Islam: Encyclopedia II - Islam - Beliefs

Islam - Beliefs

Followers of Islam, known as Muslims, believe that God (or, in Arabic, Allāh; also in Aramaic Alaha) revealed his direct word for mankind to Muhammad (c. 570–632) and other prophets, including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Muslims believe that Muhammad is the last or the seal of the prophets. Thus, his preachings for humankind will last until qiyamah (The Day of the Resurrection). Muslims assert that the main written record of revelation to humankind is the Qur'an (see below), which they believe to be flawless, immutable, and the final revelation of God to humanity. Muslims believe that parts of the Gospels, Torah and Jewish prophetic books (though originally divine in their nature) have been forgotten, misinterpreted, incorrectly edited by humans, or distorted by their followers and thus their original message has been corrupted over time. With that perspective, Muslims view the Qur'an as a correction of Jewish and Christian scriptures, and a final revelation.

Muslims hold that Islam is essentially the same belief as that of all the messengers sent by God to mankind since Adam, with the Qur'an (the text agreed upon by all sects of the Muslim faith) codifying the final revelation of God. Islamic texts depict Judaism and Christianity as derivations of the teachings of the prophet Abraham and thus acknowledges common Abrahamic roots. The Qur'an calls Jews and Christians (and sometimes people of other faiths) "People of the Book."

The basis of Islamic belief is found in the shahādatān ("two testimonies", Arabic: لا إله إلا الله محمد رسول الله ): lā ilāhā illā-llāhu; muhammadur-rasūlu-llāhi—"There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." In order to become a Muslim, one needs to recite and believe in these statements under witness. One who wishes to convert must be truly willing, and must have given thought to the meaning of the shahada before reciting the words (in Arabic) and becoming a Muslim.

Islām is described as a dīn, meaning "way of life" and/or "guidance".

Islam - Six articles of belief

There are six basic beliefs shared by all Muslims:

1. Belief in God (Allah), the one and only one worthy of all worship ( tawhid ).

2. Belief in all the prophets ( nabi ) and messengers ( rasul ) sent by God. It is believed that there were around 124,000 prophets, of whom 313 are also messengers. Out of the 313 messengers, 25 are held to be of high esteem (ulul azmi) and are mentioned by name in the Quran.

The difference between prophets and messengers is that although all received revelation (wahi) from God, the messengers are required to spread their message to their people by preaching (da'wah).

3. Belief in the books ( kutub ) sent by God:

4. Belief in the Angels ( mala'ika ) of whom ten are held in high esteem and are named in the Quran and the hadith.

5. Belief in the Day of Judgement ( qiyama ) and in the life after death (heaven and hell).

6. Belief in Fate (predestination) ( qadar )¹

The Muslim creed in English:

Islam - The tenets of Islam

The two largest subgroups of the Muslims are the Sunni and the Shi'a. Sunni Muslims make up a large percentage of the Muslim world, although one can find large majorities of Shi'a Muslims in Middle Eastern countries such as Iran and Iraq. However, in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, Sunni Muslims are the majority.

Sunni Islam's fundamental tenets are referred to as the Five Pillars of Islam², while Shia Islam has a slightly different terminology, encompassing five core beliefs, the Roots of Religion and ten core practices, the Branches of Religion. All Muslims agree on the following five basic obligations of believers, which Sunnis term the Five Pillars of Islam, and which Shia would consider to be elements of the Roots of Religion and the Branches of Religion.

• Shahadah: Testifying that there is none worthy of worship except God (Tawheed) and that Muhammad is His servant and messenger (Nubuwwah).
• Salah: Performing the five daily prayers (salah).
• Zakat: Giving Zakaah (charity)
• Sawm: Fasting from dawn to dusk in the month of Ramadan.
• Hajj: The Pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca during the month of Dhul Hijjah, which is compulsory once in a lifetime for one who has the ability to do it.

Shi'a and Sunni also agree on the following beliefs, although they classify them differently:

• Adl: The justice of God.
• Qiyamah: The Day of Resurrection.
• Amr-Bil-Ma'rūf: Commanding what is good.
• Nahi-Anil-Munkar: Forbidding what is evil.
• Al Jihad fi sabilillah: Striving to seek God's approval.

Distinctive Shi'a beliefs, not held by the Sunni, include:

• Imamah: Leadership. The belief in the divinely appointed and guided imamate of Ali and some of his descendants.
• Tawalla: To love the Ahl al-Bayt and their followers.
• Tabarra: To disassociate from the enemies of the Ahl al-Bayt
• Khums: Paying the tax on profit.

Islam - God

The fundamental concept in Islam is the oneness of God (tawhid). This monotheism is absolute, not relative or pluralistic in any sense of the word. God is described in Sura al-Ikhlas, (chapter 112) as follows:

In Arabic, God is called Allāh. The word is etymologically connected to ʾilāh "deity", ultimately from Proto-Semitic *ʾilâh-, and indirectly related to Hebrew Ēl. Allāh is also the word used by Christian and Jewish Arabs, translating ho theos of the New Testament and Septuagint; it predates Muhammad and in its origin does not specify a "God" different from the one worshipped by Judaism and Christianity, the monotheistic religions to which Muhammad's teaching stood in contrast.

The name "Allah" shows no plural or gender, unlike the word "God" that may take plural sense "Gods" and feminine form "Goddesses". In Islam "Allah" Almighty as the Qur’an says:

The implicit usage of the definite article in Allah linguistically indicates the divine unity. Muslims believe that the God they worship is the same as the Judeo-Christian God, i.e. the God of Abraham. However, Muslims reject the Christian theology concerning the trinity of God (the doctrine of the Trinity which regards Jesus as the eternal Son of God), seeing it as akin to polytheism. Quoting from the Qur'an, sura An-Nisa 171:

No Muslim visual images or depictions of God exist because such artistic depictions may lead to idolatry and are thus prohibited. A similar position in Christian theology is termed iconoclasm. Moreover, most Muslims believe that God is incorporeal, making any two- or three- dimensional depictions impossible. Instead, Muslims describe God by the many divine attributes mentioned in the Qur'an. All but one Sura (chapter) of the Qur'an begins with the phrase "In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful". These are regarded as the most important divine attributes, at least in the sense that Muslims repeat them most frequently during their ritual prayers (Salah).

Islam - The Qur'an

The Qur'an is the sacred book of Islam. It has also been called, in English, "the Koran" or (archaically) "the Alcoran". Qur'an is the currently preferred English transliteration of the Arabic original (قرآن); it means “recitation”. Although the Qur'an is referred to as a "book", when a Muslim refers to the Qur'an, they are referring to the actual text, the words, rather than the printed work itself.

Muslims believe that the Qur'an was revealed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad by God through the Angel Gabriel on numerous occasions between the years 610 and up till his death in 632. In addition to memorizing his revelations, his followers are said to have written them down on parchments, stones, and leaves.

Muslims hold that the Qur'an available today is the same as that revealed to Prophet Muhammad and by him to his followers, who memorized his words. Scholars generally accept that the version of the Qur'an used today was first compiled in writing by the third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, sometime between 650 and 656. He sent copies of his version to the various provinces of the new Muslim empire, and directed that all variant copies be destroyed. However, some skeptics doubt the recorded oral traditions (hadith) on which this account is based, and will concede only that the Qur'an must have been compiled before 750.

There are numerous traditions, and many conflicting academic theories, as to the provenance of the Qur'anic verses that were eventually assembled into a single volume. (This is covered in greater detail in Qur'an). Most Muslims accept the account recorded in several hadith, which state that Abu Bakr, the first caliph, ordered his personal secretary Zayd ibn Thabit to collect and record all the authentic verses of the Qur'an, as preserved in written form or oral tradition. Zayd's written collection, privately treasured by Muhammad's widow Hafsa bint Umar, was, according to Muslim sources, later used by Uthman and is thus the basis of today's Qur'an.

Uthman's version, whatever its origin, organized the suras roughly in order of length (excepting the brief opening surah Al-Fatiha), with the longest suras at the start of the Qur'an and the shortest ones at the end. More conservative views state that the order of most suras was divinely set. Later scholars have struggled to put the suras in chronological order, and among Muslim commentators, at least, there is a rough consensus as to which suras were revealed in Mecca and which at Medina, with distinctive characteristics observed within these two subgroups. Some suras (e.g. surat Iqra) are thought to have been revealed in parts at separate times.

To understand the notion of "variants" within the received Qur'anic text, one must understand that Arabic had not yet fully developed as a written language. The Qur'an was first recorded in written form (date uncertain) in the Hijazi, Mashq, Ma'il, and Kufic scripts; these scripts write consonants only and do not supply vowels. (Imagine an English text that wrote the word 'bed' as "BD," and required the reader to infer, from context, that the reference was to "bed" -- and not to 'bad" or "bide.") Because there were differing oral traditions of recitation as non-native Arabic speakers converted to Islam, there was some disagreement as to the exact reading of many (vowel-free) verses. Eventually, scripts were developed that used diacritical markings (known as points) to indicate the vowels. For hundreds of years after Uthman's recension, Muslim scholars argued as to the correct pointing and reading of Uthman's (unpointed) official text. Eventually, most commentators accepted seven variant readings (qira'at) of the Qur'an as canonical, while agreeing that the differences among the seven are minor and do not affect the meaning of the text.

The form of the Qur'an most used today is the Al-Azhar text of 1923, prepared by a committee at the prestigious Cairo university of Al-Azhar.

The Qur'an early became a focus of Muslim devotion and eventually a subject of theological controversy among skeptics. In the 8th century, the Mu'tazilis claimed that the Qur'an was created in time and was not eternal. Their opponents, of various schools, claimed that the Qur'an was eternal and perfect, existing in heaven before it was revealed to Muhammad. The Ashari theology (which ultimately became predominant) held that the Qur'an was uncreated.

Most Muslims regard paper copies of the Qur'an with extreme veneration, wrapping them in a clean cloth, keeping them on a high shelf, and washing as for prayers before reading the Qur'an. Old Qur'ans are not destroyed as wastepaper, but burned or deposited in Qur'an graveyards.

Most Muslims memorize at least some portion of the Qur'an in the original language. Those who have memorized the entire Qur'an are known as hafiz. This is not a rare achievement; it is believed that there are millions of hafiz alive today.

From the beginning of the faith, most Muslims believed that the Qur'an was perfect only as revealed in Arabic. Translations were the result of human effort and human fallibility, as well as lacking the inspired poetry believers find in the Qur'an. Translations are therefore only commentaries on the Qur'an, or "translations of its meaning", not the Qur'an itself. Many modern, printed versions of the Qur'an feature the Arabic text on one page, and a vernacular translation on the facing page.

Islam - Islamic eschatology

Islamic eschatology is concerned with the Qiyamah (end of the world) and the final judgment of humanity. Like Christianity and some sects of modern Judaism, Islam teaches the bodily resurrection of the dead, the fulfilment of a divine plan for creation, and the immortality of the human soul. In Islamic belief, the righteous are rewarded with the pleasures of Jannah (Paradise), while the unrighteous are punished in Jahannam (a fiery Hell, from the Hebrew ge-hinnom or "valley of Hinnom"; usually rendered in English as Gehenna). A significant portion of the Qur'an deals with these beliefs, with many hadith elaborating on the themes and details.

Islam - Other beliefs

Other beliefs include the existence of Angels, the Jinns (a species of beings not composed of solid matter, but "fire") and the existence of magic or sihr (the practice of which is strictly forbidden).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Beliefs", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki