ISLAM

• Islam


  • More than 1.5 billion adherents, comprising almost one-fourth of the entire world population
  • Second largest religion and one of the fastest growing in the world
  • Majority of Muslims live in Asia and Africa
• Prophet Muhammad


  Founder of Islam (570-632 AD)
• Muhammad was an orphan from a poor Bedouin tribe
• Muhammad was influenced by Judaism and Monophysitism
• Trinity


  Christianity's belief which means God has three aspects—Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit
• The Qur'an accepts the Hebrew Torah, the Psalms of David, and the Gospels of Jesus Christ as divinely inspired
• The Qur'an contradicts the Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospels
• The Qur'an denies Jesus Christ's crucifixion
• The Qur'an teaches that Ishmael was the child of promise, not Isaac
• The God of the Qur'an is not the same as the God of the Bible
• The Qur'an contradicts the Bible on various historical details
• Islam claims to share the same God with Judaism and Christianity, with Muhammad being the last prophet
• Islamic law is based on the Sunna, the words and deeds of Muhammad
• Qur'an

  The sacred writing of the Muslims, meaning "recitation" or "reading"

  
• Hadith


  The words and deeds of Muhammad

  
• Islam


  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
• Muslims saw themselves as descendants of Abraham, the ancestor of the Jews, and the descendants of Ishmael, Abraham's elder son by his Egyptian bondmaid
• Islam


  A religion that came exclusively from the revelations of God to Mohammed (the Koran) and words and deeds of Mohammed (the Sunna)
• Islamic law

  Based on the sunna
• Shari'ah


  The law of Islam, installed permanently the Arabic order of society on subsequent generations
• Sacred texts of Islam

  • Qur'an
  • Hadith

  
• Qur'an


  The sacred writing of the Muslims, the revelation from God of his speech (kalam) and the foundation of the Islam religion

  
• The Qur'an is the supreme authority in all matters of faith, theology, and law
• Qur'an


  A copy of the eternal scripture written in heaven but made known to Muhammad chapter by chapter

  
• The Qur'an in Arabic, the only language in which it was revealed, is considered the perfect word of God
• Compilation of the Qur'an

  1. Muhammad initially memorized the revelations because he was illiterate

  2. His companion and secretary Zayd ibn Thabit wrote them on various materials

  3. The Qur'an had officially come to the form that was disseminated throughout the centers of the Islamic world twenty years after Muhammad's death
• The Qur'an has remained virtually unaltered since the time of Muhammad
• Surah


  The chapters that compose the Qur'an

  
• Ayah


  The verses of the Qur'an, meaning "evidence" or "sign"
• There are 114 chapters in the Qur'an, 86 of which are classified as Meccan while 28 are Medinian
• The Meccan verses generally pertain to religious ideals while the Medinian verses deal with the organization of the Muslim community
• The Qur'an is also divided into thirty almost equal parts (with each part known as juz) so as to enable a reader to complete the reading of the scripture in one month
• The Qur'an is arranged based on the length of the surah in descending order

  
• The first surah is called Fatihah ("The Opening") that is in the form of a prayer to God for guidance

  
• A person who can memorize the Qur'an in its entirety is called hafiz ("guardian")
• Hadith


  The collection of the deeds and sayings of Muhammad and his followers, the second source of shari'a law

  
• The hadiths were collected generations after the death of Muhammad
• Kutub al-Sittah


  The six most respected and most often cited collections of hadiths

  
• Sahih


  Indicates that the authors of these hadith collections sifted the authentic reports about Muhammad from other unsubstantiated narratives

  
• Five Pillars of Islam

  • Shahadah (declaring there is no other god but Allah and Muhammad is His messenger)
  • Salat (ritual prayer five times a day)
  • Sawm (fasting during Ramadan)
  • Zakat (alms giving to the poor)
  • Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime)