The Study of Islam

This chapter will look at the history and

heritage of Islam and their impact on
Muslim societies and world events today.

It will explore the challenges and

struggles within the global Muslim
community in defining the meaning of
Islam for modern and postmodern life.

The word Islam means "submission" or

"surrender."

A Muslim is one who submits, who seeks

to actualize God's will.

The Muslim community (ummah) is a

transnational community of believers,
ordained and guided by God, whose
mission is to spread and institutionalize
an Islamic Order, to create a socially just
society.
 Islam belongs to the Abrahamic
family of monotheistic faiths. Like
Jews and Christians, Muslims view
themselves as the children of
Abraham, as proclaimed in each of
their sacred scriptures: the Old
Testament (Hebrew Bible), the New
Testament, and the Quran.

Despite significant differences,

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
share a belief in one God, the creator,
sustainer, and ruler of the universe
who is beyond ordinary experience.
 The Growth of Islam

Today, Islam is the world's second-largest

religion. Its 1.8 billion followers can be
found in some fifty-seven predominantly
Muslim countries, extending from North
Africa to Southeast Asia.

Although Islam is often associated with the

Arabs, they constitute only about 20 percent
of the worldwide Muslim community. In
fact, most Muslims live in Asia and Africa:
Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and
Nigeria.

In recent years, Islam has become a

significant presence in the West as the
second- or third-largest religion in Europe
(in particular, France, Germany, and
England) and in North America.

Islam is the fastest-growing religion in

North America and in Europe. It is the
second-largest religion in Britain, France,
Holland, Belgium, and Germany, and the
third-largest religion in the United States.
 The Quran and Faith

While it is correct to say that there is one Islam,

revealed in the Quran and the traditions of the
Prophet, there have been many interpretations
of Islam: some complementing each other, and
others in conflict.

Muslims today, like other people of faith,

struggle with the relationship of their religious
tradition to modernity and postmodernity.

How does a faith revealing a God-centered

universe speak to a modern, post-
Enlightenment, human-centered, secular world
that emphasizes reason and science?

Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam contends

with questions about a range of social, cultural,
and scientific issues.

Muslims in the United States, like other

religious or ethnic minorities before them, face
many questions about their faith and identity.
 The Foundation

Because of the remarkable success of

Muhammad and the early Muslim community
in spreading the faith of Islam and the rule of
Muslims, an idealized memory of Islamic
history and of Muslim rule became the model
for success, serving as a common reference
point for later generations of reformers.

At the core of Muslim belief and faith are the

messenger and the message.

As Christians look to Jesus and the New

Testament and Jews look to Moses and the
Torah, Muslims regard Muhammad and the
Quran as the final, perfect, and complete
revelation of God's will for humankind.

The foundations of Islam are belief in God

(Allah, Arabic for "The God") and • Allah: God
in God's messenger, Muhammad.
 Although God is beyond our
ordinary experience, or is
transcendent, Islam teaches that God
can be known through his
messengers and revelations.

Thus, Muhammad and the Quran,

the final messenger, and the
message/ revelation, are key in the
formation and development of the
Islamic tradition, its beliefs, laws,
rituals, and social practices.
 Muhammad's Early Life

Forms of monotheism did exist in

Arabia; both Arab Christian and Jewish
communities had long resided in the
region.

Both in his lifetime and throughout

Muslim history, Muhammad in
Abdullah has served as the ideal model
for Muslim life. He is viewed as the last
or final prophet, who brought the final
revelation of God.

Muhammad is not only the ideal

political leader, statesman, merchant,
judge, soldier, and diplomat, but also
the ideal husband, father, and friend.

The portrait of his childhood and youth

is drawn from early Muslim writers,
legend, and Muslim belief.
Muhammad in Abdullah was born in
570 into the ruling tribe of Mecca, the
Quraysh. Orphaned at an early age,
Muhammad was among the tribe's
"poorer cousins.”

By the age of thirty, Muhammad had

become a prominent member of
Meccan society. Known for his
business skill, he was nicknamed al-
Amin, the trustworthy.

Muslims see Muhammad as the last

in a long series of biblical prophets.
Like Moses, who had received the
Torah on Mount Sinai, Muhammad
received the first of God's
revelations.
 Muhammad’s Successor

Abu Bakr (r. 632-634), the first

successor of Muhammad, was tested
almost immediately when some Arab
tribes declared their independence
from the community.

Abu Bakr crushed the tribal revolt,

consolidated Muslim rule over the
Arabian Peninsula, and preserved the
religiously based unity of the Islamic-
community state.

Abu Bakr's successor, Umar ibn al-

Khattab (634-644), initiated a period of
expansion and conquest.
The Origins of the Sunni-Shiah Split

A second major revolutionary

movement spawned by opposition to
Umayyad rule was the rebellion by
the followers of the fourth caliph, Ali.
The results of this violent
disagreement would lead to the two
major branches of Islam, the
communities of the Sunni majority
and the Shiah (also called Shii)
minority.

The followers (shiah, "partisans") of

Ali had been thwarted twice: first
when Muhammad's cousin was not
appointed as the first caliph, and later
when Muawiya seized the Caliphate
from Ali, the Prophet's fourth
successor.
 In 680, when the Umayyad ruler Yazid,
the son of Muawiya, came to power,
Husayn, the son of Ali, was persuaded
by a group of Ali's followers in Kufa (a
city in modern Irag) to lead a rebellion.

Sunni Muslims constitute 85 percent and

Shah approximately 15 percent global
Islamic community.
 Law and Mysticism: The Exterior
and Interior Paths to God

In contrast to Christianity's emphasis

on doctrine or theology, Islam, like
Judaism, places primary emphasis on
religious observance and obedience
to God's law.

Muslims are commanded by the

Quran to struggle (the literal word
for struggle is jihad) in the path
(sharia) of God, to realize, spread,
and defend God's message and
community. The faithful are to
function as God's representatives on
earth, promoting good and
prohibiting evil (Quran 3:104, 3:110).

All Muslims are responsible, as

individuals and as a community, for
the creation of the good society.
 Islamic Law

Islamic law has two main divisions. The first

concerns a Muslim's duties to God, which
consist of obligatory religious practices such
as the Five Pillars of Islam.

The second involves social transactions or

duties to others, which include regulations
governing public life, from contract and
international law to laws on marriage,
divorce, and inheritance.

Islamic law is a source of unity and guidance,

but individual jurists and legal scholars from
diverse social backgrounds and cultural
contexts have differed in their interpretation
of texts, in their personal opinions, and in
their notions of equity and public welfare.

Diversity and disagreement in Islamic law

are reflected in the acceptance of different
law schools and the validity of their
divergent opinions.
 The Five Pillars of Islam

The Declaration of Faith

The Declaration of Faith is the first pillar of

Islam. A Muslim is one who bears witness, who
testifies that "there is no god but God [Allah]
and Muhammad is the messenger of God."

This declaration is known as the shahada

(witness, testimony).

Allah is the Arabic name for God, just as

Yahweh is the Hebrew name for God used in
the Old Testament. To become a Muslim, one
need only make this simple proclamation.

The first part of this proclamation affirms

Islam's absolute monotheism, the
uncompromising belief in the oneness or unity
of God, as well as the doctrine that association
of anything else with God is idolatry and the
one unforgivable sin.
 Prayer

The second pillar of Islam is prayer.

Muslims pray (or, perhaps more correctly,
worship) five times throughout the day: at
daybreak, noon, midafternoon, sunset, and
evening.

Although the times for prayer and the

ritual actions were not specified in the
Quran, Muhammad established them.

Muslims can pray in any clean

environment, alone or together, in a
mosque or at home, at work or on the road,
indoors or out. It is considered preferable
and more meritorious to pray with others,
if possible, as one body united in the
worship of God and thus demonstrating
discipline and brotherhood.
 Almsgiving

Almsgiving, the third pillar of Islam,

is called zakat, which means
purification.

Like prayer, which is both an

individual and a communal
responsibility, zakat expresses a
Muslim's worship of and
thanksgiving to God by supporting
the poor. It requires an annual
contribution of 2.5 percent of an
individual's wealth and assets, not
merely a percentage of annual
income.
 The Fast of Ramadan

The fourth pillar of Islam, the Fast of

Ramadan occurs once each year during the
month of Ramadan, the ninth month of the
Islamic calendar and the month in which the
first revelation of the Quran came to
Muhammad.

During this monthlong fast, every Muslim

whose health permits must abstain from
dawn to sunset from food, drink, and sexual
activity.

Fasting is a practice common to many

religions, sometimes undertaken as penance
and sometimes to free us from undue focus
on physical needs and appetites.

In Islam, the discipline of the Ramadan fast

is intended to stimulate reflection on human
frailty and dependence upon God.
 The Pilgrimage to Mecca

The fifth pillar of Islam is the

Pilgrimage to Mecca. The pilgrimage
season follows Ramadan. Every adult
Muslim who is physically and
financially able is expected to
perform the pilgrimage (haj) to
Mecca in Saudi Arabia at least once
in his or her lifetime.

Just as Muslims are united five times

each day when they face Mecca in
worship, each year almost 2 million
Muslims from every part of the globe
make the physical journey to this
spiritual center of Islam, where they
again experience the unity, breadth,
and diversity of the Islamic
community.
 Pilgrims wear white garments,
symbolizing for everyone, rich and
poor alike, the unity and equality of
all believers before God.

Men and women worship together.

There is no segregation of the sexes.

The pilgrimage ends with the

celebration of the Feast of Sacrifice
(Id al-Adha).
 The Status of Women

The status of women and the family in

Muslim family law is the product of
many factors that informed the
development of Islamic law: patriarchal
cultures, Quranic reforms, foreign ideas,
and values assimilated from conquered
peoples, and especially, the interpretation
of male jurists in patriarchal societies.

The Quran teaches that men and women

are equal before God in terms of their
religious and moral obligations and
rewards (Quran 33:35).

In Islamic law, husbands and wives were

seen as fulfilling complementary roles.
Men in patriarchal societies functioned in
the public sphere and were responsible
for the financial support and protection
of the family.
A woman's primary role was that of
wife and mother, being responsible
for the management of the
household, raising her children, and
supervising their religious/moral
training.

In light of women's more sheltered

and protected status and men's
greater experience in public life and
broader responsibilities, the Quran
(and Islamic law) teaches that wives
are subordinate to husbands.
 Marriage
Marriage is a primary institution in Islam,
regarded as incumbent upon all Muslims.

It is a civil contract or covenant, not a

sacrament. It safeguards chastity and the
growth and stability of the family,
legalizing sexual intercourse and the
procreation of children.

Reflecting the centrality of the family and

the identity and role of individual family
members, marriage is not simply an
agreement between two people but
between two families.

Thus, marriages arranged by the two

families or by a guardian are traditional,
though most jurists agreed that a woman
should not be forced to marry a man
against her will.