Last Updated on 23 June 2006

"Islam is the 2nd religion in USA!" read the article

Islam is the latest (c. 622 CE) of the three major world religions whose basis is Abrahamic monotheism (along with Christianity and Judaism). With over 1.3 billion adherents worldwide, Muslims believe that Islam was revealed by God to all his messengers including Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and finally Muhammad, the last Prophet of this line. Followers of Islam are known as Muslims. In some older English texts they are referred to as "Muhammadans" or "Mohammedans", but these terms are deprecated because they imply, incorrectly, that Muslims worship Muhammad, and so these terms are offensive to many Muslims.
 

Statement of belief:

Perhaps the most succinct and clear statement of Muslim belief is to be found in the shahaadatan (Arabic for 'two statements'): La ilaha illallah, wa Muhammadan rasulullah - "There is no God but God; and Muhammad is the messenger of God".

One needs to recite these statements to become a Muslim. So, technically, it requires only few seconds to become a Muslim. The other pillars of Islam all refer to rituals rather than faith.

While Muhammad is the prophet who delivered the message of the Quran that defines Islam (submission), muslims are required by the Quran to make no distinction between the messengers that God has sent to guide mankind.

The fundamental concept in Islam is the unity of God. This monotheism is absolute and not relative or pluralistic in any sense of the word. God is described in the Quran as being the uncaused cause of all that exists and that nothing is comparable to Him.

Muslims believe that God revealed the Qur'an to Muhammad via the angel Jibrail (Gabriel). In addition to Qur'an, Hadith - the sayings and practices of Muhammad, is the secondary source of Islamic beliefs and practices.

The Hadith were compiled two to three hundred years following the death of the prophet and represent sayings that were scrutinised and compiled by scholars of the time into books of ahadith. The most famous of these was compiled by Imam Bukhari, who compiled a little over 5000 ahadith.

Since Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, is descended from the religious tradition of the biblical patriarch Abraham, it is classified as an Abrahamic religion. Unlike Judaism and Christianity, Islam has not undergone any period of major reform or reformation. Islam has two primary branches of belief, based largely on a historical disagreement over the succession of authority after Muhammad's death; these are known as Sunni and Shi'ite. Some considers sufism (mystic Islam) as a branch of Islamic faith found more or less across the Islamic world, from Senegal to the Indian subcontinent.

Rather than being a new religion as compared to Judaism and Christianity, Islam is seen by its followers to represent the essence of belief of all the messengers sent by God to mankind. The Quran is thus seen to codify the final and complete system of God to mankind for all time.

The Western distinction between Church and State is in theory foreign to Islam. Islam includes instructions relating to all aspects of human activity, political, social, financial, legal, military, and interpersonal (see Sharia and Caliphate).

The meaning of the word Islam :

Islam is an Arabic word meaning "submission (to God)" and is described as a "Deen" in Arabic, meaning "way of life" and/or "religion". It has an etymological relationship to other Arabic words, such as Salaam, meaning "peace". The Arabic word "Muslim" is related to the word Islam and means a "vassal" of God, as well as "one who surrenders" or "submits" (to God). Muslims see homage to God as a sign of distinction; this term has no negative connotations. Homage means serving the will of God above and beyond one's own goals.
 

The Six Pillars of Belief :

There are six basic beliefs shared by Muslims:

The Qur'an :

The Qur'an (also spelled "Quran" or "Koran" in Western traditions) is the holy book of Islam. Its title means "Recitation" or "Reading". It consists of 114 chapters or Surahs laid out roughly in order of size, the largest being near the front, the smallest near the back. It is regarded by Muslims as God's message to Humanity; describing the origins of the Universe, Man, and their relationship to each other and their Creator. It sets out rules for society, morality, economics and many other topics. It is intended for recitation and memorization. The Qur'an is primarily taught from one generation to the next this way. Muslims regard the Qur'an as sacred and inviolable.

For Muslims, the Qur'an answers questions about daily needs, both spiritual and material. It discusses God and God's Names and attributes; believers and their virtues, and the fate of non-believers (kuffar); Mary, Jesus, and all the other prophets; and even scientific subjects. Muslims do not follow the laws of the Qur'an exclusively; they also follow the example of Muhammed, which is known as the Sunnah, and the understanding of the Qur'an contained in the teachings of the prophet known as the Ahadith. Muslims are taught that God sent down other books. Besides the Qur'an, the others are the book of Ibrahim (now lost) the Law of Moses (the Taurah), the Psalms of David (the ''Zab r) and the Gospel of Jesus (the Injil). The Qur'an describes Christians and Jews as "the people of the Book" (ahl al Kit b''). An article on The Bible in Islam is found here.

The teachings of Islam concern many of the same personages as those of Judaism and Christianity. However, Muslims frequently refer to them using Arabic names which can make it appear they are talking about different people: e.g. Allah for God, Iblis for Satan, Ibrahim for Abraham, etc. A belief in a day of judgment and an afterlife (Akhirah) are also part of Islamic theology.

The Qur'an is the word of God, sacred and immutable. Muslims do not touch the book unless in a state of ablution, known as "wudu." Muslims will typically keep it on a high shelf in their room, as a show of respect for the Qur'an, and some carry small versions with them for comfort or security. Only the original Arabic version of it is regarded as the Qur'an; an attempt at translations would omit the original's meaning and nuance, as well as flow of the verse.
 

The People of the Book :(Jews, Christians and Muslims)

It is commonly held that this group includes the Jews, Christians and Muslims. According to Islam, all nations were given a Messenger and guidance from Allah. Eventually, due to their abandonment of adherence to strict monotheism, the followers of Moses earned God's Anger (by supposedly worshipping the Golden Calf, mentioned in the Biblical account of Moses, and later Ezra) and the followers of Jesus Christ supposedly went astray (by worshipping Jesus Christ). It is popularly held by the vast majority of Muslims that the Holy Tawrah (revelation given to Moses) and the Holy Injeel (revelation given to Jesus Christ) have been corrupted over time and that the present day Bible and Torah share little or no resemblance to original message. According to Islam, Muhammad was sent during a time of spiritual darkness and once the Qur'an was finally established, all past revelations became abrogated, making the Last Testament not only for the Arab nation but for all mankind until the Day of Judgement.

Historically, Islamic scholars have agreed that the Qur'an gives "People of the Book" special status, allowing those who live in Muslim lands to continue to practice their own religions, and guaranteed specific rights such as freedom of worship and property. People of the Book are free to follow their own religious laws, freeing them from the Islamic prohibitions on alcohol and pork. Under the Islamic state, they were exempt from the draft, but were required to pay a tax known as jizyah, part of which went to charity and part to finance churches and synagogues. This agreement has in the past led to Islamic countries practicing religious toleration, often more so than some European countries of the past.

Islam in relation to Judaism and Christianity:

According to Islam, followers of Judaism and Christianity accidentally or deliberately altered the true word of God, and thus led all of their believers down a false path. In the Qur'an, Allah (God) charges some People of the Book with "falsehood" (Sura 3:71), distortion (4:46), and of being "corrupters of Scripture." Some parts of the Qur'an attribute differences between Muslims and non-Muslims to tahref-ma'any, a "corruption of the meaning" of the words. In this view, the Jewish Bible and Christian New Testament are true, but the Jews and Christians misunderstood the meaning of their own Scripture, and thus need the Qur'an to clearly understand the will of God. However, other parts of the Qur'an make clear that many Jews and Christians used deliberately altered versions of their scripture, and had altered the word of God. This belief was developed further in medieval Islamic polemics, and is a mainstream part of both Sunni and Shi'ite Islam today. This is known as the doctrine of tahref-lafzy, "the corruption of the text".

The growth of Islam today:

Islam is the largest religion after Christianity. According to sources such as the World Network of Religious Futurists the U.S. Center for World Mission[, and the controversial Samuel Huntington, Islam is growing faster numerically than any other religion; attributed both to natural population growth and a rate of conversion higher than all other religions combined. In the U.S. more people convert to Islam than any other faith.
The religion of Islam brought by Muhammad began in the Hejaz region of present-day Saudi Arabia in about 610 CE, and according to [http://www.adherents.com] it now comprises 1.3 billion believers, 23% of the world's population, with approximately 7 million believers in the USA and Canada. Only 18% of Muslims live in the Arab world, a fifth are found in Sub-Saharan Africa, about 30% are found in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, and the world's largest Muslim community is in Indonesia. There are significant Islamic populations in China, Europe, the former Soviet Union, India and South America.

Source: http://www.nationamaster.com

Famous Non-Muslims beliefs regarding Quran:

"It is impossible that Muhammad, peace be upon him, authored the Quran. How could a man, from being illiterate, become the most important author, in terms of literary merits, in the whole of Arabic literature?

How could he then pronounce truths of a scientific nature that no other human-being could possibly have developed at that time, an all this without once making the slightest error in his pronouncement on the subject?"

Dr. Maurice Bucaille - author of "The Bible, the Qur'an and Science" 1978, p. 125

Islam & Christianity Comparative Analysis:
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