1. What is the difference between the words “Islam,” “Islamic,” “Muslim,” and “Arab?
“Islam”
Islam is the name of a religion, as Christianity and Judaism are names of religions. In Arabic the word Islam is commonly translated as “submission or surrender to God” or “peace.” Combining both translations results in the combined meaning “peace through following God’s guidance.” For Muslims, this is the goal and objective of Islam: to first establish peace within oneself by following God’s commandments, and as a result to interact peacefully with one’s family, neighborhood, city, etc and to work towards a peaceful and just society. Islam is considered a way of life for Muslims because it includes beliefs, practices, and good works in all aspects of a person’s life.
“Islamic”
Islamic is an adjective that modifies a non-human noun, for example, Islamic art, Islamic architecture, Islamic beliefs, etc. This term should not be used to refer to a person.
“Muslim”
A follower of Islam is called a Muslim. More commonly, a Muslim is defined as a person who believes in the oneness of God and the prophethood of Muhammad.
“Arab”
While the term “Arab” has been used in the past to reference members of an ethnic group from the Arabian Peninsula, today, the word “Arab” refers to people from Arabic-speaking countries, most of which are in the Middle East and North Africa. The term “Arabian” was historically used to describe an inhabitant of the Arabian Peninsula. Today “Arabian” is used as an adjective to describe a non-human noun (e.g., Arabian coffee); it should not be used to refer to people.
2. What does Islam teach?
Islam’s primary message is a continuation of the monotheistic, Abrahamic tradition’s belief in one God. The three major dimensions of Islam include: beliefs, ritual practices, and doing good works. There are six major beliefs in Islam. There are also five central practices which are referred to as the Five Pillars. The last dimension of Islam focuses on good works and excellence in character in both one's spiritual relationship with God as well as in one's everyday actions.
3. What are the major beliefs of Muslims?
The six major beliefs in Islam are: belief in God; belief in angels; belief in God’s prophets/messengers; belief in God’s revelations in the form of holy scriptures sent to the messengers; belief in an afterlife which follows the Day of Judgment on which people will be held accountable for their actions and compensated accordingly in the afterlife; and belief in God’s divine will and His knowledge of what happens in the world.
4. How do Muslims practice their faith?
Muslims practice their faith in many different ways, but the major practices are known as the Five Pillars, which include: the profession of faith, namely that there is only one God, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God; the five daily prayers; required annual donation in the amount of 2.5% of one's excess wealth; fasting during daylight hours in the month of Ramadan; and making a pilgrimage to Mecca once in a lifetime, if one is mentally, physically and financially able.
5. What are the primary sources of knowledge about Islam?
The primary sources of knowledge about Islam are the Qur’an, which Muslims believe to be the divinely revealed word of God, and the Sunnah, which refers to the example or precedent of the Prophet Muhammad (i.e., what he said, did, approved, disapproved, caused, ordered, or allowed to happen). Much of what is known about the Sunnah is from the collection of sayings or reports known as hadith, or prophetic tradition. The hadith describe actions of the Prophet Muhammad or actions that his companions attributed to his teachings. Hadith also elaborate and provide context to the Qur’an.
In addition to these primary sources, Muslims have also traditionally relied on the following: Scholarly consensus which basically means that knowledgeable scholars agree upon a particular issue that is not addressed specifically in the previously mentioned; primary sources; and analogical reasoning, which means applying principles or laws derived from the Qur’an and Sunnah to similar situations not explicitly addressed by them. For Shi’as, the rulings of the twelve imams are also considered a primary source.
6. Why do some people suffer so much in this life especially the innocent such as children?
Muslims believe that God tries people in different ways, through both hardship and ease. While the cause of suffering is not always evident, the way that people respond to difficulty is a test of their moral fiber. Responding to hardship with patience and fortitude is a virtue for which Muslims believe a great reward is promised in this life and the afterlife. Additionally, there may be a silver lining behind every difficulty. For instance, major disasters often bring out the best in people, inspiring them to perform remarkable acts as they respond to a personal or another’s hardship with compassion and courage. Muslims believe that they are responsible for coming to the aid of suffering people and will be held accountable in the afterlife for how they respond to those in need. Muslims also take comfort in their belief that life doesn’t end after death.
7. God’s love for humanity is a central theme in Christianity. Are there similar teachings in Islam?
Actually, the Qur’an mentions God’s compassion and mercy 192 times, as opposed to God’s wrath, which is mentioned only 17 times. Two of God’s main attributes are the “Compassionate” and the “Merciful.” Both of these names denote God’s love and care for all creation. These are the two most often mentioned names of God since all but one of the 114 chapters in the Qur’an begin with “In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.” The Qur'an cites 99 different names or attributes of God, many of which also emphasize these characteristics, including “the Loving,” “the Giving,” “the Forgiving” and “the Kind.”
8. What do Muslims believe about angels?
Angels are mentioned many times in the Qur’an and hadith (prophetic sayings). Unlike humans, angels are described as not possessing free will, but are assigned different duties. Two of the most prominent angels mentioned by name in the Qur’an are Gabriel (Jibril) and Michael (Mikhail). Gabriel is the angel of revelation and Michael is the angel of compassion.
9. What does Islam say about Satan?
The word “jinn” refers to a third type of creation, in addition to humans and angels. Humans are said to have been made from clay, angels from light, and jinn from fire. While Islam teaches that some jinn are good and submit to God, it is believed that others, such as Iblis or Shaytan (Satan), try to tempt people to do evil, similar to the belief in Christian theology.
10. How do the stories of the prophets in Islam compare with those in Christianity and Judaism?
The stories of the prophets in the Qur’an are similar to and often reflect the stories that are in the Bible. Some examples include: the story of Noah and his ark; the story of Abraham and Sarah and the birth of their son Isaac, who is also considered a prophet; the story of Jacob and his twelve sons, including Joseph, who is also considered a prophet; and the most oft-mentioned prophet in the Qur'an, Moses, and the story of his mission in Egypt to rescue his people. All of these stories are recounted throughout the Qur’an and bear striking similarity to Biblical versions with the main difference being the belief by Muslims that none of the prophets committed major sins.
11. Were there female prophets?
Some Muslim scholars hold the view that there were female prophets. Two of the women regarded by these scholars as prophets are Asiyah, the wife of Pharaoh, and Mary the mother of Jesus, because they both received revelation from God. Whether one takes the position that they were prophets who brought a specific message to their people or not, Muslims revere them as two amongst the many righteous and saintly women mentioned in the Qur’an.
12. Why do you believe that the Prophet Muhammad is the final prophet?
Because the Qur’an states that the Prophet Muhammad is the “Seal of the Prophets” or the final prophet, and Muslims believe that the Qur’an is the revealed word of God that has been preserved in its original form.
13. Why can’t you have images of the Prophet Muhammad? Why the uproar over the Danish cartoons or the recent film?
Out of a sense of great respect, Muslims generally refrain from depicting the Prophet Muhammad and actually all the previous prophets, including Abraham, Moses, or Jesus, who are all highly revered in Islam. This is a position similar to Rabbinic Judaism and a number of other anti-iconic Christian denominations. But the issue with both the Danish cartoons and the film was that they did not merely portray the Prophet Muhammad - they did so in an offensive and provocative manner.
While Muslims believe in the right to freedom speech, note that even under the U.S. Constitution, there are limits on speech that balance one's right to free speech against the rights of others, including limits on "the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or 'fighting' words - those which by their very utterance inflicted injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace." (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942) 62 S.Ct. 766, 769.) This is why people generally avoid racist or anti-Semitic speech or representations. Additionally, in most Muslim countries, as in many countries throughout the world, control of speech is regulated by the government (ie. China, Russia), which is why many Muslims wrongly assumed that the U.S government supported the film.
At the same time, reacting to such representations with violence or other extreme actions contravenes the very example of the Prophet Muhammad and Islamic teachings which prohibit such behavior. Every American Muslim organization and Muslim leaders worldwide condemned these attacks and offered condolences for the death of the American ambassador, who was a much loved friend of Arabs and Muslims. The following week in Benghazi, thousands marched to protest the militants. It is important to note that the attacks on the embassy in Libya and the resultant deaths have been called into question by both Libyan and American officials as having been a pre-planned attack by militants, rather than a reaction to the film.
Many pundits have also opined that the reaction to the film was as much in response to American foreign policy that in the Muslim world has been viewed as anti-Muslim for a long time, as to the film itself. Specific issues often cited are continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have killed thousands of civilians, long time U.S. support for dictators in many Muslim countries, and other foreign policy issues.
It has also been pointed out by multiple sources that the numbers of people taking part in the largely non-violent protests that followed the initial ones in Egypt and Libya were a small fraction of the total population, and far less than the huge numbers of people who rallied for weeks and months against their own rulers during the Arab Spring. At the same time period there were huge demonstrations in Russia against the Russian President Vladimir Putin, while thousands turned out in Portugal and Spain to protest austerity measures.
14. Jesus was a non-violent reformer while Muhammad fought in wars. Why the difference between Jesus and Muhammad in terms of their approach?
While Jesus lived and interacted with others as a prophet and reformer, he did not embody the various roles exemplified by the Prophet Muhammad during his lifetime. The Prophet Muhammad, for example, held the positions of religious leader, husband, father, social reformer, statesman, judge, and military leader. This provides a complete picture of his actions under different circumstances.
During the first thirteen years of Muhammad’s prophethood in Mecca, he did not fight back against the severe persecution of his followers, some of whom were killed while others were subjected to a severe boycott, had their property destroyed or confiscated, or were forced to emigrate. It was only after the Prophet Muhammad was in a position to defend his community without harming civilian populations that he responded to the Meccans. By then, the early Muslims had been forced to migrate to Medina, where hostilities against them continued by the Meccans who were threatened by their growing number and influence in the region. (Fighting to defend oneself against oppression or to prevent oppression against someone else is permitted in Islam, whereas fighting as an act of aggression is not.)
15. Why did the Prophet marry so many women?
According to Islamic teachings, the Prophet Muhammad was married to only one wife during the prime of his life—from the age of 25 until he was over 50. In fact, his first wife Khadija was actually 15 years older than him, meaning she was 40 and he was 25 when they were first married. Only after Khadija’s death did the Prophet Muhammad marry more than one wife, all but one of whom had been divorced or widowed. According to Muslim historians, these marriages were contracted to assist needy widows and divorcees, and to solidify the community of Muslims by forging alliances among the tribes in and around Medina. It is important to note that polygamy was prevalent in Arabia in the 7th century as it was in many cultures, as demonstrated by references in the Bible to polygamous marriages by many of the prophets or patriarchs like Solomon, Abraham, etc.
16. Why did the Prophet Muhammad marry a nine-year old? If she was not nine, how old was she?
Muslim scholars differ about the actual age of Aisha at the time of her marriage to the Prophet Muhammad. While some reports mention that she was nine, recent research suggests that she may have actually been closer to eighteen. Whatever her age, all scholars agree that she had reached puberty at the time of her marriage, since it is prohibited in Islam to have marital relations prior to that time. It is also important to note that any discussion about age and marriage in a pre-modern era needs to be understood in the context of the culture, time, and place. 1400 years ago, it was common for both genders to marry at puberty due in part to a much shorter life span than today. Since Aisha was betrothed to another person prior to her engagement to the Prophet Muhammad, and there are no records of any objection to the first engagement, this indicates that the practice of early marriage was common at the time. This is a practice that continued until the late 19th and early 20th century in much of the world, including Europe and North America.
It may be of interest to note that Aisha became one of the most educated, outspoken, and influential women in early Islamic history about whom the Prophet Muhammad said: “Take half of your religion from this young lady.”
17. What do Muslims believe about Jesus?
Muslims greatly revere Jesus and believe that he was born to the Virgin Mary through a miraculous act of God, just as Adam was created by God without a father or mother. The Qur’an describes his conception and birth, as well as his many miracles such as healing the sick. The Qur’an also emphasizes that Jesus was a great prophet of God, as well as a messenger who received revelation from God, but that he was, like all other prophets, a human being.
18. Why does the Qur’an talk about Jesus more often than Muhammad?
For Muslims, the Qur’an is not about any one person, but rather is considered to be a source of guidance from God to humankind. However, much of the Qur’an directly addresses the Prophet Muhammad, or relates events that happened to him and his followers, without mentioning his name (such as in Chapters Muzzamil, Muddathir, Dhuha, Inshirah, and Ya-Sin). Muslims believe that since the Qur’an was revealed after Jesus and previous prophets, part of the guidance conveyed by the Qur’an is related through the stories and teachings about these earlier prophets. The most frequently mentioned story in the Qur’an is the story of Moses and his liberation of the Children of Israel. The miracles of Jesus, Moses, David, Abraham, and all the other prophets are mentioned in the Qur’an as well. [Jesus is mentioned by name 25 times, Moses over 100 mentions and Muhammad was mentioned 4 times as Muhammad and once as Ahmad]
19. What do Muslims believe about Mary?
According to Islamic teachings, she is the Virgin Mother of the Prophet Jesus. An entire chapter in the Qur’an is named after her. The chapter called Mary (Maryam in Arabic) and other verses in the Qur’an emphasize her piety, righteousness and her role as example for all people, male and female. As she is the best woman and a she was chosen over the women of all nation.
20. Why is it that Muslims do not celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas?
While many Muslims celebrate the period of the Prophet Muhammad’s birth with poetry, songs, and readings about his life and teachings, this observance does not have the same significance as Christmas for Christians (which celebrates what Christians believe to be the birth of the Savior and Redeemer of humankind). Similarly, Christians do not celebrate the births of the prior prophets mentioned in the New Testament. Muslims do commemorate the legacy of previous prophets by reading about their teachings and lives in the Qur’an and by saying, “peace be upon them” after their names.
I'll be continuing from here in my subsequent post, stay bless and Jazaka Allahu khayr
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Aleksander
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