A Muslim is one who believes that ‘there is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God.” A Muslim worships one all-powerful and eternal deity, called Allah in Arabic, who revealed His will and His commandments to the prophet Muhammad of Mecca in the seventh century A.D. Those revelations are recorded in the Koran, the Holy Book of Islam.
Allah has no physical attributes. He has no age, no shape, no mother, no appetites; but neither is He an abstractions. He is an immediate and constant presence, cognizant of every person’s deeds and thoughts, aware of who follows His commands and who does not. Those commands require acceptance of Muhammad’s message, social justice, personal honesty, respect for others, and restraints of earthly desires, as well as the performance of devotional duties such as praying and fasting.
Islam (Is-Lam) is an Arabic word that means submission—submission to the will of God. Moslem, or Muslim, its participial form, means one who submits. The root is the same as that of the word for peace, salaam.
Because of God’s will is not to be determined by any human endeavor, no one, however devout and pious, can be sure of winning God’s favor. But no Muslim can doubt what God expects him to do in this life if he is to have any hope of being admitted to Paradise in the next: accept the one God and the message He sent though Muhammad, pray to Him, be honest, speak truthfully, practice mercy and charity, live modestly, avoid arrogance and slander, and defend the faith against unbelievers.
All rules of beliefs and conduct come from God through Muhammad. Men make laws in accordance with God’s commands, but there are no “commandments of the church, “as there are in Catholicism, because there is no church. Islam is not an organized religion in the sense that Catholicism is, because it is theoretically a faith without clergy, saints, hierarchy, or sacraments. No man stands between the believer and God.
A Muslim confesses directly to God. No man has the power to confer or withhold forgiveness, just as no man has the power to confer or withhold the membership in the community of believers. There is no sacramental entry into the faith. Because Islam does not espouse the doctrine of original sin, there is no rite of baptism to wash it away, and consequently no excommunication. Islam teaches that the sinner alone, the individual person and not his ancestors or descendants, is responsible for his actions; there is no inherited stain on the soul to be purged as a condition of entry into the faith.
The Koran, taken as the literal word of God, not written by Muhammad but only transmitted through him, is the fundamental, immutable source of Islamic doctrine and practice. A second source, inferior in authority but decisive on matters not specifically addressed in the Holy Book, is the sunna, “path,” the way of the Prophet, his example and teaching as expressed in his deeds and words. These words of Muhammad (as opposed to those of God uttered by Muhammad in the Koran) are recorded in the hadith (pronounced ha-DEETH), compilations of his utterance on religious practice, social affairs, and Koranic interpretation.
Islam, the youngest of the world’s major religions, originated in the seventh century with the life and mission of Muhammad, but it was not a totally new creed invented out of the blue. Its conceptual roots are in Judaism and Christianity. Muslims see their religion as a continuation and rectification of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Jewish scriptures and the prophetic mission of Jesus are incorporated by reference in the Koran. The Koran teaches that God, the same God known to the Arabians as Allah, favored Jews and Christians by revealing His truth to them in holy books, but they deviated from what was revealed and fell into error and corruption. Muslim believe there is and has always been since Abraham only one true religion, a consistent faith in the one omnipotent God, who from time to time has sent various messengers and prophets to reveal Himself to men and tell men what He expects of them.
These revelations were recorded in a hundred and four books, of which only four are extant: the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Koran, given successively to Moses, David, Jesus, and Muhammad. No more are to be expected, as Muhammad was the last prophet and in the Koran, “all things are revealed.” Thus Islam is part of and traceable to the monotheistic tradition of Judaism and Christianity, and its ethical code is similar to that of Old Testament Judaism. Islam happens to be generally practiced by dark-skinned, impoverished peoples, whom Europeans in their colonial phase despised, but it is hardly the outlandish heathen cult depicted in European commentaries since the time of the Crusades.
Allah has no physical attributes. He has no age, no shape, no mother, no appetites; but neither is He an abstractions. He is an immediate and constant presence, cognizant of every person’s deeds and thoughts, aware of who follows His commands and who does not. Those commands require acceptance of Muhammad’s message, social justice, personal honesty, respect for others, and restraints of earthly desires, as well as the performance of devotional duties such as praying and fasting.
Islam (Is-Lam) is an Arabic word that means submission—submission to the will of God. Moslem, or Muslim, its participial form, means one who submits. The root is the same as that of the word for peace, salaam.
Because of God’s will is not to be determined by any human endeavor, no one, however devout and pious, can be sure of winning God’s favor. But no Muslim can doubt what God expects him to do in this life if he is to have any hope of being admitted to Paradise in the next: accept the one God and the message He sent though Muhammad, pray to Him, be honest, speak truthfully, practice mercy and charity, live modestly, avoid arrogance and slander, and defend the faith against unbelievers.
All rules of beliefs and conduct come from God through Muhammad. Men make laws in accordance with God’s commands, but there are no “commandments of the church, “as there are in Catholicism, because there is no church. Islam is not an organized religion in the sense that Catholicism is, because it is theoretically a faith without clergy, saints, hierarchy, or sacraments. No man stands between the believer and God.
A Muslim confesses directly to God. No man has the power to confer or withhold forgiveness, just as no man has the power to confer or withhold the membership in the community of believers. There is no sacramental entry into the faith. Because Islam does not espouse the doctrine of original sin, there is no rite of baptism to wash it away, and consequently no excommunication. Islam teaches that the sinner alone, the individual person and not his ancestors or descendants, is responsible for his actions; there is no inherited stain on the soul to be purged as a condition of entry into the faith.
The Koran, taken as the literal word of God, not written by Muhammad but only transmitted through him, is the fundamental, immutable source of Islamic doctrine and practice. A second source, inferior in authority but decisive on matters not specifically addressed in the Holy Book, is the sunna, “path,” the way of the Prophet, his example and teaching as expressed in his deeds and words. These words of Muhammad (as opposed to those of God uttered by Muhammad in the Koran) are recorded in the hadith (pronounced ha-DEETH), compilations of his utterance on religious practice, social affairs, and Koranic interpretation.
Islam, the youngest of the world’s major religions, originated in the seventh century with the life and mission of Muhammad, but it was not a totally new creed invented out of the blue. Its conceptual roots are in Judaism and Christianity. Muslims see their religion as a continuation and rectification of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Jewish scriptures and the prophetic mission of Jesus are incorporated by reference in the Koran. The Koran teaches that God, the same God known to the Arabians as Allah, favored Jews and Christians by revealing His truth to them in holy books, but they deviated from what was revealed and fell into error and corruption. Muslim believe there is and has always been since Abraham only one true religion, a consistent faith in the one omnipotent God, who from time to time has sent various messengers and prophets to reveal Himself to men and tell men what He expects of them.
These revelations were recorded in a hundred and four books, of which only four are extant: the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Koran, given successively to Moses, David, Jesus, and Muhammad. No more are to be expected, as Muhammad was the last prophet and in the Koran, “all things are revealed.” Thus Islam is part of and traceable to the monotheistic tradition of Judaism and Christianity, and its ethical code is similar to that of Old Testament Judaism. Islam happens to be generally practiced by dark-skinned, impoverished peoples, whom Europeans in their colonial phase despised, but it is hardly the outlandish heathen cult depicted in European commentaries since the time of the Crusades.
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