INTRO

• How do you find the activity?
• What is Islam?
• Who is Allah?
• Prophet Mohammad as the Founder of Islam
• Background of Muhammad (570-632)

  • Orphan from a poor Bedouin tribe
  • Influence of Judaism and Monophysite Christianity in the Byzantine Empire
  • No formal schooling, worked as a caravan worker travelling across the Arabian Peninsula as a camel driver
  • From 610, at 40, started to receive revelations from God which he would later recite in front of audiences
  • Revelations were called the Qur'an, or "Recitation", and formed the heart of Islam
  • Considered himself a "Messenger of God"
  • Wealthy and powerful clans were against him, partly because the revelations were often specifically directed against them
  • New religion largely appealed to the unfortunate of Mecca
• Hijrah


  1. Muhammad went back to Mecca and got over 75 new followers in 622

  2. They quietly slipped out of Mecca and went to Medina

  3. This journey to Medina was the Hijrah and it is from this year that the Muslim calendar begins
• Rise of Mecca as the Islamic center
• Pre-Islamic Arabs worshipped many deities, including Allah, probably derived from the monotheistic religions of Judaism and Christianity
• In 630 Muhammad went back to Mecca and defeated the wealthy clans there, and established Mecca as the "capital" of Islam, although Medina and Jerusalem also remained holy Islamic cities
• He also destroyed all the icons of gods/goddesses
• Qur'an


  1. God revealed messages through Muhammad who initially memorized these lines because he was illiterate

  2. Revelation spanned from about 609 to 632 C.E., the year of the prophet's death

  3. Muhammad relayed these messages to his companion and secretary Zayd ibn Thabit who wrote them on various materials

  4. Twenty years after the death of Muhammad, the Quran had officially come to the form that was disseminated throughout the centers of the Islamic world
• According to Secular History, the origin of Islam can be traced back to 7th century Saudi Arabia and the prophet Muhammad (circa 570-632 A.D.) introduced Islam in 610 A.D. after experiencing what he claimed to be an angelic visitation
• According to Islam, the origin of Islam is generally accredited to the prophet Muhammad but to the devout Muslim, Islam began long before Muhammad ever walked the earth
• The Qur'an testifies of itself that it was given by God through the angel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad
• The "previous scriptures" mentioned in the Qur'an are the Hebrew Torah, the Psalms of David, and the Gospels of Jesus Christ
• The Qur'an accepts these books as divinely inspired and even encourages us to test its claims by these "previous scriptures"
• The Qur'an thoroughly contradicts the Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospels
• According to the Hebrew Torah, God made a covenant with Abraham and promised him a child through whom He would fulfill this covenant
• The Qur'an teaches that Ishmael was the child of promise, not Isaac, and so Muslims believe that God's covenant promises were meant for Ishmael's descendants, not Isaac's
• The God of the Qur'an and the God of the Bible are not the same
• The Qur'an explicitly denies the trinity, Christ's unique Sonship, His deity, and His pre-incarnate preexistence, while the Bible affirms these
• The Qur'an takes its authority from the Bible, contradicts the Bible, and therefore turns around and undermines the authority of the Bible
• The Qur'an makes several historical mistakes, such as mistaking Jesus' mother Mary for Moses' sister Miriam, and claiming that a Samaritan sculpted the golden calf at the foot of Sinai
• Islam was a religion that claimed prophets from both Judaism and Christianity, and saw itself as sharing the same God with these two religions, with Muhammad being the last prophet
• Unlike the first two religions which were compiled by different people over time, Islam came exclusively from the revelations of God to Mohammed (the Koran) and words and deeds of Mohammed (the Sunna)
• Islamic law is based on the sunna
• Qur'an


  The sacred writing of the Muslims that literally means "recitation" or "reading"
• The Quran is the revelation from God of his speech (kalam) and is the foundation of the Islam religion
• In 610 C.E., when Muhammad received the first revelations, he was commanded by angel Gabriel to "iqra" or "recite"
• Established around seventh century C.E., Islam is the youngest among the world's major religions
• With more than 1.5 billion adherents comprising almost one-fourth of the entire world population, Islam is the second largest group and one of the fasting growing religions in the world
• Majority of Muslims, the followers of Islam, live in Asia and Africa
• There are 49 countries in the world that are Muslim-majority or comprise 50% of the population
• The 1.2 billion Muslims in these countries equivalent to 74% of the entire Muslim population worldwide
• More than 60% of the world's Muslims can be found in Asia, including Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Turkey, and Iran
• Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim majority country with almost 87% of the population practicing the Islam religion
• In Africa, sizeable Muslim communities are found in Egypt and Nigeria
• Islam


  Means submission
• Qur'an


  The chapters that compose the Qur'an
• Jihad


  Means to strive or struggle