from his point of view, the war was already under way. And he avoided the prohibition against targeting noncombatants by redefining all participants in the economy of the United States as, effectively, facilitators of American military and economic hegemony. Under such reasoning, of course, no serious distinction between combatants and noncombatants would ever be possible—taxpayers support armies, mothers feed future soldiers—and the humane provisions of Islamic law would be easily evaded.

[7] Qur’an 2:195.

[8] Precisely like the Greek word martyros, the Arabic term means both “martyr” (in the English sense) and “witness.”

[9] Qur’an 112.

[10] See Journal of Discourses 3:28–42.

[11] This portion of the present essay was heavily influenced by Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

[12] Ancient Greeks, Persians, and Chinese adopted the same attitude at various points in their history. In fact, our word barbaric derives from Greek, and, more particularly, from the Greeks’ unflattering imitation of the way non-Greek languages sounded to them: bar-bar-bar-bar-or, in other words, pure gibberish.

[13] By the same token, the Ottoman Islamic threat to the east probably helped to dissuade Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, from sending his troops to crush the Lutheran Reformation in northern Europe. History moves in mysterious ways.

[14] Lewis, What Went Wrong? 50.

[15] Cited by Lewis, What Went Wrong? 17.

[16] Interestingly, many years later, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, while rejecting most forms of music as decadent and immoral, was to make an exception for martial music. His views on the subject may have been influenced not only by his reading of Islamic principles but by his understanding of Books 2 and 3 of Plato’s Republic. He is said to have been a student and admirer of Plato.

[17] It has to be said, of course, that—very much like several of the warlords of Lebanon—he was a Christian in pretty much the same sense that a Mafia don is a Christian.

[18] See Lewis, What Went Wrong? 47.

[19] Qur’an 2:256.

[20] Actually, of course, this is not precisely accurate. With their rapid expansion and their systematic efforts to translate Western and other books on medicine, science, philosophy, and many other subjects into Arabic, Muslims in the first centuries were quite open in many ways to cultural influences from the outside. The books published in Brigham Young University’s new Graeco-Arabic Sciences and Philosophy series will illustrate that openness very clearly.

[21] U.S. intervention on behalf of Muslim Kuwait, following Iraq’s invasion of that small nation, is dismissed merely as an expression of our interest in oil. And U.S. intervention on behalf of Muslims in the Balkan states tends simply to be dismissed or forgotten.

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Mystical Meditations and Other Miscellaneous Musings

• Sample Page
• Introductory Essay

Before taking this course, my knowledge of Islam had primarily been informed by the mainstream media. Unfortunately for the probable thousands of Americans who shared this in common with me, there are so many misconceived notions of Islam depicted by these media outlets that may never be rectified unless an active search for truth is realized. Much of what the younger generations have seen in their lifetimes regarding Islam has been shrouded by dialogues of terrorism, war, and fear. It is a very instinctually human phenomenon to form an opinion and stick to it for pride or vanity’s sake. These opinions once formed are rarely able to be transformed, unless genuine open-mindedness and empathy are present. But fortunately for me, I came into Harvard almost entirely set on concentrating in the Comparative Study of Religion. Coming from a tremendously devout Catholic family, I had attended parochial school my whole life. Though I fell in love with my Catholic faith from a young age, I knew that reserving my religious studies to Catholic theology alone was detrimental not only to my conception of Catholicism, but to my conception of religion as a whole. Taking a class on Islam was a top priority on my list as I was aware of my own ignorance of both the religion and the culture. But people are not stringently bound by their ignorance that perpetuates destructive stereotypes. Misconceptions and misunderstandings can be easily cured with knowledge. And that is something I learned this semester.

In his book Infidel of Love, Professor Asani says: “It is one of the great ironies of our times that peoples from different religious, cultural, racial, and ethnic backgrounds are in closer contact with each other than ever before, yet this closeness has not resulted in better understanding and appreciation for difference. Rather, our world is marked with greater misunderstandings and misconceptions, resulting in ever-escalating levels of tensions between cultures and nations.” (page 1) These tensions that arise between cultures hardly exist on account of reasons other than ignorance. Nobody could ever come to truly know or appreciate another person, community, or culture without truly understanding that person, community, or culture. Learning about Islam therefore becomes an undertaking that requires the study of the historic, social, and political contexts that envelop the religion, before diving into the study of the modern-day conflicts existing within and surrounding some Muslim nations. Throughout this class, not only did we look at these political and historical contexts, but we also, more uniquely, examined Islam through the lenses of art, literature, poetry, and music. Peering into our subject through these aesthetic lenses provided an experience unlike any other approach to learning I’ve yet encountered. I hope the viewer will catch a glimpse of this from my blog posts.

In this blog, I present my own personal interpretations of and responses to Islamic art, literature, poetry, architecture, music, and culture. Each entry presents a reflection of the corresponding lecture material or weekly readings beginning with Week Two’s “Constructions of Islam” and ending with Week Twelve’s reading of Persepolis and Sultana’s Dream. As I mention in some of my blog posts, my spiritual life was fairly established before taking this class; but with each coming week and its accompanying lectures, my eyes were opened to so many new possibilities of approaching faith and life as a whole. Though I came to this class with a limited knowledge of Islam and, moreover, a mistaken belief that the religion along with all it promoted had no place alongside my own convictions, I am now ending the semester, delighted to have been proven wrong. My deepest hope is that someone stumbling upon this assortment of “mystical meditations and other miscellaneous musings” might recognize the collective revelations that have allowed me modest glimpses into enlightenment over these past 13 weeks, and even better, might also be inspired to think differently themselves.

In my first blog post, “Constructions of Islam,” I focus on the distinction between the terms “Muslim” and “muslim.” This was perhaps one of my favorite units in the semester because it set the stage so perfectly for all of the other misconceptions I was subconsciously harboring that would be broken throughout the rest of the course. I think that the aforementioned villainization of Muslims that has been presented in the media post 9/11 has created a false notion that at the core of Islam, exists a claim to salvation that precludes any non-Muslim from God’s mercy. But, something I learned in week two, primarily through Professor Asani’s second chapter of Infidel of Love, is that True Islam values all human life and recognizes the fact that fundamental human rights are not only universal, but that belief in this is a principal tenet of the religion. Contrary to the misconception, True Islam emphasizes that inherent dignity of humanity is derived from the same creator and therefore, rejects any possibility of ethnic, racial, or religious supremacy. As a recently declared concentrator in the study of comparative religion, I find this pluralistic message all the more critical for the development and fostering of understanding. I am a firm believer that we should not be content with the end-goal of tolerance. Tolerance implies a certain degree of complacency towards a subject, when what we should be striving for is appreciation for difference, and an eagerness to learn more about viewpoints countering our own.

My second blog post turns towards a more aesthetic side of Islam. In week six, we discussed mosque architecture and heard from two guest lecturers who spoke about the fluidity and multidimensional nature of Islamic art. In Ismail R. Al-Faruqi’s Misconceptions on the Nature of Islamic Art, he prefaces the text by noting that “the Western scholars of Islamic art…have failed in the supreme effort of understanding the spirit of that art, of discerning and analyzing its Islamicness…they sought to bend Islamic art to its categories.” (page 29) This recurring phenomenon of Western societies misappropriating cultures outside of their own is one of, if not the singular, leading cause of the culture clash that Professor Asani references in the first excerpt from Infidel of Love. Not only are misrepresentations of these cultures counterproductive to the quest for understanding, they are simply erroneous and lazy assessments in which these Western scholars attempt to fit every other culture and society into the confines of their own constructed conventions. What I found so beautiful and unique about Islamic art is that despite the wildly varied modes of interpretation and expression, all “derive their theological aesthetic from the same principle, namely, tawhid, the acknowledgement and assertion of God’s uncompromised unity and transcendence.” (Rendard, Seven Doors to Islam , page 128) The artistic liberty afforded by this principle combined with the lack of a rigid architectural template for masjids leads to endless creative possibilities. I chose to follow up Week Two’s blog with Week Six because I think the plurality message tied into the first blog also comes through in this visual project. The incorporation of three cultures into the Spanish mosque architecture is a prime example of the productive relationship that can exist between nations, and the beauty that arises as a result of their cooperative effort.

The blog inspired by Week Five deals with the importance of historical contexts and the role history plays in shaping a culture. The relationship between the father, the son, and the grandfather in Elie Wiesel’s quote is one that helped me understand the importance of the Ta’ziyeh much more clearly. So much of history relies on story-telling and the passing on of customs, but many people undervalue the importance of preserving tradition. And yet, tradition is what so often lies at the heart of religion and group identity as a whole. Without tradition and a rich history, meaning can be entirely dissolved from a culture. I have seen firsthand the essentiality of this preservation within my own faith. It’s easy to question the Truths within your religion when you realize that you only subscribe to it because of your parents, and their parents, and their parents’ parents. But once you realize the weight of tradition, you grow to appreciate the history behind your own roots, and suddenly, there is so much more meaning underlying your convictions.

Transitioning into the second half of the course, my fourth blog revolves around Week Nine’s subject of Islamic poetry. This type of faith expression and the difficulty discussed in lecture of confining a spiritual experience to fit within the parameters of language is one that I was easily able to relate to. Throughout my life, I have had innumerable encounters with areligious people that lack even the slightest trace of faith. Trying to verbalize your own faith experience is almost an impossible feat, and anyone who has been in a similar place could likely attest. When the Transcendent is so infinitely above the worldly realm that we exist in, it would be a futile task to limit an encounter with It to time or space. This poem grapples with my inner battle between constantly seeking social validation and ultimately realizing that “the one who made the stars, for my heart freely yearns.” This sense of security of self that I find within my own faith is something that people in my life who have never experienced this may never understand. My sense of self is secure because it rests in the opinion of my creator, and I have realized more and more throughout this course that I do not stand alone in this conviction. I am convinced that the bond which exists between people of faith is unlike any other interpersonal connection that human beings could share. Not only does it transcend language and time, it automatically places you on an elevated state of understanding.

This sense of unity among the community of believers is exactly why I chose to shift into Week Ten’s Conference of the Birds. In choosing seven birds and seven languages denoting “God,” I hoped to encompass this theme that, despite possessing impossible differences, no single religion holds a monopoly over salvation. Like the Buddhist parable of the blind men and the elephant, I believe all religions strive towards the same understanding of the Divine and arrive at different interpretations. These differences, far from excluding any one faith from attaining the “other-worldly,” unite believers on a common journey of enlightenment. The lessons from this search for truth illustrated in The Conference of the Birds was one of my biggest takeaways from this course. I think people do themselves such a disservice in believing that their way contains the only Gospel Truth. There are so many different routes linking this world to the next. If a believer genuinely perceives the Divine as infinite, how would this not be the case?

This multiplicity of paths to the Divine is what inspired Week Twelve’s imitation of Persepolis. Though dealing more with my own spiritual journey, the comic strip template allowed me to depict the variety of examples necessary to highlight this theme. In high school, my sophomore year theology teacher taught us about Divine Revelation and the different ways in which God unveils Himself to humanity. There are so many areas of my life in which I see proof of this divinity so plainly. I’ve spoken with non-believers who are frustrated by the fact that if God exists, why shouldn’t He come down or show Himself to us? I find it so hard to stop myself in those moments and scream, “He’s right there! He’s in you, He’s in me! He’s in everything! Don’t you see it?” But evidently, the answer is ‘no.’ If I truly believe in an infinite, omnipotent God, shouldn’t it make sense from this conception that a direct revelation would be too much for my finite mind to comprehend? This thought helps me to search for the beauty and good in everything around me and recognize it as having its roots in the Divine. Whether that be reflected through love, through kindness, through nature, or even through suffering, all of these help me to appreciate my faith and broaden my own conception of my creator on a much grander scale. This past semester has only reinforced this belief. I was challenged, enlightened, wounded, healed, distressed, and relieved all at once and I could not be more thankful for this period of tremendous growth. It is my sincere wish that readers of this blog might experience the joy and hope offered by faith at some point in their lives, or if they already have, to hold onto it for as long as they live. Life is hard and suffering does not discriminate, but with faith, our burden is made much lighter.

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8.5: Five Pillars of Islam

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Five Pillars of Islam

The Pillars of Islam are five basic acts in Islam, considered obligatory for all believers. The Quran presents them as a framework for worship and a sign of commitment to the faith. They are:

• Shahadah (creed)
• Daily prayers (salat)
• Almsgiving (zakah)
• Fasting during Ramadan
• Pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj) at least once in a lifetime

The Shia and Sunni sects both agree on the essential details for the performance of these acts.

Ritual prayers, called Ṣalāh or Ṣalāt, must be performed five times a day. Salah is intended to focus the mind on God, and is seen as a personal communication with him that expresses gratitude and worship. Salah is compulsory but flexibility in the specifics is allowed depending on circumstances. The prayers are recited in the Arabic language, and consist of verses from the Qur’an.

A mosque is a place of worship for Muslims, who often refer to it by its Arabic name, masjid. The word mosque in English refers to all types of buildings dedicated to Islamic worship, although there is a distinction in Arabic between the smaller, privately owned mosque and the larger, “collective” mosque. Although the primary purpose of the mosque is to serve as a place of prayer, it is also important to the Muslim community as a place to meet and study. Modern mosques have evolved greatly from the early designs of the 7th century, and contain a variety of architectural elements such as minarets.

Alms-giving

“Zakāt” (“alms”) is giving a fixed portion of accumulated wealth by those who can afford it to help the poor or needy and for those employed to collect Zakat; also, for bringing hearts together, freeing captives, for those in debt (or bonded labour) and for the (stranded) traveller. It is considered a religious obligation (as opposed to voluntary charity) that the well-off owe to the needy because their wealth is seen as a “trust from God’s bounty.” Conservative estimates of annual Zakat are estimated to be 15 times global humanitarian aid contributions. The amount of zakat to be paid on capital assets (e.g. money) is 2.5% (1/40), for people who are not poor. The Qur’an and the hadith also urge a Muslim to give even more as an act of voluntary alms-giving called ṣadaqah.

Fasting (ṣawm) from food and drink (among other things) must be performed from dawn to dusk during the month of Ramadhan. The fast is to encourage a feeling of nearness to God, and during it, Muslims should express their gratitude for and dependence on him, atone for their past sins, and think of the needy. Sawm is not obligatory for several groups for whom it would constitute an undue burden. For others, flexibility is allowed depending on circumstances, but missed fasts usually must be made up quickly.

The pilgrimage, called the ḥajj, has to be done during the Islamic month of Dhu al-Hijjah in the city of Mecca. Every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it must make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in his or her lifetime. Rituals of the Hajj include:

• Walking seven times around the Kaaba
• Walking seven times between Mount Safa and Mount Marwah recounting the steps of Abraham’s wife, while she was looking for water in the desert before Mecca developed into a settlement
• Spending a day in the desert at Mina and then a day in the desert in Arafat praying and worshiping God and following the foot steps of Abraham
• Symbolically stoning the Devil in Mina recounting Abraham’s actions (45)

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The Islamic concept of faith

• Section: Islamic Creed

The basis of any religion is faith. Faith is not merely conviction of the truth of a given principle, but it is essentially the acceptance of a principle as a basis for action. Without faith, a man is like a car without a steering wheel, drifting aimlessly upon a sea of doubt and confusion. What is faith in Islam? It is belief in the Unity of God or Tawheed. This is expressed in the primary Kalimah (Word) of Islam as: “Laa ilaaha illallaah", meaning: “There is no one worthy of worship but Allah.” This beautiful phrase is the bedrock of Islam, its foundation and its essence. It is the expression of this belief, which differentiates a true Muslim from an unbeliever, or one who associates others with God in His Divinity. The acceptance or denial of this phrase produces a world of difference among human beings. The believer finds out the right path, knows the truth and chalks out the course of life in the light of reality; the unbeliever chases one illusion after the other and gropes into the dark. For the believers, there is the promise of unhampered progress and resounding success in this world and in the Hereafter; whereas failure and ignominy are ultimately the lot of those who refuse to believe in it. In fact, Tawheed is a revolutionary concept, a tremendously forceful doctrine and is the very starting-point of Islam. However, the difference between believers and unbelievers is not the result of merely uttering a few words. The real force lies in the conscious acceptance of this doctrine and its stipulations and complete adherence to it in practical life.

The meaning of: “There is no one worthy of worship but Allah”: In Arabic, the word ‘Ilaah’ means 'one who is worshipped', i.e., a Being which on account of its Greatness and Power is considered worthy to be worshipped, to be bowed to in love, humility and submission. Anything or any being possessing powers too great to be comprehended by man is also called Ilaah. The concept of Ilaah also includes the possession of infinite powers that may astonish others. It also conveys the sense that others are dependent upon Ilaah and He is not dependent upon any one else. It appears from humankind’s ancient history and the oldest relics of antiquity that we have been able to obtain, that in every age, man had recognized some deity or deities and worshipped them. Even in the present age, every nation on the face of the earth -- from the most primitive to the most civilized -- believes in and worships some deity. It shows that the idea of having a deity and of worshipping is ingrained in human nature. There is something within man's soul, which forces him to do so. Acceptance of the doctrine of Unity of God is what is termed faith in Islam. However, faith in the Islamic sense is not merely intellectual assent to a certain dogma or a subjective emotional response to a great personality, but a volitional and dynamic reaction to belief in one God, Who stands for the highest perfection and belief in the Hereafter -- a belief that fully assimilates both intellectual and emotional responses. It is at once an affirmation of a truth and a surrender to the truth affirmed. Intellectual apprehension plays an important part in Islamic faith. The Quran, in several places, appeals to human reason in arriving at true belief. It says (what means): "And thus do We explain the Signs in various ways that the truth may become established and that they may say: "Thou hast read out what thou hast learnt' and that We may explain it to a people who have knowledge." [Quran 6: 106] Addressing the unbelievers, the Quran asks (what means): "Those who associate gods with Allah say: 'If Allah had pleased, we would not have associated gods with Him, nor would our fathers, nor would we have made anything unlawful.' In like manner did those who were before them accuse God's Messenger of falsehood, until they tasted of Our wrath. Say: "Have you any knowledge? Then produce it for us. You only follow mere conjecture. And you only tell lies." [Quran 6: 149] "Surely, the worst of beasts in the sight of Allah are the deaf and the dumb, who have no sense." [Quran 8: 32] The faith in which knowledge, emotion and will are all involved, is manifested not in the form of a doctrine or dogma, but in the form of an ideal value. Faith in Islam is the moral ground and basis for action and not a dogmatic assertion of salvation-justification like Christianity. The well-being of man, therefore, depends upon faith that is accompanied by good actions. Thus, faith is firm belief arising out of knowledge and unshakable conviction in the Unity of Allah, in His Attributes and revealed guidance. One who believes as such is called Mu'min (faithful). This faith invariably leads man to a life of obedience and submission to the Will of Allah, and a person who lives this life of submission is known as a Muslim. Thus, we find that faith is the starting point that leads man to a life of submission to Allah, and that a man cannot become a Muslim without faith. The Unity of God is the most fundamental concept in Islam.

The first step in discussing the concept of faith in Islam is to establish the existence of God, because if He does not exist there is no question of believing in Him. Therefore, the proof of existence of Allah is the basis of the whole concept of Islamic faith.

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Understanding meaning of life

Publication : 03-03-2024

Views : 2040

how to understand ayah 56 from al-Dhariyat and ayah 72 from al-ahzab? because in that verse from alDhariyat mentions that Allah created humans to worship Allah, but in that verse from ahzab says that humans were not created to worship Allah, it is because AFTER humans have chosen to worship Allah, humans have responsibility to worship Allah .

Praise be to Allah.

Allah the Exalted says (translation of the meaning): And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me. I do not want from them any provision, nor do I want them to feed Me. Indeed, it is Allah who is the [continual] Provider, the firm Possessor of strength (Adh-Dhariyat 51:56-58) .

" Thus, He, Glorified be He, informed that He created the creation for His worship, and sent all the messengers commanding to worship Him Alone ."

See: "Jawab Al-I`tiradat Al-Misriyyah `Ala Al-Fatwa Al-Hamawiyyah" (p. 90) .

Imam Ibn Al-Qayyim (may Allah have mercy on him) said: "Without the divine command, the creation of man would have been in vain and futile, and Allah is exalted above that, and He has absolved Himself from it, just as He has absolved Himself from defects and deficiencies. Allah the Exalted says (translation of the meaning): Then did you think that We created you uselessly and that to Us you would not be returned? and He says (translation of the meaning): Does man think that he will be left neglected? Ash-Shafi`i said (concerning the ayah): 'That he is not commanded nor prohibited .'"

It is known that leaving man like animals, neglected and idle, is contrary to wisdom; for he was created for the purpose of his perfection, and his perfection is to be knowledgeable of his Lord, loving Him, and standing in His servitude. Allah the Exalted says (translation of the meaning): And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me, and He says (translation of the meaning): That you may know that Allah is over all things competent and that Allah has encompassed all things in knowledge, and He says (translation of the meaning): That is so you may know that Allah knows whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth, and that Allah is Knowing of all things .

This knowledge and this servitude are the purpose of creation and the command, and they are the greatest perfection of man, and Allah the Exalted, out of His care and Mercy for him, has exposed him to this perfection and prepared for him its apparent and hidden causes, and enabled him to attain it .

The basis of the divine command is Islam, faith, and excellence, and they all go back to being grateful for all blessings, small and great, from Him, and to glorify and revere Him and to deal with Him in a manner befitting His Majesty. So His favors are mentioned, and He is thanked and not denied, and He is obeyed and not disobeyed, and He is remembered and not forgotten .

This, along with the divine command including the adornment of the servant with every beautiful character, and his performance of every good deed and correct speech, and his avoidance of every bad character, and abstaining from every ugly act and false statement. Thus, his command includes the noblest of morals, the beauties of actions, the truth of speech, and benevolence to creation, and perfecting himself with all kinds of perfections, and shunning their opposites, and purifying himself from them, while exposing him to the great and everlasting reward, and the companionship of his Lord in the abode of eternity .

So which of the two matters is more befitting of wisdom? This, or sending him neglected like horses, mules, and donkeys, eating, drinking, and mating like animals ?!

And does His sacred perfection require that ?!

{ So high [above all] is Allah, the Sovereign, the Truth. There is no deity except Him, Lord of the noble throne. So high [above all] is Allah, the Sovereign, the Truth. There is no deity except Him, Lord of the noble throne" (Al-Mu'minun 23:116) concluded from "Shifa' Al-'Aleel fi Masail Al-Qada' wa Al-Qadar wa Al-Hikmah wa Al-Ta'leel" (2/334-335 ).

Allah the Exalted says (translation of the meaning): Indeed, we offered the Trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, and they declined to bear it and feared it; but man [undertook to] bear it. Indeed, he was unjust and ignorant. [It was] so that Allah may punish the hypocrite men and hypocrite women and the polytheist men and polytheist women and that Allah may accept repentance from the believing men and believing women. And ever is Allah Forgiving and Merciful (Al-Ahzab 33:72-73) .

The Trust mentioned in the noble verse is the performance of obligations and acting in obedience to Allah, as reported from Ibn `Abbas who said: "The Trust: the obligations, Allah offered them to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, if they performed them, He would reward them, and if they neglected them, He would punish them. They disliked that and feared it without disobedience, but out of reverence for the religion of Allah lest they fail to uphold it, then He offered it to Adam who accepted it with all that it entailed ."

Imam Ibn Kathir mentioned several opinions regarding the Trust, including :

1- That it is: obedience .

2- That it is: the religion, obligations, and limits .

3- That it is: the bath from sexual impurity .

4- That it is: the Trust is threefold: prayer, fasting, and the bath from sexual impurity .

Then he said: "And all these opinions do not contradict each other, rather they are consistent and return to the fact that it is the divine command, and acceptance of the commands and prohibitions with their condition, which is that if one fulfills them, he is rewarded, and if he neglects them, he is punished. So man accepted it despite his weakness, ignorance, and injustice, except for those whom Allah has guided, and with Allah is aid sought" End quote from "Tafsir Ibn Kathir " (6/488-489).

There is no contradiction between the noble verses mentioned in the question, for in the verse of offering the Trust, it is stated that man accepted the Trust with all that it entails of honor and obligation, and this is a choice from him to bear these obligations, and in the first verse, Allah the Exalted clarified the purpose of creating all creation, which is: His worship, and this worship is achieved by man by choice, not compulsion. Allah the Exalted created them for worship, so among them are those who believe and those who disbelieve. So whoever believes has fulfilled the Trust he chose before, and whoever disbelieves has betrayed that Trust .

As Allah the Exalted says (translation of the meaning): And [mention] when your Lord took from the children of Adam - from their loins - their descendants and made them testify of themselves, [saying to them], 'Am I not your Lord?' They said, 'Yes, we have testified.' [This] - lest you should say on the day of Resurrection, 'Indeed, we were of this unaware.' Or [lest] you say, 'It was only that our fathers associated [others with Allah] before, and we were but descendants after them. Then would You destroy us for what the falsifiers have done?' And thus do We [explain in] detail the verses, and perhaps they will return (Al-A'raf 7:172-174) .

" And Allah the Mighty and Majestic says (translation of the meaning): Does man think that he will be left neglected? Indeed, every privilege is met with responsibility and obligation, and the greater the blessings of the Creator, Glorified and Exalted be He, upon the creature, the obligations come with matters of servitude. Allah the Exalted says (translation of the meaning): Indeed, we offered the Trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, and they declined to bear it and feared it; but man [undertook to] bear it. Indeed, he was unjust and ignorant .

The Trust, as explained by many commentators, is the obligations of servitude to Allah the Exalted. Therefore, the dominion over the universe and the honor with capacities and abilities were met with the burden of the obligations of servitude and stewardship on earth, And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me. The more man realizes the attribute of servitude in himself to Allah the Exalted, the closer he is to fulfilling the requirements of the Trust and keeping the covenant and performing the role entrusted to him. The further he is from the attributes of servitude to Allah the Exalted, the more his negligence and reluctance in performing his role for which he was created," End quote from "Mabahith fi I`jaz Al-Quran," Dr. Mustafa Muslim (p. 13) .

And Allah the Exalted knows what the servants will do, and He has written that, Glorified and Praised be He, and it is necessary to know that Allah the Exalted created all creation for His worship, but the difference between man and others is that Allah the Exalted has given man a choice and will, if he turns to faith, He will guide him, and if he turns away, he will bear the consequences of this aversion .

Regarding this, some scholars have said about the first verse, that its meaning is: "Except to submit and acknowledge servitude to Me, and this has occurred from all of them willingly and unwillingly," End quote .

And some of them said: "The verse is specific to those who obey Him from both groups who have performed worship, so the meaning is that whoever is found to have performed worship, then he is created for it, and whoever is not found to have performed it, then he is not created for it ."

There are other opinions, and they are incorrect "and the mistake arises from interpreting the verb (to worship) as occurring, then from those who interpret worship: as the legislative worship, the worship of obedience and compliance, they made the verse specific to the believers; because they are the ones from whom the worship of obedience occurred, not others, or they made it general and considered the tawhid of the disbelievers during hardship as the worship that occurred from them, or considered their acknowledgment of Lordship as the worship that occurred from them, but it does not benefit them. And those who interpret worship as the general worship, the worship of compulsion and submission, made the verse general; because this general servitude occurs from the general public, and likewise, those who interpret worship as recognition .

And the correct view: is what we have presented that the intended worship is the legislative worship, the worship of obedience and compliance, and that the verb (to worship) is expressed as His will, not as its occurrence, and that what is described as being willed without occurrence is only meant as the will to be obligated to it, and the command for it only. So the intended meaning of His saying: And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me: is not the occurrence of worship; rather the command for it as a test. And Allah is the One Who grants success to the correct path, there is no partner to Him," End quote "Majallat Al-Buhuth Al-Islamiyyah " (91/377-378).

Please see: A study of the saying of Allah the Exalted: And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me, by the esteemed Dr. Muhammad bin Abdul Rahman Abu Saif Al-Juhani, Majallat Al-Buhuth Al-Islamiyyah : (91/327-378).

And Allah knows best .

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