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WORLD ISLAM.
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Discusses central tenet of Islam.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Discusses central tenet of Islam. Muhammad as prophet of Allah. The Qur'an and Shari'a. Events of Muhammed's life; his revelations. The Five Pillars of Faith and the traditional life of Islam. Close relationship between religion and law. Spread of Islam. Divisions in the faith in various countries. Growth of world Islam and its strength.
Paper Introduction:
The central tenet of Islam is that there is one God (Allah) and Muhammad is his prophet. The founding of the religion, which is now the world's second largest, began with the revelation of the word of God directly through Muhammad, beginning around the year 611. After receiving the word of Allah Muhammad wrote down everything exactly as it had been transmitted to him in his revelations and this became the Qur'an, the holy scripture of Islam. The term "islam" means "submission" and the religion centers on the submission of the individual and the community to Allah in all things.
The events of Muhammad's life took on extraordinary significance as the practice of Islam evolved. Muhammad was married and had one daughter, Fatima. After his revelations began he spent ten years (611-621) preaching and attempting to
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Shari'a consisted of the interpretation of the words of the Qur'an asit applied to practical matters such as marriage, relations with non-Muslims and civil justice. The desire for change varies throughout the Islamic world from thosenations such as Turkey, where secularization of the state has beeninstitutionalized, and others, such as Tunisia, in which "traditionalreligious attitudes mix with new social ideas" to others in which so-called'fundamentalists' wish for a return to traditional practice of varyingstrictness. They have,therefore, rejected the hadith "and appeal instead to the exclusiveauthority of the Qur'an"--but this is an extreme position even among thepresent-day Muslims (Parrinder 483). The direction of Mecca isindicated in every mosque and, since it must be carried out in an undefiledplace there arose the custom of using individual prayer rugs when prayingoutside a mosque. It is complete in the sense that Muhammad wasthe last in the line of prophets stretching back to Moses and Abraham, andincluding Jesus. The five pillars date back to the very beginning of Islam and it was,in a profound sense, the simplicity of doctrine and practice that accountedin large part for the ready acceptance of Islam in the lands where the Arabconquerors spread throughout the century following Muhammad's death.Within one hundred years, an astonishingly short time, the faith dominatedthe area from Spain and Morocco in the west to the Indus in the east. The first pillar's confession offaith consists of saying "There is no god but God (Allah) and Muhammad isthe rasul (Prophet or messenger) of God" (Ellwood & McGraw 387). Sunni Islam is the normative Islam of the greatmajority of Muslim lands--the term sunna means "well-trodden path" (Ellwood& McGraw 4 2). The purification rite of washing hands, feet, mouth and nose precedesprayer which is carried out while facing Mecca. The principal inherent in the third pillar extends, however, tothe general notion of care for others in the community. There are some important subsects within both branches of Islam--suchas the puritanical Wahhabi movement of Sunni Islam that predominates inSaudi Arabia. The result of these differences has beenthat the more tolerant Sunni Islam has been more conservative--since no oneis empowered to change any aspect of the law--while the Shi'ites, almostalways an oppressed minority, have often accepted "considerable innovation"when it was revealed by the imams and have been, at times, opposed to thestate (Ellwood & McGraw 4 6). Popular religion and culture could vary considerably form oneregion to another but the limitation of interpretation to the (non-political) ulama meant that the "'great tradition" of learning and'correct' interpretation would diverge far less, even when the Islamicworld was not politically united" (Ellwood & McGraw 397). The traditional life of Islam, as based on shari'a revolves aroundthe so-called Five Pillars of the faith: confession of belief, five dailysessions of prayer, almsgiving, fasting during Ramadan, and the pilgrimageto Mecca which is known as the hajj. Thetwo caliphates--the caliphs were the "'deputies' of the Prophet as temporalrulers"--of Baghdad (75 -1258) and Cordova (755-1236) ruled over theclassic age of Islam in which art, science and philosophy flourished(Ellwood & McGraw 395). Sunni Islam places itsgreatest emphasis, however, on carrying out the Five Pillars of the faithand on "a rather formal--though deeply felt--style of devotion" (Ellwood &McGraw 4 2). The Shi'ites held that the line ofimams, which began with Muhammad's cousin, were treacherously murdered bythe caliphs until the twelfth imam Zaman, or Mahdi, made himself invisiblein order to escape their clutches. The purpose of the Qur'an is the proclamation of the essential unityof God. Pilgrims journey to Mecca and worship at the shrine called theKaaba, which is believed to have been built by Abraham and to contain arock brought from heaven by the angel Gabriel. This act is regardedas the central miracle of Islam for there is no other "explanation of howan unlettered caravan merchant of the early seventh century might have beenable, by his own devices, to produce a text of such inimitable beauty [and]which stood so far above the ideas current among mankind at that time" (DuPasquier 53). In the latter half of the twentieth century, however, Islamunderwent a great revival as the Muslim nations gained their independenceand, in many instances, the common people--long subordinate to the rulingelites--began to agitate for a return to a more traditional version of theIslamic state--sometimes leading to the overthrow of unsympathetic regimes. The third pillar, almsgiving, consists of an obligation to give asmall, but consistent, portion of one's wealth to those in need. The second large division is Shi'a Islam which predominates in Iraqand southern Iran and exists in significant minorities in several otherregions. Unity, "the primary concept of Islam, implies totality" and, forthe adherent, Islam "necessarily includes everything which makes up hislife" (Du Pasquier 76). Although Islamic civilization flourished from the time of the Propheta cultural decline began after the thirteenth century as the control bydivine law "inevitably made society static [by] putting a premium onconformity rather than on innovation and new ideas" (Ellwood & McGraw 395). The overall picture of world Islam at the end of the twentiethcentury is one of intense activity and growing strength. It accommodates differences of opinion andSunni Islam is self-governing in each country, but they all adhere ingeneral to the law which is interpreted by the consensus of the ulama.Even though there are divergent traditions of interpretation these areregarded as alternatives rather than rivals. Prayers are said in Arabic, "the language of Muhammadand the Qur'an" since it is regarded as pointless, and often assacrilegious, to translate the words of the Qur'an (Ellwood & McGraw 391). The Mahdi, the Shi'ites hold, willreturn some day "to bring justice to the earth" (Ellwood & McGraw 4 3).The world of Shi'a Islam, far from seeing continuous submission to Allah asthe source of steady triumph for the faithful, "is a darker sphere wheretreachery and cruelty are all too likely to prevail on the outer plane" asforces work against the revealed truth (Ellwood & McGraw 4 3). McGraw. The central tenet of Islam is that there is one God (Allah) andMuhammad is his prophet. The call tosubmit to God is not, however, merely a question of personal submission andthe religion "has tried hard to combat the human proclivity to mix pietyand egoism" by making adherence to the shari'a, or law--derived from theinstructions in the Qur'an--a basis for community (Ellwood & McGraw 385). Bicester, England: Hamlyn, 1983. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999.Parrinder, Geoffrey. This issometimes institutionalized as a tax on the faithful in some Muslimnations. Sufi practitioners held that in addition to the ordinaryrules for religious life there was also "another and deeper level ofspiritual meaning" to the sacred writings "which the prophet only sharedwith a few of his chosen companions (Parrinder 494). Thus by the nineteenth century the vast Islamic lands were largely underthe dominion of the European powers--with the exception of the Ottoman andPersian empires which were "anachronistic and corrupt regimes" that were,in many respects, more oppressive than the European colonies (Ellwood &McGraw 412). Shi'ites held that after Muhammad there was to be a succession ofimams, "divinely appointed and authoritative teachers" who were to guidethe faithful (Ellwood & McGraw 4 2). Muhammad was married and had one daughter,Fatima. Every word and every stylistic choiceis, therefore, a reflection of the divine essence and the scripture isrevered in and of itself. Winter. The close relationshipbetween religion and law and the emphasis on Arabic as the language ofreligious practice, as well as legal and scholarly work by the ulama (orbody of learned men) produced a high level of relative uniformity among thevarious Muslim societies. Muhammad's revelations continued until the end of his life in 632.The process of revelation consisted of the words of God being conveyed toMuhammad through the agency of the archangel Gabriel. Works CitedDu Pasquier, Roger. J. Thesecond pillar, prayer, takes place each day at dawn, noon, later afternoon,immediately after sunset, and at night, usually about two hours after dark. The second source of Shari'a was hadith, thenon-Qur'anic traditions related to Muhammad's sayings and exemplaryexperiences. The fourth pillar,consists of total fasting during daylight hours in the month of Ramadan.The fifth pillar, the hajj, is a pilgrimage that every Muslim wishes toundertake during her/his lifetime. All these prophets had come before but their revelationswere incomplete. This flight to Medinawas called the Hijra and it became the starting date for the Muslimcalendar since it was "the beginning of Muhammad's public andorganizational life on a large scale" (Ellwood & McGraw 381). Over the centuries the role of the imams in Shi'a Islam has grown inimportance. Despite the very high relative level of homogeneity of religiouspractice and adherence to shari'a among Muslims there are importantdivisions in the faith. Cambridge, England: Islamic texts society, 1992.Ellwood, Robert S., and Barbara A. Although it also includes the Muslim "view ofprevious religious history" and occasional "instructions to the faithful,"it is a work of proclamation, first and foremost, that tells the people ofthe necessity of submission to God (Ellwood & McGraw 382). In theremaining ten years of his life Muhammad's successful preaching managed tounite all of Arabia under his religious and civil leadership. After his revelations began he spent ten years (611-621) preachingand attempting to reform religious practice in Mecca. Many Peoples, Many Faiths: Women and Men in the World Religions. In the traditional mode Islamicscholars made decisions about the application of the law to specific casesthrough "the use of analogy and by determining consensus" and thusdeveloped a long tradition of Islamic law for the community of Muslims, "aready-made political, economic, and juridical, as well as purely religious,unit in the world" (Ellwood & McGraw 385). This mystical tradition sought "notonly to follow [Allah's] external commandments but to know him intimatelyand even to lose themselves in love into the depths of his being" (Ellwood& McGraw 4 8). The founding of the religion, which is now theworld's second largest, began with the revelation of the word of Goddirectly through Muhammad, beginning around the year 611. Where the caliphs had always been seen by Sunni Islam asmerely temporal deputies of Muhammad the Shi'ite imams gradually were heldto be without sin, possessed of superhuman wisdom, and infallibleinterpreters of the Qur'an whom the faithful were expected "to hear andobey" (Ellwood & McGraw 4 6). Sufi "inwardness" influencedIslam strongly when--after a somewhat outrageous beginning--it wasincorporated into normative Islam "as an attitude to accompany the outwardacts and bring them to life" (Ellwood & McGraw 41 ). The courts became the centers of artistic andintellectual production and, since the caliphs were only preservers of thelaw--and could not innovate--each society was, essentially, ruled by thesame law as every other one, thereby producing a universal community ofIslam. The term "islam" means "submission" and the religioncenters on the submission of the individual and the community to Allah inall things. Trans. The written record of these revelations, the Qur'an, is heldto be "the full and complete message of the infinite Divine Mind tohumanity" (Ellwood & McGraw 382). After receivingthe word of Allah Muhammad wrote down everything exactly as it had beentransmitted to him in his revelations and this became the Qur'an, the holyscripture of Islam. But the other most important strain in Islam is the mysticaltradition known in the West as Sufism. Unveiling Islam. T. But the town wasvery hostile toward him and very attached to its polytheistic practices.In 622 Muhammad finally fled Mecca with some followers and was much moresuccessful with his preaching in the city of Medina. Many ecstaticpractices, schools of meditation, and traditions of parables and wisdomtales have grown up around Sufi mysticism. World Religions: From Ancient History to the Present. The Sunni tradition is decentralized in terms ofinterpretation of shari'a. Pilgrims at Mecca perform"a collection of diverse traditional acts" which, while very ritualized,have "deep inward meanings" for Muslims (Ellwood & McGraw 39 ). The events of Muhammad's life took on extraordinary significance asthe practice of Islam evolved. 6th ed. Some modernist Muslims have argued that the hadithcollections are inconsistent and chiefly represent a miscellaneoustradition that only shows how people thought in early Islam. Arab learning drew on the traditions of India andthe revival of ancient Greek learning and the distinctive urban nature ofMuslim civilization emerged during this time. It is considered to be "a journeyachieved from the periphery to the Centre, the locus of Unity" of Islamand, as such, affirms both the individual's membership in the community andthe "unity of the Islamic universe" (Du Pasquier 87). Those who are tooold, too young, too ill, too infirm, or too poor are excused from thisduty.
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