Download Islam reflected as a major religion of the world

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Islam reflected as a major religion of the world
The youngest of the world’s major religions is known to be the Islam and it is also
one of the largest of the world with more than one billion adherents. Islam is the
dominant religion in many of the developing nations in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
Because of these factors, Islam is one of the most interesting and important religions of
the world.
Islam began among the Arabian Desert people in the seventh century. The people
of this area had developed religious forms of their own and had been exposed to various
other religions for centuries. Although the influence was not strong, Byzantine
Christianity had been a factor in the lives of the people. There were many cities involved
with Christianity close to Arabia such as, Judea, Damascus, Caesarea, Antioch; where the
Christian princes ruled, and many of the early church fathers wrote and taught there.
The people of Arabia were also familiar with Judaism. Several of the desert tribes
were Jewish were Jewish. There are also traces of another religion that may have
influenced the formulation of Islam, “Zoroastrianism”. It is said that this religion is the
oldest religion of the revealed world religions and it provably have had more influence in
humankind than any other.
Since Islam is one of the youngest of the world’s religions, the details of the life
of its founder are more readily available than are those of other founders. Muhammad
was born into the trading society of Mecca in 570. He was a part of one of the dominant
tribes, the Qu'raish. Not much is known about this man during the first forty years of his
life other than the fact that he married a rich widow and later they had a daughter, Fatima,
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who became the wife of the great warrior, Ali. However, around 610, Muhammad
claimed that after meditating in the desert God had revealed many messages to him
concerning life. These revelations came from the angel Gabriel, who Muhammad claimed
God had used to call him to publish his religion. After these experiences in the desert,
Muhammad claimed to be a prophet of God with the great desire to guide others by God's
message. So, he began to preach to those around him in 617. The people of Mecca at
this time were involved in a religion called Ka'aba meaning "black stone," in which they
literally worshipped a black stone. Those following this religion believed that many
objects, other than the black stone, possessed spirits and power. Therefore, Muhammad's
message asserting the lordship of Allah was not well received at first. The people called
him a sorcerer and false prophet and claimed that he was possessed. Later in 622
Muhammad was forced to flee Mecca, he had been condemned by Meccan authorities
who held to Ka'aba. Muhammad found refuge in the rival city of Medina where he was
accepted and gathered a fairly large following. Even in Mecca he had some followers and
people all over were accepting his message, but, from Medina, he issued a holy war
against Mecca. After eight years, Muhammad captured Mecca and became the ruler. He
implemented the divine orders he believed he was called to carry out and retained the
pilgrimage to Mecca as part of his religious restoration.
The Qur’an or the scriptures of Islam indicates the basic believes that Muslim
holds. It is also said that The Qur'an is a Message from Allah to humanity. It was
transmitted to us in a chain starting from the Almighty Himself to the angel Gabriel to the
Prophet Muhammad (saas). This message was given to the Prophet (saas) in pieces over
a period spanning approximately 23 years, he was 40 years old when the Qur'an began to
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be revealed to him, and he was 63 when the revelation was completed. The first things
the Muslims hear in the mornings are selections of the Qur’an. Verses from it are
inscribed on the walls of the Muslim homes for decoration; its words are often the last a
person hears before death. Among Muslims it is considered a supreme act of piety to
commit the entire Qur’an to memory any person that achieves this is given an honorific
title “Hafiz”. Since the Qur’an is the word of God, its messages are authority for all
Muslims on God, how God expects people to live, and the eternal destiny of humankind.
Allah is revealed as the sovereign God over the entire universe. In the Qur’an it is
revealed that humans are the creation of Allah and must be obedient to him. Righteous
person who would win the favors of God must submit to his will. Because of this
emphasis on God’s power and sovereignty, the words fatalism and predestination has
been used to describe Islam. Whether one does good or evil, enjoys success or suffers
failure it is ultimately entirely in the hands of God who rules the world and who has
planed each event in advance. When the idea is carried to this extreme, people do not
possess freedom of choice, therefore they are not responsible for their acts.
It is also known that Islam is not a temple oriented religion. Although certain
places are venerated by Muslims, it would not have suited the nomadic life of the Arab
people to require them to worship in any sort of temple. However, Muhammad decreed
that Muslims were required to pray together at a mosque on Friday. There an imam leads
in prayer; the imam is not a priest but a pious man. The scripture of Islam is the Quran
(reading) which is made up of 114 surahs (chapters) arranged according to the length of
the surah. The Quran is the Word of God; it is eternal, absolute, and irrevocable.
Muhammad acted only as a stenographer for Allah. Probably no scripture has influenced
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its people more than the Quran. It is dutifully read by Muslims and memorized in its
entirety by many. The Quran has twenty-five references to Jesus Christ and represents
Jesus as predicting the coming of the founder of Islam.
It is also known that the position of in pre-Islamic Arabia was very low.
Apparently, Islam women were considered property, owed by her father, husband, or
elder brother. If she displeased her husband, he could divorce her without any recourse
on her part. Also the practice of murdering babies was forbidden by Islam. Whereas
Muhammad allowed polygamy to continue and marry to many women himself, limited
the number of wives a Muslim could have to four, provided a man could afford them and
treat them equally. It is clear that in Islam as in many other religions the women are
expected to be submissive to their fathers, husbands and brothers.
One of the most controversial aspects of Islam is Jihad, in the Qur'an, however,
and even in later Muslim usage, the term jihad is usually followed by the expression fi
sabil Illah, which means "in the path of God." The description of violence against the
enemies of the Muslim community as jihad if sabil Illah gave a sacred meaning to what
was otherwise just tribal warfare. Historically Muslin nations waged war to spread
Muslim rule, as well as the most clearly political and economic reasons. Muslim scholars
teach that only defensive wars are truly “Jihad”. Muslim leaders have, however, often
used the concept of “holy war” to justify their actions, usually with mixed results.
Because Muslim war against the Christians crusades war to defend Islam, it was rightly
called “Jihad”.
Islam spread and developed at exactly the right time is history for expansion. It
came at a time when the Arab people were ready for unifying force; when the Byzantine
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Empire in the Middle East was on the verge of collapse from internal corruption and
misrule; and when the Persian Empire was vulnerable. Within a century of the death of
the prophet, the religion of Islam has become the unifying force of Arabs. Muslim
armies conquered Palestine, Syria, Persia, and Egypt and swept across North Africa to
Spain. In the centuries that fallowed, Islam spread throughout the Middle East and
moved into India, China and south East Asia. There were several reasons for this
massive rapid expansion. Islam is a universal religion; is a religion with wide appeal and
the world that surrounded the Muslin at that time was corrupt and confused.
Islam is not highly structure as Roman Catholic Christianity is, one reason is that
Islam can be practiced privately, and that most duties of a Muslim God can be done at
home, without a priest. Another reason for this lack of structure is that Muhammad never
clearly left a successor or a plan for the succession of his leadership. The hint of
succession that the prophet made was to appoint at his friend abu-Bakr should be the
caliph-“deputy” or “representative”, who could rule the Muslims in temporal matters.
The caliphate is the one and central unifying office in the history of Islam, they were
friends to the prophets and acted as pious leaders of the faithful. History has noted that
after the tenth century, however the golden age of Muslim civilization began to decline
and the caliphate began to lose its power. It is also notated in history that there have been
periodic attempts to restore the Caliphate. Some Islamist organizations consider it to be
only legitimate form of government in Muslim societies.
Eighty-five percent of Muslims are Sunnis or Traditionalists. Sunni Muslims
think of themselves as the guardians of Islamic orthodoxy and tradition. They base their
practice of Islam on the Qur’an and traditions, known as hadith, concerning the words
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and acts of the prophet Muhammad and his close companions, as well as analogy and the
consensus. As Islam grew and adopted the character of many nations into which it
spread, schools of interpretation arose that varied in the amount of weight they gave to
the Qur’an, the hadith, and human reason in interpreting the life of Islam. It is recorded
that there are four of these schools of thought, and every Sunni Muslim is a member of
one of then.
The basic body of the Islam religion is represented by the Shi’ites. It began as a
political dispute over the leadership of Islam but it is said that later took on theological
overtones. Because Muhammad left no clear message on who was to succeed him, he
was followed by three of his closed associates. Muslims believe that Muhammad had
actually named Ali, his cousin and son-in-law as his successors. Ali was finally named
caliph in 656, but gradually lost control of the Muslim world. He was murdered in 661,
and the Umayyad dynasty took the caliphate. Ali Youngest son, Husayn challenged the
caliphate but was defeated in the battle of Karbala in Iraq. Husayn and most of his family
were killed in the battle, therefore they are considered as martyrs by the Shi’ites. The
shi’ites believe that while revolution ended with Muhammad and the Qur’an in later
generations, there were divinely inspired figures called “imams”, and for them an “imam”
speaks with the authority of God. They also believe that with the disastrous events of
680, the next imam was another son of Ali-Zain. They have also traditionally believed in
the existence of Mahdi, a messiah figure who will one day appear on earth and lead the
world into an era of Justice. In addition the Shi’ites doesn’t trust on the Qur’an, because
in the current version of it is not mentioned that Ali is Muhammad successor, and it must
have been tempered with by his enemies.
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In the following years the glories of the caliphate of Bagdad, Islam settled down
to a relatively routine existence. There still were the battles with the Christian crusades
over the Holly sites in Palestine in the twelve or thirteen centuries, which produced one
of the most outstanding leaders of all times, Saladin. When the European countries were
moving out of the medieval twilight into industrial age, many Islamic nations chose to
continue living in pre-industrialize societies. One of the strongest reasons the Islamic had
to choose to stay in such conditions was obvious that the conservative nature of the
religion played a significant aspect. Another important and nevertheless outstanding
reason for the lack of change in the Muslim world may have been their sense of self
satisfaction relative to European Countries.
It is clear that the Muslim world as one of the youngest major religions of the
world, have followed their believes without major changes, which enables them to
maintain a perfect equilibrium when teaching the prophet’s words and thoughts. They
have also chosen not to open their nation to major changes since they are settled in their
believes there is nothing in this world that would attract them more than the messages
from their God Ala. It is very important and nourishing to be able to acquire this
knowledge as this religion keeps growing and more of its practitioners are slowly but
surely arriving to our nation to cohabit with the western neighbor.
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Sources:
1. Text Book, Religion of the World Ninth Edition by Lewis M. Hopfe & Mark R.
Woodward.
Websites :
2. http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/Islam/MohammadLife.html
3. http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/
4. http://www.indialife.com/Religions/islam1.htm