Islam is a monotheistic and Abrahamic religion alongside Judaism and Christianity. It is currently the second largest religion in the world today. Its beliefs come from the Qur'an which literally means "the recitation" which is believed to be a literal transcription of the word of God. Its main prophet is named Muhammad who began Islam by speaking with the angel Gabriel in a cave during his meditation and then acting as an instrument of God to help write the Qur’an. Muhammad then spread Islam to the scattered tribes of Arabia by becoming the leader of Yathrib and using his wonderful leadership abilities to then grow his influence over virtually all of Arabia. Muhammad is known by Muslims to be the seal of the profits because no profits after Muhammad should be considered legitimate. Muhammad also left behind the Hadith or “tradition” which is a collection of writings compiled of reports of Muhammad’s actions as leader of Yathrib. These reports are used as a more specific code of ethics in day to day life and from these reports the 5 Pillars of Islam are derived (Smith 160). Although Islam shares many similarities to Judaism and Christianity it is often viewed in the US with hate derived from preconceived notions following the attack on September 11th 2001. This paper seeks to provide an overview of Islam’s history as well as its two major sects and 5 main pillars to remove preconceived notions and provide a glance into the minds of the Islamic people.
For my paper I decided to choose the religion of Islam. I decided to pick this religion because of its fast growing rate. It is also different from what I am used to growing up with, so I was interested in learning more. I had learned some basic facts after the 9/11 event, but the Muslim religion and culture was still a mystery to me. Picking this topic has helped me learn more about Muslims and will help me better relate to them in my future work.
...etween Islam and western civilization. The differences in the belief, rituals, and the culture. Islam has some common features with western civilization. Throughout this paper, the most surprising fact that I found out was the contribution of Islam to the modern world, which were geometry, algebra, geography, physics, science, trigonometry, sine, tangent, and co-tangent. The lesson that I learned from this paper would be about the five pillars. Even though, every single pillar doesn’t apply to me the second pillar which represents prayer was a great lesson to be learned. It also revealed to me how important is the role of prayer in Islam society. Overall, it was a great experience learning about the Muhammad life, Quran, Hijrah, core beliefs of Muslim, contributions of Islam to the modern world, and this research helped me to understand more in depth about islam.
Islam
In recent modern times, the Islamic faith and culture has been scarred by bad publicity and criticism worldwide concerning terrorism, fanaticism, and the treatment of women. All these issues have existed in most religions throughout time, but the treatment of women is different in which most other cultures and religions have minimized the issues and Islam, under its attempts to also end it, has failed to create a society in which the treatment of women is equal to that of men. The treatment of women, beginning from the time when they are born, to the time of their marriage, to the moment of their death, has not been equal to that of men despite the actions taken to end the injustice.
The Islamic faith rose during the life of Muhammad the Prophet (570 - 632 C.E.) who was born in Mecca, an area that was mostly Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian. At the age of 40, during a religious retreat at Mount Hira, he had a revelation in which the angel Gabriel spoke to him.
In the early 6th century, Muhammad introduced Islam into the Arab world, and asserted that there was only one true God. Islam demanded that believers obey God’s will and laws (Islamic Law, web). By introducing Isla...
The religion that most Muslims believe in is Islamic, a religion where they believe that there is only one God, Allah; the Arabic word for god (dictionary, 2014). This religion is to be the second largest religion in the world with 1 billion followers (BBC, 2014). Just like Christians or Catholic, Muslims have book of laws like The Bible, it is called the Qur’an but they also have the Sunnah. These two books are the basis of the practice and beliefs of Islam. The Sunnah is the traditional part of the Muslim law that is based on the words and acts of Muhammad, and preserved into the traditional literature (dictionary, 2014). Muhammad was the person who first founded the religion of Islam, which is accepted by Muslims across the world as the last of the prophets of God (Britannia). Also, within the Sunnah is the five basic Pillars of Islam. These are the most important practices of the religion because it is the obligations that every Muslim must they must be satisfied with in order to live a good and responsible life; according to Islam (BBC, 2014). The five pillars consist of Shahadah, Salat,Zakat, Sawm, and Hajj. The Shahadah is when they recite the Muslim profession of faith, the Salat is when perf...
The Quran retains many of the similar aspects of the Christian perspective of God. Through studying the aspects of the Islamic faith years ago, and reading the book of the Muslims this present year, I have come to understand why Muslim’s believe what they believe. The Quran contains the fundamentals of the Islamic faith, which include the five pillars of faith and the six main articles of faith. Allah is eternal and all-powerful; he is claimed to be the only God. In the Quran, God is mentioned numerous times helping the reader to understand who He is. As well, humanity is an important aspect, for the Quran is directed towards humanity to follow God, for they are the most important existence on the earth.
Islam is a powerful religion, whose followers; the Muslims, believe in the 5 pillars of Islam. They are expected to demonstrate their adoration for Allah, profess their faith, pray multiple times throughout the day, and learn according to their sacred texts. Their most famous text is The Koran, which instructs Muslims to fulfill their duties and it informs them about their significant figures. An example is the quote excerpted from it that follows: “Righteous is he who believes in Allah and the Last Day and the Angels and the scriptures and the prophets.” (2:177) It teaches and illustrates their beliefs, values, practices, and historical documents. Islam is followed by more than a billion people, which influences others surrounding their culture
Islam is an Arabic word that means surrender, obedience and submission to Allah (God) (Khorfan et al., 2010). Islam is one of the three major religion in the worlds which Christianity and Judaism. Islam has two main resources that Muslims depend on them in their daily life. These sources are Holy Quran (the words of Allah) and the saying of the prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that called Sunnah (Almatary et al., 2014). In addition, a third source was considered for making the decision for complicated issues after evaluating these conditions. This source is called Ejtihad (ijma’a) which means moral agreement between religion leaders about specific situation (Khorfan et al., 2010). In other words, the leaders are meeting to discuss some issues and proof that decision from the Holy Quran and The Sunnah (Almatary et al., 2014). The fourth source is Qiyas which means the religion scholars are using the logic to evaluate moral issues in general (Khorfan et al., 2010). Muslims are using all of the sources to support most of the issues such as abortion. Islamic law is flexible and deals with every aspects of our life to eliminate any threat a person might face in the life.
What is Islam? Islam is a theory based on faith followed by Muslins. Who are Muslims? Muslims are the people who practice the Islamic religion; they believe in one God and his last prophet Muhammad. Although, Christianity is the largest religion in the world; Islam, which is usually referred to as "submission to God" (Qur’an, 3.19) is growing fast and has reached 2nd place. Despite the fact that, there is a controversial opinion about Islam going in the United States due to terrorism, there still many people that follow the Islamic religion around the world. Since, Islam is an interesting religion that is growing faster than normal, I have decided to learn more about