Islam basics.
There is a great lack of understanding of the basics of Islam the religion here in the United States. Here is an excellent summary from another site.
Islam was started by the prophet Muhammed in the 7th century. Muslims believe that all previous prophets in other world religions were actually Muslims but that their message has been corrupted. These other prophets are considered to have been sent to a single. . . group, such as Jesus being a prophet to the Jews and his message applying only to the Jews. Muhammed[,] on the other hand, is the “seal of the prophets”, that is, the final prophet who was sent for all people.
Beliefs about God:
- God is transcendent and unknowable by man.
- Tawhid- God is one (not a trinity).
- God does what he wills but is not thought of as holy.
- God can change his mind and give commands that abrogate previous commands.
Man:
- Man is inherently good and is born a Muslim. The people around him teach him to be a Christian, Hindu etc.
- Man needs to recognize God and submit to him by obeying his laws, including the five pillars of Islam: belief, prayer, zakat (tithe), fasting, pilgrimage to Mecca.
Heaven/Paradise:
- God will judge each persons actions and if their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds, God may have mercy on them and let them enter Paradise, but a Muslim can never be sure.
- Those who go to Paradise still have a physical body and enjoy sensual activities. . . .
Revelation:
- God revealed truth to the prophets who were sinless. People refused to follow the prophets and corrupted their words (thus even though the Qur’an refers to the Bible, they consider the current state of the Bible to be corrupted).
- Final revelation came through Muhammed who received the words of the Qur’an from God and recited them for others to write down. The actual words are written in heaven, in Arabic[,] which is the language of God. Translation of the Qur’an (called Interpretations) are not considered to be real scripture, thus many Muslims memorize parts of the Qur’an in Arabic to recite as prayers regardless of whether or not they know Arabic.
(*) That’s a good list. Two more important concepts to know about Islam are jihad (”holy war”) (†) and taqiyah. (‡)
English does not have separate words for Islamic culture and Islamic religion. Thus, Islam stands for both. This ambiguity is a frequent source of confusion. The confusion is aggravated by Islam’s typical unity of religion and government.