Islam, is the religion of those who follow
the prophet Mohammed. The name is an Arabic
word that may be translated "submission,"
"surrender," or "commitment."
In the religious movement initiated by Mohammed
in Arabia in the 7th century A.D., the term
"Islam" describes the proper relationship
between men and God (Allah). Mohammed called
his fellow Arabs to submit, or surrender,
to the will of God, to commit themselves
afresh each day and each moment to the service
of the Divine intention. Followers of Islam
are known as Muslims, that is, "submitters"
to God, those who commit themselves to Him.
Modern Muslims commonly object to the use
of the terms "Mohammedan" and "Mohammedanism"
lest Christians suppose that Muslims worship
Mohammed.
In the late 20th century, from a seventh
to a sixth of mankind adheres in some degree
to Islam. Of these adherents, the vast majority
are not Arabs. Most Muslims live to the east
of the borders of Pakistan-in Pakistan, India,
Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, and
various Pacific Islands, including the Philippines
and Taiwan. The largest Muslim population
in any state is found in Indonesia.
Mohammed The Prophet. It is not known exactly when Mohammed was
born, but the likely dates are 570-580 A.D.
He belonged to one of the better-class but
poorer clans of Mecca. His father died before
Mohammed's birth and his mother soon after.
Mohammed grew up as the ward of his uncle,
Abu Talib, in poor circumstances. His worldly
fortunes changed for the better when he married
a wealthy widow, Khadija, and engaged in
trade on her behalf. Khadija was reportedly
older than Mohammed by some years but bore
him a number of children. None of the males
among them survived childhood.
The Call. Between the ages of 30 and 40, Mohammed
experienced his prophetic call, the most
important event of his life. The call seems
to have come suddenly and caused Mohammed
great distress before he was able to accept
it. Tradition records that he went alone
to a cave in the hills above Mecca for religious
meditation. There he had a vision of an angel
commanding him to "recite" the
word of God. At first Mohammed either failed
to understand or was reluctant to undertake
so great a commission; but the angel seized
him by the throat and compelled him. Badly
shaken, Mohammed sought assurance from his
wife and she took him to her relative Waraqa
Ibn Nawfal, who was a Hanif and reputed a
man of religious insight. Doubt plagued Mohammed
for a long time, causing him to fear he had
been possessed by a spirit or that he was
losing his sanity. Reassurance was given
him in the form of revelations from the angelic
messenger. The outcome was a firm conviction
that he had been chosen, like the prophets
before him, as the agency of a divine message
to his generation. Thereupon, he launched
into the career of religious preacher, reformer,
and prophet.
His Teaching and Success. Mohammed's message to the Meccans centered
on the idea of one God (Allah), who created
the world and who governs it. Mohammed called
for the recognition of this single divine
power and of its sovereignty over men. God
was even then through his Prophet, as through
other prophets before, making His will for
human conduct known. For those "who
committed themselves there would be eternal
reward in paradise, but for others the eternal
torment of hell. In the first period there
was strong emphasis on the coming doom of
judgment and the Punishments of hell. As
tame passed, the revelation turned to other
themes, such as tales of former prophets
and example's from nature to support Mohammed's
prophethood.
The prophethood of Mohammed is one of the
fundamental Islamic religious beliefs, and
the Prophet plays an important role in Muslim
religious life. The Koran presents Mohammed
as the Seal of the Prophets. According to
developed Islamic theological thought, God
in His Mercy bestowed prophecy upon the first
man, Adam, so that he and his descendants
might have guidance for the proper way to
live. Sadly, this guidance was first ignored
and then corrupted and lost by successive
generations, so God found it necessary to
send other prophets to renew it. Among the
prophets whom the Koran mentions are some
known from the Bible, such as Abraham, David,
and Jesus, and others unknown, such as Salih
and Hud. The revelations to Mohammed were
a renewal of the message of the prophets
before him and, like theirs, came in the
form of a divine book. Mohammed was the last
of this prophetic tradition but also its
confirmation, climax, and proof. In this
light one may understand why he expected
to be received favorably by Jews and Christians
and why he was disappointed when they rejected
him.
Ways of Viewing the Prophet. It is also clear in the Koran that Mohammed,
though a prophet, was only a man, not a supernatural
being. He disclaimed the ability to do miracles
and pointed instead to his strictly human
origins and lack of sons. He did not choose
to become a prophet but was chosen by a power
above and beyond himself. Similarly he did
not compose the revelations spoken by his
lips; rather they were delivered to him by
an angelic messenger. His role was that of
a passive agent in the hands of God, and
the thing of importance was his message,
not his person. The nature of his prophecy
is expressed by the title Rasul Allah, Messenger
of God, that he bears.
Muslim piety, however, has greatly embroidered
this view of the Prophet. From the very beginning
there has been an emphasis upon the example
of Mohammed as a guide for Muslims. Pious
men have studied his life in order to model
their own lives after his. The tradition,
or sunna, of the Prophet is formally recognized
in matters of faith and law as an authority
second only to the Koran.
Even in Mohammed's lifetime, legends began
to gather about him; the generations immediately
following attributed to him a number of miracles
and recounted stories of supernatural signs
and wonders that accompanied his birth and
career. By medieval times Muslims universally
agreed that Mohammed was sinless, protected
from wrongdoing by divine providence in order
that no shadow of doubt be cast on the validity
of his perfect example. There also grew up
a belief that Mohammed would serve as intercessor
for his people at the Last Judgment, pleading
his own virtue before Cod as a means of warding
off punishment. The great respect paid him
is shown in the formula that Muslims use
whenever his name is pronounced, "May
God bless him and grant him peace."
The high point in veneration for the Prophet
was reached among the Sufis, or mystics.
Many Sufis looked upon Mohammed as the eternal
manifestation of the Divine Light in the
world, pre-existent, the very force which
created the universe and sustains it, and
through which, alone God may be approached
and known. The effect of their piety was
to make Mohammed a supernatural being.
A renewed religious interest in Mohammed
began in the 20th century. Part of the religious
and cultural reawakening of the Muslim world
in modern times has taken the form of a return
to meditation on the life and example of
the Prophet. As a consequence many biographies
of Mohammed have been written allover the
Islamic world in a variety of languages.
These works emphasize the humanitarian, ethical,
and rational sides of Mohammed's character
and seek to demonstrate his contemporary
relevance. One of their purposes is also
to repudiate and disprove interpretations
of Mohammed that Muslims consider false and
unworthy.
The Koran. The sacred book of the Muslims, the Koran
is composed of the revelations that came
to Mohammed in piecemeal fashion at various
times after his call to prophethood. "Koran"
(Quran) means something recited or read;
applied to Mohammed's revelations, it may
indicate that they are to be used for recitation
in worship. The name may, however, also refer
to the mode and nature of the revelations.
Muslims consider the Koran to be the very
words of God Himself. The messages given
to Mohammed by the angel were taken from
a Heavenly Book, uncreated and eternally
coexistent with God, that is called the Mother
of the Book or the Well-Preserved Tablet.
This eternal book represents the eternal
Speech of God, the expression of His truth
and His will for the universe. Books of previous
prophets, such as the Gospel of Jesus or
the Torah of Moses, were also taken from
this source. The Koran is but another, yet
the highest and final instance, of God's
offering guidance to straying men through
Scriptures brought by His chosen messengers.
Followers of previous prophets, like the
Christians and Jews, had corrupted their
messages, thereby necessitating the sending
down of the Koran to restore the purity of
divine guidance.
As the very words of God, the Koran is me
foremost authority for Muslims in all matters
of faith and practice. They pay it enormous
reverence and have been at pains to preserve
its contents exactly as they were received
from the prophet.
The Prophetic Tradition. Although the Koran contains a wide variety
of religious teachings and a number of specific
rules on such subjects as marriage, divorce,
inheritance, contracts, prayer, and fasting,
it is obvious that so small a book could
not supply all the specific directions needed
for the Muslim community. For the purposes
of both law and theology the Muslims required
other authorities to supplement the Koran.
The most important of these became the tradition,
or sunna, of the Prophet.
Sunna. Like the Muslims after them, the pre- Islamic
Arabs had a strong respect for the tradition
of the past. They looked upon the way of
their forefathers as right and proper and
tried to preserve that way of life in their
own. They were shocked when Mohammed attacked
it as evil. The effect of Islam and the growth
of a religiously based community about Mohammed
was not to destroy the principle of traditional
authority, rather to substitute the tradition
of the Prophet and his community for that
of the heroes of the Arab past. As people
had previously told stories of the great
men of tribal days, they now began to recount
the exploits of the Prophet and his companions
and to adopt the life of the early community
as their model. Their object was to follow
the sunna, or customary practice of Mohammed
and the men closest to him, who could be
assumed to have known him best. The desire
to preserve continuity with the original
Islamic experience has been one of the persistent
themes of Muslim piety. In fact, the closest
equivalent to "orthodoxy" in Arabic
is the phrase "ahlu-l- sunna wa-l-jamaah,"
meaning "people who adhere to the customary
way of doing things and to the community.
Hadith. This very difficult controversy was resolved
by the jurist al-Shafii (died 820) who held
that the Sunna of the Prophet alone is authoritative.
The same man also held that Sunna can be
legitimately determined only by means of
oral reports, or Hadith, that establish the
sayings, doings, and approbations of Mohammed.
When "tradition" is said to be
a source of authoritative teachings for Muslims,
it is normally the Hadiths of the Prophet
that are meant by tradition.
A Hadith consists of two parts, the matn,
or text, and the isnad, or chain of transmitters.
The matn is the content of the Hadith, the
saying of the Prophet or the report about
him that is being conveyed. lsnad means foundation,
or basis, and it consists of a list of names
of men through whom the particular report
was passed down. In the science of Hadith
criticism that developed in the 2d and 3d
Islamic centuries, the isnad was the chief
focus of attention.
In order to discover whether a Hadith was
authentically derived from the Prophet or
not, the muhaddithun, or students of Hadith,
minutely examined each link in the chain
of transmission. They asked such questions
as whether the men who claimed to have learned
the saying from others had actually met them
and whether they were trustworthy and reliable
characters who would tell the truth. Such
an examination of the isnad is called jarh
wa tadil (wounding and authenticating).
One of the outcomes of this kind of verification
was the development of a large body of biographical
literature about the early generations of
Muslims so that scholars might assess the
characters of men who transmitted Hadith.
Another result was an elaborate classification
of Hadith, according to the quality and strength
of each ones isnad. The basic division is
among sahih (sound), hasan (good) , and daif
(weak) Hadiths. There are other types of
classification, according to whether the
isnad of a Hadith is complete or broken and
according to the number of independent channels
through which a Hadith may have been reported.
Study of Hadith is a chief occupation of
students in traditional Islamic religious
schools, and knowledge of it is a high mark
of piety.
Theology. The Arabic word most often translated as
"theology" is kalam. Its literal
meaning is "speech" as in the "Speech"
of God, which is the Koran. As a technical
term in Islamic intellectual history, it
refers to the process of advancing reasoned
arguments to support religious beliefs. A
practitioner of kalam is known as a mutakallim.
One who reads the Koran quickly realizes
that it is not a book of theology in the
sense of a systematic discourse on religious
doctrine. It is rather 'a species of prophetic
rhetoric bearing powerful and ineradicable
marks of its origins in Mohammed's inspired
states. On many issues the Koran is unclear
or incomplete, and on others, for example,
on the question of whether God determines
men's actions or not, it is sharply contradictory.
The powerful and sonorous words of the Koran
require interpretation and almost invite
the effort to build a systematic structure
of belief from them. Mohammed, however, was
a prophet, not a theologian, and belonged
to a people with no previous philosophical
or intellectual tradition.
Law. The heart of Islamic religious concern is
the law. Islam is an eminently practical
way of life. What Muslims most expect from
their religion is guidance for all the specific
situations of life so that they may know
how to please God in this world and achieve
blessedness hereafter. The Islamic law is
the attempt by Muslims to derive a series
of specific rules of conduct from the basic
sources of guidance, and it comprises a comprehensive
set of prescriptions and proscriptions.
Sharia. The common word for the law is sharia, which
originally meant a pathway. It may roughly
be translated as "the path in which
God wishes men to walk." The prescriptions
of the Sharia are ordained by God as His
eternal will. It is, thus, the standard of
right and wrong in human affairs, and it
provides an all inclusive scale of religious
valuation for conduct. Every human deed falls
under the perspective of the law, without
exception. Actions are classified as obligatory
(fard); meritorious or recommended (mandub);
indifferent, that is, bringing neither reward
nor punishment (mubah); reprehensible, that
is, not punishable but disapproved (makruh);
and forbidden (haram). There has been no
more far-reaching effort to layout a complete
pattern of human conduct than the Islamic
Sharia.
The assumption underlying the Sharia is that
men are incapable of discriminating right
and wrong by their own unaided powers. It
was for this reason that guidance was sent
to them through prophets. God, who is all-powerful
and perfectly free, has decreed a pathway
for men. His decrees are based upon nothing
but His sovereign will; they are not subordinated
to rational considerations, nor are they
to be judged by the standard of reason as
the Mutazilites attempted to do. It follows,
therefore, that the Sharia is taabbudi, to
be obeyed as a slave obeys his master. The
Sharia is both a divine and an eternal law
and, hence, completely trustworthy. As the
basic institution of Islamic civilization
throughout the centuries, it explains the
certainty and assurance Muslims have felt
in the rightness of their way of life.
In its content, the Sharia is much more than
law in the modern sense. Not only does it
deal with matters of religious ritual, but
it regulates every aspect of political, social,
and private life. Religious belief, or creed,
is part of Sharia in the broadest sense,
though kalam became a specialized science
in its own right. At the other extreme the
Sharia prescribes permissible and forbidden
types of food, the manner of a Muslim's dress,
and acceptable manners. Much is included
that today is thought to be outside the realm
of law. Traditionally Muslims divide the
Sharia into two parts: the Ibadat, or duties
that are owed to God by way of worship, and
so on; and the Muamalat, or duties of a practical
kind toward men and societY. Neither category
is more important or binding than the other;
both follow from the decrees of God.
The Sharia differs from modern concepts of
law in another way as well. Law is normally
associated with the state, enforced by the
police power, and applies to all within the
territorial boundaries of the state. None
of these facts holds true of the Islamic
law. It is binding primarily upon individuals,
who stand in face to face responsibility
with God, and is not enforced by the state.
The Sharia, in fact, gives scant attention
to the sphere of public law. Most of its
provisions apply to Muslims alone, though
there are some rules for non-Muslims living
in Islamic territory. Similarly, some of
the prescripts that Muslims must observe
in Islamic territory become inoperative in
regions controlled by "unbelievers."
The Four Schools of Law. In order to discover what the Sharia prescribes
in detail, the Muslims were obliged to develop
a science of the law. Concern with jurisprudence,
or fiqh, was one of the earliest and most
serious activities for the community. The
first century of Islamic history was filled
with controversy among lawyers (singular,
faqih) about the principles that should be
employed in deciding upon rules of law. In
the 3d Islamic century the jurist al-Shafii
formulated his theory of the usul al-fiqh
("roots of the law"), which has
since been universally accepted.
Al-Shafii taught that there are four roots
from which the law is derived and gave these
a definite order of rank. First is the Koran,
the supreme authority over all else. In second
place comes the tradition of the Prophet.
If neither primary authority can help, then
resort may be had to the consensus, or ijma,
of the community in the past; where pious
and learned men of previous generations have
agreed upon a certain point, the wisdom of
the community may be trusted not to lead
astray. In the final place is qiyas, or analogical
reasoning, closely hedged about by restrictive
rules and subject always to the primacy of
the other roots.
Confronted by a novel problem or an ambiguity,
the faqih should search these four roots
in their proper order for an answer. The
process of finding a rule of law by examining
the roots is called ijtihad, meaning an act
of personal intellectual exertion by a qualified
person. On the whole, the lawyers have forbidden
the use of purely personal opinion (ray)
in legal matters, though some jurists have
made a place for such principles as istihsan
(holding for good) or istislah (what is best).
After the emergence of the schools of law,
a conviction grew among Muslims that the
right to personal exertion (ijtihad) in interpreting
the sources of the law had ceased to exist.
Instead, Muslims held to taqlid, or submission
to authority, according to which men in later
centuries must adhere to the opinions of
the great jurists of the past. Until quite
recently almost all Muslims agreed that the
right of ijtihad had been withdrawn from
laymen and scholars alike. Muslim modernists,
however, have attacked this medieval view
of Sharia and have proclaimed the right of
every qualified person to examine the sources
of the law.
In most Muslim countries at present the scope
and force of the Sharia are being restricted.
Modern Muslim states have adopted codes of
law often based on European models. If they
retain a place for the Sharia, they relegate
it to the domain of personal law alone, where
it still governs such matters as marriage
and divorce. Because of these changes, a
great deal of attention is now given to ways
of adapting Islamic law to modem times.
Islamic Worship. The basic duties of Muslims toward God are
known as the five pillars of Islam. They
are the external signs of one's adherence
to the community and his desire to fulfill
the will of God. The first pillar is repetition
of the shahada, or short creed, "There
is no God but the one God, and Mohammed is
His prophet." Said publicly, this profession
of faith is sufficient to gain one recognition
as a member of the community. The second
pillar is salat, or the daily ritual prayer.
Muslims pray five times each day, at dawn,
at midday, in mid-afternoon, at sunset, and
after nightfall, facing toward Mecca. Salat
is preceded by a ritual purification and
consists of a series of bowings, prostrations,
and recitations from the Koran. Preferably,
prayer should be performed with the community,
though it is valid also in private. On Fridays,
Muslims assemble in the mosques (masjid,
or place for prostration) for congregational
prayer. Prayer is led by an imam, with the
worshipers standing in ranks behind him,
and is normally followed by a sermon. Summons
to prayer are given by a muezzin (muadhdhin)
calling from the minaret of the mosque. Five
daily prayers only are required, but piety
has encouraged Muslims to add additional
ones. There is also an entirely different
form of personal prayer that is widely practiced
by especially religious people.
The third pillar is zakat, or almsgiving.
In the days of Mohammed, payment of the zakat
was perhaps the most important external sign
of adherence to Islam. Each believer is required
to contribute a fixed percentage of his property
for the poor and the wayfarer. In recent
centuries there have seldom been formal arrangements
for the collection of zakat, but the forces
of Islamic revivalism in the 2Oth century
have led several states to initiate laws
and create institutions for this purpose.
The fourth pillar is the fast during the
month of Ramadan. For an entire lunar month
the Koran commands Muslims to refrain from
all food and drink during the daylight hours.
The fast begins with the red of the dawn
and ends with sunset. During the nights of
Ramadan, it is customary to sit in the mosque
or the privacy of one's own place reciting.
the Koran and praying. Travelers, pregnant
women, manual laborers, and some others are
exempted from the fast. At the end of Ramadan
there is a day of obligatory feasting, which
stretches into a festival of several days,
when Muslims visit one another, purchase
new clothing, give gifts, and so forth.
The fifth pillar is pilgrimage, or Hajj,
to the holy shrine in Mecca, the Kaaba. Every
able- bodied Muslim is expected to make the
pilgrim- age at some time in his life, and
many people in places distant from Arabia
look upon it as the climax of a lifetime.
There are several ceremonies connected with
the Hajj, such as wearing special dress,
walking seven times around the Kaaba, and
kissing the black stone in the corner of
the Kaaba. One of the most important is the
pilgrim's duty to sacrifice an animal in
the valley of Mina on the l0th day of the
month of pilgrimage. This Sacrificial Festival
(Eid al-Adhha) is celebrated at the same
time throughout the Muslim world. Thousands
of people go each year to Mecca for the pilgrimage;
the majority also visit Medina to pray at
the tomb of the Prophet.
In addition to the five pillars, Muslims
also celebrate some important religious occasions
each year. On the Prophet's birthday meetings
are held, speeches made, and prayers offered.
Among Shiite Muslims the great festival is
the l0th day of the month of Muharram, commemorating
the martyrdom of Husayn, the prophet's grandson,
on the battlefield of Karbala. Parades are
held with symbols of the slain Husayn; the
worshipers weep and beat their breasts, and
there are dramatic performances of a passion
play to show the suffering of the martyr.
The Shia (Shiite Muslims). Mention has been made of the Shia, a group
originating in the controversies over leadership
of the community that followed the death
of Mohammed. One party (shia means party)
favored Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of
the Prophet, as his successor, arguing that
leadership should re- main with the closest
member of Mohammed's family. Although Ali
eventually became caliph, he was preceded
by three other men and soon lost his rule
to the Umayyads. Husayn, the martyr of Karbala,
was Ali's son.
The central religious belief of the Shia
(or Shiite Muslims, as opposed to the majority
Sunnite Muslims), is that God has chosen
a series of imams for the leadership of the
community and endowed them with special knowledge,
or light, that provides a source of living
guidance for the Muslims. Therefore, the
Shiites believe that true Islam cannot be
known and practiced without the guidance
of the imam God has chosen. The largest group
of the Shiites, the Twelvers, accepts a series
of 12 imams, the last of whom disappeared
but who, though hidden, is still in the world.
Another group is called the Seveners because
of a disagreement about who was the legitimate
successor to the sixth imam. The Seveners
chose one person, whereas the Twelvers opted
for another. On the whole the practice and
doctrine of Islam among the Shiites are the
same as among other Muslims. The major differences
are in the belief concerning the imam, in
some details of legal thinking, in the more
rational tendency of the Shiites in theology,
and in the piety surrounding the martyrdom
of the Imam Husayn and his family at Karbala.
The Shiites are fairly widespread in the
Islamic world, but their greatest numbers
are to be found in Iran, Iraq, South Arabia,
and the Indian subcontinent. With the rise
of the Safavid dynasty in Iran in the 15th
century, the shahs adopted Twelver Shiism
as the official religion of the state. Today
Iran is predominantly Shiite.
Islam in the Modern World. The most significant fact in the life of
the Muslim peoples in the modern era is their
resurgence, culturally and politically, after
having been dominated by the colonial powers
of Europe and disrupted by the massive influence
of Western civilization. In the 18th century
there were three great Muslim empires: the
Ottoman in Turkey, the Middle East, and the
Mediterranean; the Safavid in Iran; and the
Mughul (Mogul) in India. By the end of the
I9th century, all three had been destroyed
or so seriously weakened that European powers
were able to occupy portions of their territory
and to dominate them militarily and economically.
The 20th century has seen a reversal of this
trend. Colonialism in the strict sense has
disappeared from the Islamic world, and there
is a series of ebulliently independent Muslim
states stretching through a strategic region
of the earth from Indonesia to the Atlantic.
At present there is no major group of Muslims
that remains under the political domination
of colonial or other outside powers with
the exception of the large Muslim population
of Soviet Central Asia and the Muslims of
Afghanistan.
Adapted from Collier's Encyclopedia. 1995.
P. F. Collier, NY.
