LA ILAHA ILLALLAH, no god but Allah, is the most fundamental and oft-chanted phrase of the Islamic belief. It simultaneously negates the existence of all other deities, and affirms the divinity of the only one true God, Allah---all in one breath. It is truly the most exclusive and iconoclastic claim that rejects the notion of anyone being divine except Allah.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines ‘cosmopolitan’ as something that is “common to the whole world,” or a person who is “at home in all parts of the earth or in many spheres of interest” (1978, 301). Now, how, on Allah’s earth, can we talk about “Muslim” world cosmopolitanism?
That is just how Allah or His prophet, Muhammad (570-632), from day one, viewed Islam, whether anyone liked it or not, as the religion for entire humanity. Listen to its first revealed injunction “Read in the name of thy Lord, Who created Man from congealed blood; Proclaim that thy Lord is Most Bountiful, Who taught with Pen; Taught man that which he knew not.” (Quran, 96: 1-5). In this first proclamation of Islam, Allah reveals Himself as the Creator of entire humanity, and the Giver of all knowledge.
It was, in fact, this universal sense of God that gave Islam a different outlook which broke with the earlier notions of tribal or regional gods who supposedly competed against one another in providing protection and prosperity to their respective followers. Islam freed God from the tribal and racial confinements of the past cultures. (Maududi, 1960)
The greatest attraction of Islam was that people did not have to belong to a certain caste or ethnicity to be equally chosen of Allah, the Creator. Not tribal allegiance, but human commitment was required to reach the Divine Being. S...
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...rrode religious restrictions in matters of inter-religious marriages.
Behind most Islamic arts and sciences in the Middle Ages there were also great non-Muslim minds. It was in Islamic Spain where a cosmopolitan society could produce the Arbophile mozarabs who were the medieval Christian version of the modern Anglophile Muslims, and you are looking at one of them.
Thank you.
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...y by compiling a summary of Islamic history, and, by doing so, creates a complete Islamic history that can go toe to toe with European history. As a result, his argument stands to be thorough, suggesting that Islamic history indeed plays a role in today’s international world
Ibn Munqidh, Usama. "From Memoirs." McNeill, William and Marilyn Robinson Waldman. The Islamic World. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1973. 184-206.
Writing about a topic that has been on an upward slope of controversy and criticism within the past two decades, Fred Donner a notable Islamic History professor at the University of Chicago whom has written multiple texts about the origins of Islam, tells the tale of the beginnings of Islam and how it would be shaped into its current manifestation today with Muhammad and the Believers. Donner admirably conveys the early history of Islam and its success to its centrality and “Believers’ Movement” opposed to many western historians accrediting it to the need of social and economic reform. Muhammad and the Believers is split up into five chapters, all of which Donner imparts his main thesis of Islam being a group of believers (mu’minun) opposed
Print. Doak, Robin. Empire of the Islamic World. Rev. ed.
Hilāl, ʻAlī Al-Dīn. Islamic Resurgence in the Arab World. New York, NY: Praeger, 1982. Print.
Thesis: Islam and The Islamic Empire started suddenly and spread rapidly over a 500+ year period because of political, cultural, and religious reasons.
Throughout his life, the Prophet Muhammad proved to be exceptionally adept at uniting diverse groups, negotiating a series of alliances and loyalty arrangements that spanned religious, tribal, ethnic, and familial lines (Berggren 2009). Among other things, this ability enabled Muhammad to forge a shared identity and found a nascent Islamic state from a diverse and even heterogeneous community (Rahman 1982; Ernst 2003, pp. 87-93). This diversity proved to be both a source of strength and conflict for Islam, and following the death of Muhammad early Islamic communities engaged in extensive debates not only about the nature of his teachings or how to carry his legacy forward, but also about the terms that should be used to define his authority. Although this debate produced a colorful array of movements within the tapestry of early Islamic civilization, this essay offers a critical examination of two particularly distinct perspectives on the nature of prophetic authority: namely, those articulated
The Islamic tradition, as reflected in Naguib Mahfouz’s Zaabalawi, has over the course of history had an incredible impact on Arab culture. In Mahfouz’s time, Islamic practices combined with their political relevance proved a source of both great power and woe in Middle Eastern countries. As alluded to in Zaabalawi, Mahfouz asserts the fact that not all Muslims attain religious fulfillment through this common tradition, and other methods outside the scope of Islam may be necessary in true spiritual understanding.
Highlighting the main beliefs of Islam as well as criticising these philosophies, Al Ghazali’s main contribution to Islamic theology was showing the relationship between God’s power and human acts.
The Much common ground is shared in attempt to provide approaches to finding answers to some of the deepest questions of life. I will discuss these significant similarities focusing on human dignity, identity, difference, and guardianship. “Islam is similar to Christianity in respect to human dignity and identity in that both acknowledge creation and that God is the creator of heaven and earth”. The aspect of both subscribes to the role of prophets who were venerated in both Islam and Christianity. Due to this fact, they both are traced to the times of Abraham (Ipgrave and Marshall 14-77). The goal of each faiths’ ethos is to love God by way of obeying His commandments on guidance from their respective Holy Books. They both do broadly consist of individuals that owe their allegiance to a metaphysical deity. Owing to the fact that the two are considered Abrahamic religions. They do both captures in the strictest sense the aspect of guardianship in respect to both having belief in only one God. A belief is impliedly preaching the existence of heaven and hell. Goes on to affirm the existence of the belief of the second coming of the Savior, which affirms the faiths’ ethos towards the attainment of the religions’ goals. Aimed at promoting and achieving a holistic understanding of religion, as the flexibility to accommodate diverse backgrounds of its adherents that is always prone to abuse. Christianity and Islam’s
Renard, John. Islam and Christianity: theological themes in comparative perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. Print.
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Religion is an important factor in many lives in today’s society. A particular western religion that is taken very seriously by many is known as Islam. Essentially, Islam means “submission”, or in other words a person is to abide by God and peace will follow. In order to comprehend the Islamic religion, it is consequential to view the major themes associated with this religion. By going through the central themes of Islam it could help others comprehend what is involved with this specific religion.
Kenneth Jost. 2005. “Understanding Islam.” Annual Editions: Anthropology 11/12, 34th Edition. Elvio Angeloni. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.