ISLAM “There is no god but God” In about 570 CE, a new prophet was born. This man, Muhammad, is considered by Muslims to be the last of a continuing chain of prophets who have come to restore the true religion. They regard the way revealed to him, Islam, not as a new religion but as the original path of monotheism, which also developed into Judaism and Christianity. After carrying the torch of civilization in the West while Europe was in its Dark Ages, in the twentieth century Islam began a great resurgence. It is now the religion of nearly one-fifth of the world’s people. Its monotheistic creed is simple: “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his Messenger.” Its requirements of the faithful are straightforward, if demanding. But beneath them lie profundities and subtleties of which non-Muslims are largely unaware. In fact, ignorance about Islam and perceived targeting of Muslims in general by the U.S.-led “war on terrorism” have exacerbated a dangerous and growing divide between Muslims and non-Muslims in the contemporary world. Therefore it is extremely important to carefully study the origins, teachings, and modern history of this major world religion. The Prophet Muhammad Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, traces its ancestry to the patriarch Abraham. Isma’il (Ishmael) was said to be the son of Abraham and an Egyptian slave, Hagar. When Abraham’s wife, Sarah, also bore him a son (Isaac), Abraham took Isma’il and Hagar to the desert valley of Becca (Mecca) in Arabia to spare them Sarah’s jealousy. The sacred book of Islam, the Holy Qur’an, received as a series of revelations to Muhammad, relates that Abraham and Ishmael together built the holiest sanctuary in Islam, the Ka’bah. It was thought to be the site of Adam’s original place of worship; part of the cubic stone building is a venerated black meteorite. According to the Qur’an, God told Abraham that the Ka’bah should be a place of pilgrimage. It was regarded as a holy place by the Arabian tribes. According to Islamic tradition, the region sank into historical oblivion as it turned away from Abraham’s monotheism. For many centuries, the events of the rest of the world passed it by, aside from contact through trading caravans. Then into a poor clan of the most powerful of the tribes in the area was born a child named Muhammad (“the praised one”). His father died before he was born, and after the death of his mother and then his grandfather, Muhammad became the ward of his uncle, who put him to work as a shepherd. ISBN: 0-536-98811-0 Living Religions, Sixth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher.Published by Prentice-Hall.Copyright © 2005 by Pearson Education, Inc
Posted on: Sun, 08 Sep 2013 03:29:28 +0000
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