Islam

David Emmanuel Singh. Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices. Editor: Thomas Riggs, 2nd Edition, Volume 1, Gale, 2015.

Overview

The religion of Islam was revealed to Muhammad ibn Abdullah (c. 570-632), who became known as the Prophet Muhammad, in central Arabia between 610 and 632 CE. In addition to the belief in a single, all-powerful God, Islam shares with Judaism and Christianity the importance of community building, social justice, and individual moral decision making. Although Islam was not a totally new monotheistic religion or community that developed independently, Muslims believe that it was, in fact, the original religion of Abraham. Islam’s core articles of faith include belief in one eternal, absolute, and incomparable God; revelations through prophets or messengers; and a final judgment involving resurrection, eternal reward, and punishment. The main practices (often called the Five Pillars of Islam) include the creed acknowledging the one God and his messenger Muhammad, daily ritual prayers, fasting during the month of Ramadan, almsgiving, and pilgrimage to Mecca for those who are able.

Muhammad did not think he was founding a new religion with a new scripture; rather, he aimed to bring belief in the one God, a belief already held by Christians and Jews, to the Arabs. The revelations in the Koran (also spelled Quran; Muslim scripture) were seen as a return in the midst of a polytheistic society to the forgotten past—to the faith of the first monotheist, Abraham. Muslims believe that God sent revelations first to Moses, as found in the Hebrew Scriptures (the Torah), then to Jesus (the Gospels), and finally to Muhammad (the Koran). The revelations Muhammad received were calls to religious and social reform. They emphasized social justice (concern for the rights of women, widows, and orphans) and warned that many had strayed from the message of God and his prophets. They called upon all to return to what the Koran refers to as the straight path of Islam or the path of God, revealed one final time to Muhammad, the last, or “seal,” of the prophets.

Islam is broadly divided into two main branches, Sunni and Shia—identities that came into being soon after Muhammad’s death in 632 CE. Beyond these two major branches of Islam there are many theological and legal schools, as well as the diversity of thought and practice illustrated by Sufism (Islamic mysticism) and subsects among the Shia. While most Muslims would say there is one Islam, in practice the acceptance of diversity within or across another sect is often quite varied. Muslims share certain core beliefs, yet there are many interpretations and cultural practices of Islam.

The diversity of Islam, the world’s second-largest religion, is reflected by the geographic expanse of the 56 countries that have Muslim majorities. The world’s approximately 1.6 billion Muslims are found from Africa to Southeast Asia and Europe to North America. Only 20 percent of the world’s Muslims are Arab, with the majority of Muslims living in Asian and African countries. The largest Muslim populations are found in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and Nigeria. Islam is also a significant presence in the West, as the second-largest religion in Europe and projected to become the second largest in the United States. In the early 21st century Muslims face a number of issues, many of which are intra-Islamic in nature. Other concerns pertain to Muslims’ views on the concepts of nationstates, modernity, democracy, freedom, and extremism.

History

The Arabic term islam is understood to denote a primordial religion of “submission” to the one God of Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus. The Koran contains many references to stories and figures in the Old and New Testaments, including Adam and Eve, Abraham and Moses, David and Solomon, and Mary and Jesus. Indeed, Mary, the mother of Jesus, is mentioned more times in the Koran than in the Gospels of the Bible. Muslims view Jews and Christians as People of the Book, who received revelations through prophets in the form of revealed books from God. The revelations Muhammad received led him to believe that, over time, Jews and Christians had distorted God’s original messages to Moses and, later, to Jesus. Thus, Muslims see the Torah and the Gospels as a combination of the original revelations and later human additions, or interpolations. For example, Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus (his elevation from prophet to Son of God) are seen as changes brought from outside over time to the divine revelation.

Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam has its roots in the Middle East, in Mecca and Medina in Arabia. The origins of Islam, like those of Judaism and Christianity, would have seemed improbable as forecasters of a great world religion. Just as few would have anticipated the extent to which Moses and Jesus, a slave and a carpenter’s son, would become major religious figures, so one would not have predicted that the followers of an orphaned, illiterate caravan manager, Muhammad ibn Abdullah, would become members of the world’s second-largest religion, a global religious, political, and cultural presence and power.

Muslims see themselves, as well as Jews and Christians, as children of Abraham, belonging to different branches of the same religious family. The Koran and the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, both tell the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian servant. While Jews and Christians are held to be descended from Abraham and his wife, Sarah, through their son, Isaac, Muslims trace their religious roots to Abraham through Ismail (Ishmael), his firstborn son by Hagar. This connection to Abraham, Hagar, and Ismail is commemorated each year in the rituals of the pilgrimage to Mecca.

According to both Hebrew and Muslim scripture, when, after many years, Sarah did not conceive a child, she urged Abraham to sleep with her maidservant Hagar so that he might have an heir. As a result of the union between Abraham and Hagar, a son, Ismail, was born. After Ismail’s birth Sarah also became pregnant and gave birth to Isaac. Sarah then became jealous of Ismail, who as firstborn would be the prime inheritor and overshadow her own son, and she pressured Abraham to send Hagar and Ismail away. Abraham reluctantly let Hagar and his son go, because God promised that he would make Ismail the father of a great nation. Islamic sources say that Hagar and Ismail ended up in the vicinity of Mecca in Arabia, and both the Bible and the Koran say that they nearly died but were saved by a spring that miraculously gushed from the desert.

In seventh-century Arabia, where Muhammad ibn Abdullah was born, war was the natural state. Arabia was located in the broader Near East, which was divided between two warring superpowers, the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) and the Sasanian (Persian) empires, that were competing for world dominion. Located along the profitable trade routes of the Orient, Arabia was affected by the rivalry and interventions of its powerful imperial neighbors.

Pre-Islamic Arabia was tribal in its religious, social, and political ideas, practices, and institutions. Tribal and family honor were central virtues. Manliness (chivalry, upholding tribal and family honor, and courage in battle) was a major virtue celebrated by the poets of the time. There was no belief in an afterlife or a cosmic moral purpose or in individual or communal moral responsibility. Thus, justice was obtained and carried out through group vengeance or retaliation. Arabia and the city of Mecca, in which Muhammad was born, lived, and received God’s revelation, were beset by tribal raids and cycles of vendettas. Raiding was an integral part of tribal life and society and had established regulations and customs. Raids were undertaken to increase property and such goods as slaves, jewelry, camels, and livestock. Bloodshed was avoided, if at all possible, because it could lead to retaliation.

Religion in Arabia at the time was predominantly polytheistic. Various gods and goddesses who were feared, not loved, served as protectors of the many tribes. These gods were the objects of cultic rituals and supplication at local shrines, reflecting the tribal nature and social structure of society. Mecca was a rising commercial and religious center that housed the Ka’bah, a cubeshaped structure that contained representations of approximately 360 different tribal gods and goddesses. At the head of the shrine’s pantheon was the supreme god, Allah, who was seen as the creator and sustainer of life and the universe but who was remote from everyday concerns. Mecca was also the site of a great annual fair and pilgrimage to the Ka’bah, a highly profitable event. It brought worshippers of the different gods from far and wide, along with their money and their business interests. In addition to the prevailing tribal polytheism, Arabia was also home to a variety of monotheistic communities, in particular Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, which Muhammad encountered in his travels as a businessman.

The traditional sources for information about Muhammad’s life are the Koran, as well as biographies of the Prophet and hadith (tradition) literature. Muhammad ibn Abdullah was born in c. 570 CE in Mecca. Although born into the ruling tribe, the Quraysh, Muhammad was among the “poorer cousins.” Orphaned at an early age (his father died before he was born, and his mother died when he was six years old), Muhammad was raised by his uncle, Abu Talib, a well-respected and powerful member of the Quraysh, who provided Muhammad, and later his community, with protection. As a young man Muhammad earned his living as a business manager for the caravans of a wealthy widow named Khadijah. At the age of 25, Muhammad married Khadijah, who was 15 years older. Tradition records that they were married for 24 years and had two sons who died in infancy and four surviving daughters, the most famous of whom was Fatimah, who married ‘Ali, the fourth caliph (successor; deputy to the Prophet Muhammad). Khadijah was the first person to believe in the revelation Muhammad had received, making her the first Muslim convert. She was Muhammad’s strongest supporter and adviser, particularly during the early, difficult years after his call as a prophet.

By the age of 30 Muhammad had become a respected member of Meccan society, known for his business skills and trustworthiness (he was nicknamed al-amin, “the trustworthy”). Reflective by temperament, Muhammad often retreated to the quiet and solitude of Mount Hira to contemplate life and society. It was there, during the month of Ramadan in 610, on a night remembered in Muslim tradition as the Night of Power, that Muhammad, the Meccan businessman, was called to be a prophet of God. Muhammad heard a voice commanding him to “recite.” He was frightened and replied that he had nothing to recite. After the angel, identified as Gabriel, repeated the command, the words finally came: “Recite in the name of your Lord who has created, created man out of a germ cell. Recite for your Lord is the Most Generous One, who has taught by the pen, Taught man what he did not know” (Surah 96:3-5).

This was the first of what would be many revelations from Allah, “the God” in Arabic, communicated through the angel Gabriel. Muhammad continued to receive revelations over the next 22 years, until his death in 632. The revelations were preserved verbatim orally and written down by scribes, and they were later collected and compiled into the Koran. The reformist message Muhammad received, like that of Amos and other prophets before him, represented a powerful but unwelcome challenge to religious and tribal leaders and to businessmen, who comprised the religious and political establishment. Muhammad denounced corrupt business practices and called for social justice for the poor and women, and for children and orphans, the most vulnerable in society. He emphasized the religious equality of men and women and expanded the marriage and inheritance rights of women. Muhammad’s prophetic message summoned the people to strive and struggle (jihad) to live a good life based on religious belief rather than loyalty to their tribe and to reform their communities. Most importantly, Muhammad’s revelation in the Koran rejected the common practice of worshipping many gods, insisting that there was only one true God. He therefore threatened the livelihood of those who profited enormously from the annual pilgrimage honoring many different gods, the equivalent of a giant tribal convention.

During the first 10 years of Muhammad’s preaching, his community of believers remained small and under constant pressure and persecution. In an increasingly hostile environment they were compelled to struggle to stay alive. The life and livelihood of the community were eventually threatened by sanctions that prevented them from doing business and that were literally starving them out. This hardship may have contributed to the death of Khadijah, and after his fortunes were destroyed, Abu Talib, Muhammad’s protector, also died. Muhammad became a likely and proximate target for assassination.

It was at this low point in his life that Muhammad had a mystical experience: the Night Journey, or Ascension. One night, sleeping near the Ka’bah, Muhammad was awakened by the angel Gabriel. Muhammad was mounted on a mythical steed (buraq—literally, “lightning”) who flew him from Mecca to Jerusalem, which is referred to in the Koran as al-masjid al-aqsa (the Farthest Mosque; also called bayt al-muqaddas, or the House of Holiness; Surah 17:1) and which is the site of the Temple Mount, where the ancient Temple of Solomon once stood. There, according to tradition, Muhammad climbed a ladder leading to the throne of God. Along the way to the throne, Muhammad met Abraham, Moses, Joseph, John the Baptist, and Jesus, as well as other prophets. During his meeting with God, Muhammad received guidance for the final number of daily prayers that Muslims should perform, set at five. The Night Journey, which is understood by many Muslims as a mystical experience, made Jerusalem the third-holiest city in Islam and affirmed the continuity of Islam with Judaism and Christianity.

Faced with increasing hardships, Muhammad was invited in 622 by a delegation from Yathrib, a city in the north that was caught in a bitter feud between its Arab tribes, to be their binding arbitrator. That his decisions were to be accepted by all the tribes was testimony to Muhammad’s wide reputation as a trustworthy and just man. Muhammad began sending his followers to Yathrib, and he followed a short time afterward, thus escaping those plotting to kill him. Yathrib would later be renamed Medina, or medinat al-nabi (the City of the Prophet) or al-mdinah al-munawarah (the Radiant City). This migration (hijrah) of the Muslim community from the traditional safety of tribe and kinsmen in warring Arabia to form alliances with alien tribes based upon a broader Islamic ideal was a concept introduced by Muhammad, one that would have remarkable success.

The migration to Medina and the creation of the first Islamic community (ummah) underscores the primary importance of community in Islam. It is so significant that, when Muslims devised their own calendar, they dated it, not from the year in which Muhammad was born or from the first revelation of the Koran, but from the creation of the Islamic community at Medina. Thus, 622 CE became 1 AH (year [anno] of the hijra). This act reinforced the meaning of Islam as the realization of God’s will on earth and the centrality of the Islamic community. It became the basis for Muslim belief in Islam as a world religion, a global community of believers with a universal message and mission.

The experience and example of Muhammad’s new community would provide the model for later generations. In times of danger the twin ideals of hijra (to emigrate from a hostile anti-Islamic environment) and jihad (to resist and fight against oppression and injustice) were established. These concepts became guiding principles for responding to persecution and rejection, to threats to the faith, and to the security and survival of the community and have since inspired numerous jihad movements throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, including the Mahdist revolt between the Sudanese and the British-Egyptian forces (1881-99). In the early 21st century both mainstream and extremist movements and self-proclaimed mujahidin (holy warriors) have selectively used the pattern of migration and struggle, armed resistance, and warfare for their own purposes. For example, the late Osama bin Laden, the principal figure behind jihad against the Soviets and Americans and their allies, emigrated from Saudi Arabia to establish his movement and training bases in Afghanistan—a legacy that has been continued by his followers and the Taliban leadership. The long-standing “Kashmir conflict” is not just a matter that concerns India and Pakistan as states, but also involves insurgents trained across the border by jihadi movements such as Lashkar-e Taiba (the Army of the Righteous) migrating into the Indian-administered Kashmir.

In Medina the Muslim community thrived, resulting in the establishment of the first Islamic community-state. Muhammad was not only a prophet but also a head of state, political ruler, military commander, chief judge, and lawgiver of a multireligious community consisting of Muslims, Arab polytheists, Jews, and Christians. The Constitution, or the Charter of Medina, as established by Muhammad, set out the rights and duties of the citizens and the relationship of the Muslim community to other communities, thus reflecting the diversity of this society. The charter recognized the People of the Book (ahl alkitab—Jews and Christians who had received God’s revelation through the prophets Moses and Jesus) as an allied community. These People of the Book were entitled to live in coexistence with Muslims and to retain and practice their religion in return for loyalty and the payment of a poll tax (jizya).

With the establishment of a community at Medina, the bitter conflict between Mecca and Muhammad and his followers continued. Muhammad threatened the economic power and political authority of the Meccan leaders with a series of raids against their caravans. In addition, several key battles occurred that are remembered in Muslim tradition as sources of inspiration and guidance. In 624 Muslim forces, although greatly outnumbered, defeated the Meccan army in the Battle of Badr (624 CE), in which they believed they were aided by divine guidance. The Koran (3:120) declares that thousands of angels assisted the Muslims in battle. This battle has special significance for Muslims because it represents the victory of monotheism over polytheism, of good over evil, of the army of God over the army of ignorance and unbelief. Badr remains an important sacred symbol for contemporary Muslims. For example, Egypt’s President Anwar el-Sādāt (1918-1981) launched the 1973 Arab-Israeli war as a jihad with the code name Operation Badr.

The Battle of Uhud, in 625 CE, represented a major setback for the Muslims when the Meccans bounced back and soundly defeated them, wounding Muhammad. The Battle of the Ditch, or Battle of the Trench, took place in 627 CE, when the Meccans mounted a siege against the Muslims, seeking to crush them permanently. The Battle of the Ditch proved to be a major turning point, however. The Muslims dug a trench to protect themselves from the Meccan cavalry and doggedly resisted the Meccan siege. In the end the Meccans were forced to withdraw, and a truce was struck at Hudaybiyah in 628 CE, a pact of nonaggression that proved a face-saving device for both parties. The truce granted the Muslims the right to make the first pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj) the following year but required that Muhammad end his raids and the attempt at an economic blockade. At the same time, the truce signaled recognition of the political legitimacy of Muhammad.

In 629 Muhammad extended Muslim governance over the Hejaz, in central Arabia, and led the pilgrimage to Mecca. In 630 the feud between Mecca and Medina came to an end. After client tribes of Mecca and Medina clashed, Muhammad declared the truce broken and moved against Mecca with an army of 10,000, and the Quraysh surrendered without a fight. After 20 years Muhammad had successfully returned to Mecca and brought it within the pax islamica, meaning “peace” under the expanding Islamic empire. In victory, Muhammad proved magnanimous and strategic, preferring diplomacy to force. Rather than engaging in vengeance and plunder, he offered amnesty to his former enemies, rewarding a number of its leaders with prominent positions and gifts. Regarding the Ka’bah shrine in Mecca as the original house of God built by Abraham and Ismail, Muhammad destroyed its pagan idols and rededicated it to the one true God, Allah. The majority of Meccans converted to Islam, accepted Muhammad’s leadership, and became part of the Islamic community (ummah).

The conquest of Mecca established Muhammad’s paramount political leadership. He continued to employ his religious message, diplomatic skills, and, when necessary, force to establish Muslim rule in Arabia. In 632 the 62-year-old Muhammad led a pilgrimage to Mecca and delivered his farewell sermon (widely available online), a moment remembered and commemorated each year during the annual pilgrimage: “Know ye that every Muslim is a brother unto every other Muslim, and that ye are now one brotherhood. It is not legitimate for any one of you, therefore, to appropriate unto himself anything that belongs to his brother unless it is willingly given him by that brother.” When Muhammad died in June 632, all of Arabia was united under the banner of Islam.

Few observers of seventh-century Arabia would have predicted that, within a hundred years of Muhammad’s death, a religious community established by a local businessman, orphaned and illiterate, would unite Arabia’s warring tribes, overwhelm the eastern Byzantine and Sasanid empires, and create its own vast empire stretching from North Africa to India. Within a brief period of time, Muhammad had initiated a major historical transformation that began in Arabia but that would become a global religious and political movement. In subsequent years Muslim armies, traders, and mystics spread the faith and power of Islam globally. The religion of Islam became intertwined with empires and sultanates from North Africa to Southeast Asia.

After the death of Muhammad, his four immediate successors, remembered in Sunni Islam as the Rightly Guided Caliphs (reigned 632-61), oversaw the consolidation of Muslim rule in Arabia and the broader Middle East (Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, and Syria), overrunning the Byzantine and Sasanid empires. A period of great central empires was followed with the establishment of the Umayyad (661-750) and then the Abbasid (750-1258) empires. Within a hundred years of the death of Muhammad, Muslim rule extended from North Africa to South Asia, an empire greater than Rome at its zenith.

Under the Abbasids trade and industry, a strong central bureaucracy, law, theology, literature, science, and culture developed. The Abbasid caliphs in the ninth century in particular were great patrons of dialogue between Christian theologians Abu Qurra, Abu Ra’ita, and Ammar al-Basri and their Muslim counterparts. Among topics for discussion were some of the most intractable ones, such as Christology. Despite fundamental partings of way on matters of theology, they allowed Christian theologians to defend their positions. The Christians, in turn, reciprocated by arguing that their positions were not really inconsistent with Islamic convictions. This Muslim open-mindedness and tolerance of theological positions traditionally considered to be diametrically opposed to Islam resulted in one of the most creative periods in the history of the development of Christian theology. This tradition of respectful and creative interfaith dialogue has largely been overshadowed by fundamentalist polemics rooted in the 19th century and, arguably, continues to be espoused by some Muslims and Christians.

The Abbasid conquest of the central Umayyad Empire did not affect the existence of the Spanish Umayyad Empire in Andalusia (modern-day Spain and Portugal). There, where Muslims were called Moors, Muslim rule ushered in a period of coexistence and culture developed by Muslims, Christians, and Jews in major urban centers. The Spanish Umayyad Empire was less a threat to the Abbasids than was the Fatimid (Shia) empire in the 10th century, carved out in North Africa with its capital in Cairo. From the 10th to the 12th centuries, the Fatimids challenged a weakened and fragmented Abbasid empire, spreading their influence and rule across North Africa, Egypt, Syria, Persia, and Sicily. The Fatimids were not brought under Abbasid rule until 1171, when the great general Salah ad-Din (Saladin; 1137?-1193) conquered Cairo. Despite this success, by the 13th century the Abbasid Empire had become a sprawling, fragmented group of semiautonomous states governed by military commanders. In 1258 the Mongols captured Baghdad, burned and pillaged the city, slaughtered its Muslim inhabitants, and executed the caliph and his family.

Although the fall of Baghdad seemed to be a fatal blow to Muslim power, by the 15th century Muslim fortunes had been reversed. The central caliphate was replaced by a chain of dynamic states, each ruled by a sultan, stretching from Africa to Southeast Asia, from Timbuktu to Mindanao. They included three imperial sultanates: the Turkish Ottoman Empire (1322-1924), which encompassed major portions of North Africa, the Arab world, and Eastern Europe; the Persian Safavid Empire (1501-1722); and the Mughal Empire (1520-1857), which included much of the Indian subcontinent (modern-day Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh).

Like many parts of the world, Muslim societies fell victim to European imperialism. When Christian Europe overpowered North Africa, the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia in the 19th century, reducing most Muslim societies to colonies, many Muslims experienced these defeats as religious, as well as political and cultural, crises. It was a symbol not only of the decline of Muslim power but also of the apparent loss of divine favor and guidance. Colonialism brought European armies and Christian missionaries, who accompanied the bureaucrats, traders, and teachers, to spread the message of Western (Christian) religious and cultural superiority and dominance. Europe legitimated its colonization of large areas of the underdeveloped Muslim world in cultural terms. The French spoke of a “mission to civilize” and the British of “the white man’s burden.”

Muslim responses to Europe’s political and religious penetration and dominance varied significantly, ranging from resistance or warfare (jihad) in “defense of Islam” to accommodation, if not outright assimilation, of Western values. The result of Western imperialism for Muslims was a period of self-criticism and reflection on the causes of their decline. Responses spanned the spectrum from liberal secularism to Islamic modernism. Islamic modernists sought to respond to, rather than react against, the challenge of Western imperialism. They proclaimed the need for Islamic reform through a process of reinterpretation and selective adaptation (Islamization) of Western ideas and technology. Islamic modernism sought to reinterpret Islam to demonstrate its compatibility with Western science and thought and to resist European colonialism and meet the changing circumstances of Muslim life through religious, legal, political, educational, and social reforms.

Some Muslims, however, rejected both conservative and modernist positions in favor of religious activism. The Muslim Brotherhood (ikhwan al-muslimin) of Egypt and the Islamic Society (jamaat-i islami) of the Indian subcontinent are prominent examples of modern neorevivalist Islamic organizations that linked religion to activism. Their leaders, Ikhwan’s Hasan al-Banna (1906-1949) and Jama’at’s Mawlana Abul al-‘Ala Mawdudi (1903-1979), were pious Muslims whose upbringing and education exposed them to modernist Islamic thought and Western learning. In contrast to Islamic modernists, who justified adopting Western ideas and institutions because they were compatible with Islam, Hasan al-Banna and Mawdudi sought to produce a new interpretation, or synthesis. Rather than leaving their societies, they organized their followers into an ideologically oriented Muslim community with a dynamic nucleus of leaders capable of transforming society from within. Joining thought to action, these leaders provided Islamic responses, both ideological and organizational, and inspired political as well as social activism.

Though anti-Western, the Muslim Brotherhood and Jama’at were not against modernization. They engaged in building modern organizations and institutions, provided modern educational and social welfare services, and used modern technology and mass communications to spread their message and to mobilize popular support.

They addressed the problems of modernity, analyzing the relationship of Islam to nationalism, democracy, capitalism, Marxism, work, modern banking, education, law, women, Zionism, and international relations. The organizations established by Hasan al-Banna and Mawdudi remain vibrant into the 21st century and have served as an example to others throughout much of the Muslim world.

Central Doctrines

Muslims are monotheists who believe in one God, Allah, who is the creator, sustainer, ruler, and judge of the universe. The word Allah appears in the Koran more than 2,500 times. The word Islam means “submission” to the will of God and “peace,” the interior peace that results from following God’s will and creating a just society. Muslims must strive or struggle (jihad) in the path (sharia) of God in order to implement his will on earth by working to establish a just society or to expand or defend the Muslim community.

Muslims believe that the Koran is the final, complete, literal, eternal, uncreated word of God, sent from heaven to the Prophet Muhammad as a guide for humankind (Surah 2:185). Thus, the Koran does not reveal God per se but rather God’s will, or law, for all of creation. Although God is transcendent and thus unknowable, his nature is revealed in creation, his will in revelation, and his acts in history. God in the Koran is all powerful and is the ultimate judge of humankind, but he is also merciful and compassionate. So central is this idea of mercy and compassion of the unknowable God that all of the 114 surat (chapters in the Koran), except one (Surah al-Tawba), start with bismillahirrahmanirrahim (in the name of God who is merciful and compassionate). For this reason, the first Surah of the Koran (Surah al-Fatiha; the opening), the so-called “Lord’s prayer of Islam,” invites all to serve this God and turn to him alone for help. In the Muslim world this phrase is used by pious believers at the beginning of letters, speeches, books, and articles. Many people recite the phrase as they begin to drive a car, eat a meal, or begin any task. God’s mercy exists in dialectical tension with his role as the ultimate judge. Although it can be tempered by mercy for the repentant, justice requires punishment for those who disobey God’s will. On Judgment Day all human beings are to be judged according to their deeds and either punished or rewarded on the basis of their obedience or disobedience.

Muslims believe that sacred scriptures exist because throughout history God has sent his guidance to prophets (nabi) so that his will might be known and followed by humankind. Thus, Muslims believe not only in the Prophet Muhammad but also in prophets of the Hebrew Bible, such as Abraham and Moses, and of New Testament, such as John the Baptist and Jesus. Those prophets who have also brought God’s revelation in the form of a sacred scripture or book—for example, Moses and the Torah and Jesus and the Gospels—are also called rasul (messengers) of God. Thus, not all prophets are messengers, but messengers are also prophets. Jews and Christians are regarded as the People of the Book, a community of believers defined by their receipt, through prophets, of revelations from God.

The Koran confirms the Torah and the Gospels as revelations from God, but most Muslims believe that, after the deaths of the prophets, extraneous, nonbiblical beliefs infiltrated the Torah and the Gospels, altering the original, pure revelation. For example, the Koran declares an absolute monotheism, which means that associating anyone or anything with God is the one unforgivable sin of idolatry, or associationism. Muslims therefore do not believe in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity (one God in three persons), and although Muslims recognize Jesus as a prophet, they do not recognize him as God’s son. Many Muslims also believe that tahrif (corruption) owes more to Christian and Jewish misunderstandings of the revelatory texts than their deliberate intent to twist the words. On the question of the nature of Jesus (references to Christ occur in 14 Surat and 90 verses), not only does the Koran remind Christians that Jesus was “no more than a mortal” (Surah 43:59) but it also uses Jesus’s own words to encourage Christians to correct their misunderstanding about his nature (Surah 5:116-117). The Koran, it is believed, was sent as a correction, not as a nullification, or abrogation, of the Torah and the Gospels. They see Islam as the oldest of the monotheistic faiths, since it represents both the original and the final revelation of God.

The Koranic universe consists of three realms—heaven, earth, and hell—in which there are two types of beings: humans and spirits. All beings are called to obedience to God. Spirits include angels, jinn, and devils. Angels are created from light, are immortal and sexless, and serve as the link between God and human beings. They serve as guardians, recorders, and messengers from God who transmit his message to human beings by communicating with prophets. Thus, the angel Gabriel is believed to have communicated the revelation of the Koran to Muhammad. Jinn, beings created by fire, are between angels and humans and can be either good or bad. Although invisible by nature, jinn can assume visible form. Like human beings, they are to be rewarded or punished in the afterlife. Jinn are often portrayed as magical beings, such as genies, as in the story of Aladdin and his lamp. Devils are fallen angels or jinn that tempt human beings torn between the forces of good and evil. Satan (shaytan or iblis), leader of the devils, represents evil, which is defined as disobedience to God. Satan’s fall was caused by his refusal to prostrate himself before Adam upon God’s command. Not surprisingly, a 2012 study conducted in 39 countries with large Muslim populations showed that belief in angels was widespread. The majority of Muslims in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast and South Asia, in particular, seem to be more aware of jinns than angels, which shows the impact of local adaptations.

Because God breathed his spirit into Adam, the first human being, humans enjoy a special status as God’s representatives on earth—a fact not particularly appreciated by angels for fear of human potential for “mischief and blood-shed” (Surah 2:36ff). The Koran teaches that God gave the earth to human beings as a trust so that they can implement his will. Although Muslims believe in the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, in contrast to Christianity there is no doctrine of an inherited original sin and no belief in a vicarious suffering or atonement for humankind. The punishment of Adam and Eve is believed to result from their own personal act of disobedience to God. Each person is held responsible for his or her own actions. Human beings are mortal because of the human condition, not because of sin or the Fall of Adam and Eve. Sin is the result of an act of disobedience rather than a state of being. In Islam, the Fall demonstrates human sin, God’s mercy, and human repentance. Islam emphasizes the need to repent by returning to the straight path of God. The Koran does not emphasize shame, disgrace, or guilt but rather the ongoing human struggle (jihad) to do what is right and just.

A Muslim’s obligation to be God’s servant and to spread his message is both an individual and a community obligation. The community is bound not by family or tribal ties but by a common faith, which must be acted out and implemented. The primary emphasis is upon obeying God as prescribed by Islamic law, which contains guidelines for both the individual and the community. In contrast to Christianity, in which theology is the queen of the sciences, for Islam, as for Judaism, the primary religious science is law. Although it has recently been argued that the development of jurisprudence occurred in Mecca itself, the mainstream position has been that law and its application through jurisprudence actually evolved over the early period in the history of Islam. It acquired an independent status from kalam (rationalistic theology) as the queen of Islamic science between the ninth and 10th centuries. In the early 21st century, it is the fatwa (legal rulings) that play a central role in Muslim societies across the world. Fiqh al-aqalliyat (legal ruling for Muslim minorities), for example, plays an important role for minorities in Europe who are seeking to live faithfully as Muslims and as Europeans. Christianity therefore emphasizes orthodoxy (correct doctrine or belief), while Islam, as witnessed by the Five Pillars (fundamental observances), emphasizes orthopraxy (correct action).

Many Muslims describe Islam as “a total way of life.” They believe that religion cannot be separated from social and political life, since religion informs every action a person takes. The Koran provides many passages that emphasize the relationship of religion to the state and society. Muslims see themselves as God’s representatives, with a divine mandate to establish his rule on earth in order to create a moral and just society. The Muslim community is thus seen as a political entity, as proclaimed in Surah 49:13 of the Koran, which teaches that God “made you into nations and tribes.” A study conducted in 2012 following the start of the Arab Spring—a series of pro-democracy uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa—showed that most Muslims in Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, and Pakistan thought democracy was “the best form of government.” The majority surveyed also aspired for greater personal freedoms and the increased role for Islam in public and political life. Like Jews and Christians before them, Muslims also believe that they have been called into a covenant with God, making them a community of believers who must serve as an example to other nations (Surah 2:143): “You are the best community evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong” (Surah 3:110).

Islamic law, which includes requirements for worship as well as for social transactions, has been seen as providing the ideal blueprint for the believer who asks, “What should I do?” The law covers regulations for religious rituals and for such social transactions as marriage, divorce, and inheritance and sets standards for penal and international law. Traditionally religious scholars (‘ulama) and judges, courts, or governments have been responsible for elaborating and applying the law.

Sunni Muslims recognize four official sources of law: (1) the Koran, which contains moral directives; (2) the sunnah (example) of Muhammad as recorded in stories or traditions describing his activities, illustrating Islamic faith in practice and explaining Koranic principles; (3) qiyas, reasoning by analogy, used by scholars facing a new situation or problem when no clear text can be found in the Koran or sunnah; and (4) consensus (ijma’), which originated with a reported saying of Muhammad, “My community will never agree on an error,” which came to mean that the permissibility of an action could be determined by scholarly consensus.

Concern for justice led to the development of subsidiary legal principles: equity (istihsan), which permits exceptions to strict, or literal, legal reasoning, and public interest (maslaha) or human welfare, which give judges flexibility in arriving at just and equitable decisions. Shias also include collections of the traditions of ‘Ali, who they believe was the first caliph to succeed Muhammad, and of other imams, the ruling descendants of Muhammad through ‘Ali, whom they regard as supreme authorities and legal interpreters.

The diverse geographic, social, historical, and cultural contexts in which jurists have written also account for differences in Islamic law. Many ‘ulama, representing conservative strains in Islam, continue to equate God’s divinely revealed law (Sharia) with legal manuals developed by early law schools: Sunnis—Hanafi (South and Central Asia), Maliki (North and West Africa), Shafi’i (East Africa and Indonesia), and Hanbali (Saudi Arabia) and Shias—Ja’fari (Iran) and Zaydi (pockets in southern Arabia). Reformers, however, call for changes in laws that are the products of social custom and human reasoning, saying that duties and obligations to God are unchanging but that social obligations to one’s fellow man reflect changing circumstances. They reclaim the right of ijtihad (independent reasoning) to reinterpret Islam to meet modern social needs.

Social justice is a central teaching of the Koran, with all believers equal before God. The equality of believers forms the basis of a just society that is to counterbalance the oppression of the weak and economic exploitation. Muhammad, who was orphaned at an early age and who witnessed the exploitation of orphans, the poor, women, and those “weak of understanding” in Meccan society, was especially sensitive to their plight (Surah 4:2ff). Some of the strongest passages in the Koran condemn exploitation and champion social justice (Surah 4.10, 14). Throughout history the mission to create a moral and just social order has provided a rationale for Islamic activist and revivalist movements, both mainstream and extremist.

In response to European colonialism and industrialization, issues of social justice came to the forefront of Muslim societies in the early 20th century. The influx of large numbers of peasants from the countryside into urban areas in many developing countries created social and demographic tensions. In Egypt, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928, emerged as a major social movement whose Islamic mission included a religious solution to poverty and assistance to the dispossessed and downtrodden. Its founder, Hasan al-Banna, taught a message of social and economic justice, preaching particularly to the poor and uneducated. In Hasan al-Banna’s vision Islam was not just a philosophy, religion, or cultural trend but also a social movement seeking to improve all areas of life, not only those that were inherently religious. That is, rather than being simply a belief system, Islam was a call to social action.

In the contemporary era emphasis on Islam’s message of social justice by Islamic movements, both moderate and militant, has been particularly powerful in gaining adherents from poorer and less advantaged groups in such countries as Algeria and Indonesia, as well as among the marginal or migrant communities in Europe and North America. Malcom X (1925-1965), though accused of racism, is perhaps the best example of an African American Muslim who saw in Islam the resources to demand equal rights for blacks. In the early 21st century, most Islamic extremist movements see themselves as agents of God fighting for justice and freedom for Muslims and Islam. For example, in Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon, groups like Hamas and Hezbollah devote substantial resources to social welfare activities and call for the empowerment of the poor and weak. In the aftermath of the floods in Pakistan in 2010, a good number of extremists were reportedly in the forefront providing food, medicine, and money to thousands of Pakistanis.

Moral Code of Conduct

The Sharia (Islamic law) provides a blueprint of principles and values for an ideal society. At its core are the Five Pillars of Islam, which unite all Muslims in their common beliefs. Following the pillars involves a Muslim’s mind, body, time, energy, and wealth. Meeting the obligations required by the pillars translates beliefs into actions, reinforces an everyday awareness of God’s existence and presence, and reminds Muslims of their membership in a worldwide community of believers.

The first pillar is the declaration of faith. A Muslim is one who bears witness, who testifies that “There is no god but God [Allah] and Muhammad is the messenger of God.” This statement, known as the shahadah, is pronounced and heard 14 times a day by those who meet the requirement of praying five times daily, and it is repeated at many other occasions in a Muslim’s life. To become a Muslim, one must make only this brief and simple declaration, or profession, of faith. The first part of the declaration reflects absolute monotheism, Islam’s uncompromising belief in the oneness, or unity, of God (tawhid). Associating anything else with God is idolatry, considered the one unforgivable sin. To avoid any possible idolatry resulting from the depiction of figures, for example, Islamic religious art tends to use calligraphy, geometric forms, and arabesque designs and is thus abstract rather than representational. The second part of the declaration emphasizes that Muhammad is not only a prophet but also a messenger of God, the one who received a book of revelation from him. For Muslims, Muhammad is the last and final prophet, who serves as a model for the community through his life. Unlike Jesus, however, Muhammad is held to have been only human, although he is believed to have been a perfect man, a follower of God. Muslims’ efforts to follow Muhammad’s example in their private and public conduct reflect the emphasis of Islam on religious observance, or practice that is expressed in the remaining pillars. Indeed, a 2012 study found that belief in God and Muhammad among Muslims was “nearly universal.” This was absolute (100 percent) in the Middle East and North America; between 98 and 96 percent in Southeast Asia, South Asia, central Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa; and about 86 percent in southeastern Europe.

The second pillar of Islam is prayer, or worship (salat). Throughout the world Muslims worship five times a day (daybreak, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset, and evening), sanctifying their entire day as they remember to find guidance in God. In many Muslim countries reminders to pray, or “calls to prayer,” echo across the rooftops. Aided by a megaphone from high atop a mosque’s minaret, a muezzin calls all Muslims to prayer. Modern technology has also provided novel audio and visual reminders to pray, including special wristwatches, mosque-shaped clocks, and a variety of computer programs. Prayer is preceded by a series of ablutions, which symbolize the purity of mind and body required for worshiping God. Facing the holy city of Mecca, Islam’s spiritual homeland where the Prophet was born and received God’s revelation, Muslims recite passages from the Koran and glorify God as they stand, bow, kneel, touch the ground with their foreheads, and sit. Muslims can pray in any clean environment, in a mosque or at home or at work, alone or in a group, indoors or outside. Although not required, it is considered preferable and more meritorious to pray with others, thus demonstrating and reinforcing Muslim brotherhood, equality, and solidarity. Regardless of race or language, all Muslims pray in Arabic. After a formal ritual prayer, individuals may offer personal prayers (du’a) of petition or thanksgiving. Each week on Friday, the Muslim Sabbath, the noon prayer is a congregational prayer (jum’ah) at a mosque or Islamic center.

The third pillar of Islam is called the zakat (almsgiving). Zakat, which literally means “purification,” and salat, or ritual prayer, are often mentioned in the same Koranic verse (Surah 73:20; 98:5), reinforcing their significance. As an early Muslim observed, “Prayer carries us half-way to God; fasting brings us to the door of His praises; almsgiving procures for us admission.” By caring for the poor, Muslims as individuals, and the Muslim community collectively, demonstrate their concern and care for their own. It is in this spirit that zakat can be viewed as a social responsibility, combating poverty and preventing the excessive accumulation of wealth. The redistribution of wealth also underscores the Muslim belief that everything ultimately belongs to God. Human beings are simply caretakers of God’s property, which must be fairly allocated within the broader community. Thus, zakat is not viewed as voluntary giving, as charity, but rather as an act of individual self-purification and as a social obligation, reflecting Islam’s emphasis upon social justice for the poor and vulnerable in society. Payment of the tithe purifies both the soul of the person and what is given. It reminds Muslims that their wealth is a trust from God. Zakat expresses worship of, and thanksgiving to, God by meeting the needs of the less fortunate members of the community. It functions as an informal type of social security in a Muslim society and resembles forms of tithing found in Judaism and Christianity. Paid during Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar and the month of fasting, zakat requires an annual contribution of 2.5 percent of a person’s total wealth and assets, not merely a percentage of annual income. Original Islamic law stipulated clearly and specifically those areas subject to zakat—silver and gold, animals, and agricultural products. Modern forms of wealth, such as bank accounts, stocks, and bonds, are included. Like most obligatory practices, a recent study showed that the zakat as an actual practice is fairly widespread, though not as much as the performance of the annual fast of Ramadan. Southeast and South Asian Muslims top the list, with between 89 and 93 percent giving alms. Southeastern Europeans and Central Asians have the lowest numbers, with 56 to 69 percent giving alms. There are other religious taxes in Islam. In Shia Islam the khums, meaning “one-fifth,” is an obligatory tax paid to religious leaders. Among the many forms of almsgiving common to all Muslims is the sadaqah, voluntary alms given to the poor, in thanksgiving to God, or to ward off danger. It is the zakat, however, that is the obligatory form of almsgiving for all Muslims.

The fourth pillar of Islam is the fast of Ramadan, which occurs during the month in which the first revelation of the Koran came to Muhammad. The primary emphasis of fasting is not simply on abstinence and selfmortification but rather on spiritual self-discipline, reflection on human frailty and dependence on God, and performance of good works in response to the less fortunate. During this month-long fast Muslims whose health permits abstain from dawn to sunset from food, drink, and sexual activity. Those who are sick, pregnant, or weakened by old age are exempted. Muslims on a journey may postpone fasting and make it up at another time. Ramadan is also a special time to recite or listen to the recitation of the Koran. This is popularly done by dividing the Koran into 30 portions to be recited throughout the days of the month. Near the end of Ramadan, on the 27th day, Muslims commemorate the Night of Power (laylatul qadr or shab-e qadr), on which Muhammad received the first of God’s revelations. This remembrance involves the reading of the Koran; some attend a retreat focused on studying the Koran, prayer, and remembrance. The night is considered blessed because angels are believed to visit in fulfilling the tasks given them by God (Surah 97:4). Studies show that fasting is not just a matter of faith but actual practice, as a large majority (94 to 99 percent) of Muslims in the Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia observe the fast. This percentage is relatively lower only in southeastern Europe and Central Asia.

The fifth pillar, and probably the best known among non-Muslims, is the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, which occurs about 60 days after the end of Ramadan. Every adult Muslim who is physically and financially able is required to make the pilgrimage, becoming a person totally at God’s service at least once in his or her lifetime. Many who are able to do so make the pilgrimage more often. Muslim tradition teaches that God forgives the sins of those who perform the hajj with devotion and sincerity. Thus, many elderly make the pilgrimage with the hope that they will die cleansed of their sins. Every year more than 2 million believers, representing a tremendous diversity of cultures and languages, travel from all over the world to the Al-Haram Mosque in Mecca to form one community living their faith.

Just as Muslims are united five times each day as they face Mecca in worship, so the pilgrimage to the spiritual center of Islam enables them to experience the unity, breadth, and diversity of the Islamic community. Muslims who have made the hajj are entitled to add the prefix “pilgrim,” al-hajj or hajji, to their names, which many proudly do. Like salat, the pilgrimage requires ritual purification, symbolized by the wearing of white garments, which represent purity as well as the unity and equality of all believers, regardless of social class, nationality, or race.

Jihad is sometimes referred to as the sixth pillar of Islam, although it has no such official status. In its most general meaning jihad pertains to the difficulty and complexity of living a good life by struggling against the evil in oneself, by being virtuous and moral, by making a serious effort as individuals and as a community to do good works and help reform society, and by fulfilling the universal mission of Islam to spread its community through the preaching of Islam or the writing of religious tracts, these latter referred to as “jihad of the tongue” and “jihad of the pen.” Jihad may also be used to describe the personal struggle to keep the fast of Ramadan, to fulfill family responsibilities, or to clean up a neighborhood, fight drugs, or work for social justice. In addition, jihad includes the sacred struggle for, or the defense of, Islam or the Muslim community, popularly referred to as “holy war.”

The two broad meanings of jihad, nonviolent and violent, are contrasted in a well-known Prophetic tradition that reports Muhammad returning from battle to tell his followers, “We return from the lesser jihad [warfare] to the greater jihad.” The greater jihad is the more difficult and more important struggle against ego, selfishness, greed, and evil. Despite the fact that jihad is not supposed to include aggressive (offensive as opposed to defensive) warfare, this has occurred throughout history. Muslim rulers have used jihad to legitimate their wars of imperial expansion, often with the approval of religious leaders or scholars (‘ulama). Religious extremist groups assassinated Egypt’s President Anwar el-Sādāt in 1981, and they have slaughtered innocent civilians in suicide bombings in Israel and Palestine and murdered thousands in acts of global terrorism in the United States, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, and other countries.

At the same time, wars of resistance or liberation have been fought as jihads in Afghanistan against Soviet occupation, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Kosovo, and, in the eyes of many Muslims, in Palestine and Israel, Jammu and Kashmir, and Chechnya. In some regions of the world these wars continue.

In addition to the Five Pillars of Islam, the Koran provides Muslims with other rules of conduct. Consuming pork and alcohol is forbidden, and there are strict prohibitions against gambling, prostitution, adultery, murder, and other criminal offenses. A host of regulations about the just treatment of debtors, widows, the poor, and orphans emphasizes the key importance of social justice. Those who practice usury are strongly rebuked. In addition, both men and women are required to dress and to act modestly, and they are encouraged to marry and procreate. Thus, Islam provides a set of common beliefs, values, and practices that are to guide Muslim life.

The actual observance of these Pillars and other religious practices varies marginally from country to country, region to region. Regionally, however, there are important generational differences in religious commitment. For example, in the traditional Arab contexts of the Middle East and North Africa, the older generation was generally more committed to Islam. This was also the case in some parts of Europe and central Asia. Irrespective of this, most Muslims (more than 80 percent), both men and women, consider Islam and its practices “very important in their life.”

Sacred Books

The Koran—“recitation” in Arabic—is the Muslim scripture. It contains the revelations received by the Prophet Muhammad from God through the angel Gabriel over a period of 23 years, beginning when Muhammad was 40 years old and continuing until his death in 632. For Muslims, Muhammad, who was illiterate, was neither the author nor the editor of the Koran. Rather, he functioned as God’s intermediary, reciting the revelations he received. The Koran, therefore, is the eternal, literal word of God, preserved in the Arabic language and in the order in which it was revealed.

Muslims believe that the Koran’s 114 chapters (surat) were initially preserved in oral and written form during the lifetime of Muhammad. The entire text was collected in an official standardized version some 15 or 20 years after his death. The Koran is approximately four-fifths the size of the New Testament. Its chapters were assembled and ordered from the longest to the shortest, not thematically. This format proves frustrating to some non-Muslims, who find the text disjointed. The organization of the Koran, however, enables a believer simply to open the text at random and to start reciting at the beginning of any paragraph, since each represents a lesson to be learned and reflected upon.

The chapters of the Koran have been generally arranged from the longest to shortest. It has been divided into 30 equal parts in order to make recitation easier during the month of Ramadan, when the Koran is read by many from start to finish. The recitation of the Koran is central to a Muslim’s life, and many memorize the text in its entirety. Recitation reinforces what Muslims see as the miracle of hearing the actual word of God expressed by the human voice. There are numerous examples throughout history of those who were drawn to, and converted to, Islam upon hearing the Koran recited.

Sacred Symbols

The Crescent Moon and Star is a symbol frequently associated with the Islamic faith and is of considerable significance also for Muslim practice. The sighting of the crescent moon, for example, signals the beginning and end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. So significant is this symbol to Muslims that it is often found on the flag of Muslim nations across the world in diverse local cultures.

Because of the sensitivity in Islam to representational sacred art, lest any human being or physical object become the subject of worship or idolatry, major symbols are more limited in scope than in many other religions, including Christianity and Hinduism. The Ka’bah, Dome of the Rock, and calligraphy are among the more prominent religious symbols in Islam. Dargah, tomb complexes of Sufi saints, are considered sacred and are found throughout the Muslim world. These centers of local or regional Islamic spirituality typically house the sacred tombs of saints mostly belonging to the mainstream brotherhoods of Sufism such as Chishtiyya, Qadariyya, and Naqshbandiyya. Dargah also contain mosques and open spaces for pilgrims seeking to offer their prayers, vows, and thanksgiving to God.

The Ka’bah in Mecca is considered the most sacred space (bayt al-haram) in the Muslim world and the spiritual center of the earth, the point Muslims turn toward (qibla) when they pray and the direction toward which their heads point in burial. It is the main site in Saudi Arabia to which millions of Muslims who are able to congregate to perform the hajj each year. At the center of the Ka’bah is an approximately 40-foot-high cubeshaped granite building with space around it for believers to circumambulate. Inside it, in a corner, rests a black stone. This stone links the Ka’bah to the ancient tradition of Ibrahim and Ismail. Ibrahim and Ismail rediscovered the Ka’bah originally linked to Adam. The black stone was installed by them in this sacred space. Thus, the Ka’bah is believed to be a reminder of the natural religion of humanity (din al-fitra), and this symbol rests at the location where the earth was created. As a complete structure (with the black stone in it), the Ka’bah symbolizes an earthly image of the divine throne in heaven, and it is therefore believed that actions that take place at the Ka’bah, such as circumambulation, are duplicated in heaven at the throne of God.

Another major symbol is the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, popularly referred to as the Mosque of Umar. Jerusalem first came under Muslim rule in 638 CE, during the reign of Umar (586-644). The shrine itself, however, was built later, in around 692, by the caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (646-705). It was constructed over the rock on the Temple Mount, where Muslim tradition holds that the Prophet Muhammad departed on his Night Journey to heaven. The Temple Mount itself is also the site of the Temple of Solomon and of the Christian Dome of the Holy Sepulcher and is thus sacred to all three great monotheistic traditions. The octagonal shrine, with its golden dome, dominates the skyline. It is majestically decorated inside and out with some 240 yards of calligraphic designs consisting of Koranic inscriptions. Among Muslims in the early 21st century, pictures and representations of the Dome of the Rock are probably second in popularity only to those of the Ka’bah, both because it symbolizes the Prophet’s Night Journey and because it is located in the third-holiest city of Islam. Furthermore, it has become a popular symbol for the liberation of Jerusalem and Palestine.

Arabic calligraphy originated from the desire for a script worthy of divine revelation in copying the Koran. Because of its association with the Koran, calligraphy assumed a sacred character and became the highest form of art. Since classical Islamic art does not represent human forms, calligraphy is used to capture and symbolize meaning and message. Thus, for example, Allah written in calligraphic form became a powerful symbol representing the divine. It is also common to see the names of Allah and Muhammad, or of Allah, Muhammad, and ‘Ali, written in calligraphy as religious symbols, whether on paper, in plaster on walls, or on such ornamental objects as plates or medals. Other popular phrases, such as the shahadah (the Muslim Creed: “There is no god but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God”), allahu akbar (God is great), or ya rabb (Oh Lord), are also depicted in calligraphic art that adorns walls and buildings throughout the Islamic world.

Early and Modern Leaders

Throughout history Islam has been integral to politics and civilization. Intellectuals, writers, religious rulers, and activists have often exercised leadership and had a significant impact on government and society. The relationships of faith to power, reason, science, and society have been enduring and interconnected concerns and issues.

The period of Muhammad and his first four successors, “the Rightly Guided Caliphs” (reigned 632-61), has remained an ideal to which most Muslims look for inspiration and renewal. During the reign of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, Arab Muslim rule over the heartlands of the Middle East was established. Each of these caliphs had been a close companion to Muhammad, and like him, belonged to the Quraysh tribe. The period of their rule is considered the golden age of Islam, when rulers were closely guided by Muhammad’s practices. Abu Bakr (573-634 CE; reigned 632-34), the first caliph, had been an early convert who was also Muhammad’s close advisor and father-in-law (“A”ishah’s father). A man respected for his piety and sagacity, Abu Bakr had been the one appointed to lead the Friday communal prayer in Muhammad’s absence. After Muhammad’s death Abu Bakr was selected as Muhammad’s successor by the majority of Muslims, called Sunnis, or followers of the sunnah (example) of the Prophet, based on their belief that leadership should pass to the most qualified person.

The second caliph, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab (579-644; reigned 634-44), seen as the dominant personality among the four, was responsible for establishing many of the fundamental institutions of the classical Islamic state. During the reign of the personally pious third caliph, ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan (577-656; reigned 644-56), the Koran was collected and put into its final form. ‘Uthman’s lack of strength in handling unscrupulous relatives, however, led to his murder by malcontents and to a period of disorder and civil war. The fourth caliph, ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (c. 601-661; reigned 656-61), was the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad and the first male to convert to Islam. ‘Ali who was also a distinguished judge and brave warrior, was the first caliph recognized by Shia Muslims, who believed that succession should be based on heredity and who thus considered the first three caliphs to be usurpers. ‘Ali’s political discourse, sermons, letters, and sayings have served as the Shia framework for Islamic government. His rule was marked by political strife, however, and he was assassinated while praying in a mosque. Shia Muslims recognize only ‘Ali, as well as the brief reign of ‘Ali’s son Hussein (626-680). Following the Rightly Guided Caliphs, the dynasty of the Umayyads (a clan within the Quraysh tribe to which the third caliph, ‘Uthman, belonged), who reigned from 661 to 750, was established and became a powerful Arab military aristocracy.

Throughout the following centuries, from the rise of Islam to the modern period, Islamic empires, sultanates, and movements flourished. They were led or influenced by rulers and military men like Saladin, Suleiman the Magnificent (1494-1566), and Akbar the Great (1542-1605); theologians, legal scholars, historians, and mystics like Muhammad al-Ghazali (1058-1111), Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328), Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), and Ibn ‘Arabi (1165-1240); and leaders of revivalist movements like Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792) in the Arabian Peninsula, Muhammad Ahmad bin ‘Abd Allah (1845-1885), the Mahdi of the Sudan, Muhamad Ilyas Kandhalwi (1885-1944) of South Asia, and Uthman Dan Fodio of Nigeria (1754-1817).

From the late 19th century, both mainstream and extremist Islamic movements have sought to revitalize and reform Islam. They have been influenced by a core group of Islamic intellectual-activists. Two in particular, Islamic modernism and Islamic revivalism, or “fundamentalism,” have been particularly influential. Both have sought a modern reformation but with somewhat differing visions and styles.

Among the more important modern reformers were Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849-1905) in the Middle East and Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) and Muhammad Iqbal (1876-1938) in South Asia. The Egyptian ‘Abduh received a traditional religious education. He taught at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, renowned throughout the Islamic world as the principal center for Islamic education and orthodoxy. ‘Abduh also taught at the newly created Dar al-Ulum College, which provided a modern education for Al-Azhar students who wanted to qualify for government positions. In the 1870s ‘Abduh became an enthusiastic follower of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838-1897), born in Iran and educated in Iran and then India. Al-Afghani, an activist who is known as the father of Muslim nationalism, traveled from India to Egypt to promote Islamic intellectual reform as a prerequisite to overcoming European colonial influence and rule and achieving independence. In the 1880s ‘Abduh and Al-Afghani were exiled to Paris for their participation in a nationalist uprising against British and French influence in Egypt. When he returned to Cairo in 1888, ‘Abduh accepted the existing political situation and devoted his energies to religious, educational, and social reform.

A religious scholar, ‘Abduh reinterpreted scripture and tradition to provide an Islamic rationale for modern reforms. When ‘Abduh became mufti, head of Egypt’s religious court system, in 1899, he introduced changes in the Sharia courts. As a judge, he interpreted and applied Islam to modern conditions, using a methodology that combined a return to the fundamental sources of Islam with an acceptance of modern rational thought. Critical of many religious leaders’ inability to address modern problems, “Abduh also modernized the curriculum at Al-Azhar University, whose graduates became religious leaders throughout the Muslim world, to change their training and intellectual outlook.” Abduh called for educational and social reforms to improve and protect the status of women, supporting their access to education and arguing that the Koranic marriage ideal was monogamy, not polygamy.

On the Indian subcontinent, in what is today Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) and, later, Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) were prominent voices for Islamic reform. Khan responded to the fall of the Mughal Empire. The Sepoy Mutiny, or the First War of Independence, against British colonial influence and de facto rule became the pretext for the British to officially take charge, and it left the Muslim community—largely blamed by the British—in disarray. Initially overwhelmed by the chaos and devastation, Khan had considered leaving India. Instead, he chose to stay and rebuild the Muslim community. In contrast to Al-Afghani and others, he argued that Indian Muslims should accept British rule as a political reality and reform their community within these limits. He wished to respond both to Muslim reform and to the criticisms and attacks leveled at Islam by Christian missionaries.

In the tradition of past Islamic revivalists, Khan claimed the right to reinterpret Islam. He rejected the classical formulations of Islam fashioned by the ulama and sought to return to the original Islam of the Koran and Muhammad. Arguing that Islam and science were compatible, he advocated a new theological formulation, or reformulation, of Islam. To implement his ideas and produce a new generation of Muslim leaders, he established the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh, India, in 1874. Renamed Aligarh Muslim University in 1920, it was modeled on Cambridge University, with a course of studies that combined the best of a European curriculum with a modernist interpretation of Islam. In the early 21st century it is considered one of the largest modern federal universities of India. Khan and his disciples published journals that dealt with religious reform and women’s rights in Islam.

In the 1930s three trailblazers—Hasan al-Banna (1906-1949) and Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Mawlana Abul ‘Ala Mawdudi (1903-1979) of the Jama’at-i-Islami (Islamic Society) in South Asia—had an incalculable impact on the development of Islamic movements throughout the Muslim world. Both organizations constructed a worldview based on an interpretation of Islam that informed social and political activism. These men were the architects of contemporary Islamic revivalism, their ideas and methods studied and emulated by scholars and activists from the Sudan to Indonesia. The two movements emerged at a time when the Muslim world remained weak and in decline, much of it occupied and ruled by foreign powers. Egypt was occupied by Britain from 1882 to 1952, and the Indian subcontinent was ruled by Britain from 1857 to 1947, when modern India and Pakistan achieved independence. Although the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jama’at have been called fundamentalist, they were quite modern, though not necessarily Western, in their ideological agenda, organization, and activities. Rather than fleeing the modern world, they sought to engage and control it, but on their own terms.

Hasan al-Banna, a schoolteacher, was born in a small town outside Cairo. His early traditional religious education was supplemented by his father, who had studied at Al-Azhar University during the time of Muhammad ‘Abduh. After studying at a local teacher-training college, al-Banna went to Cairo to study at Dar al-‘Ulum College, with its modern curriculum. There he came into contact with disciples of Abduh and with the reformist thought of’ Abduh and Al-Afghani. After completing his studies, al-Banna took a teaching position at a primary school in Ismailia. Convinced that only through a return to Islam could the Muslim community revitalize itself and its fortunes and throw off European colonial domination, he ran discussion groups and, in 1928, established the Muslim Brotherhood (ikhwan al-muslimin).

Mawlana Abul Ala Mawdudi was born in Aurangabad in central India. His father supervised his early education in religious disciplines. It was only later that Mawdudi learned English and studied modern subjects. He turned to a career in journalism and quickly became editor of the newspaper of India’s Association of ‘Ulama. Mawdudi also became active in the pan-Islamic Khilafat movement (1919-24), led by Muslims in British India, which called for a restoration of the caliphate, later subsumed within the All-India National Congress’ Indian independence movement. He soon became convinced, however, that the identity, unity, and future of Indian Muslims were threatened not only by European imperialism importing ideas of secularism, humanism, and nationalism but also by Christian missions and Hindu shuddhi (purity movement), which was involved in the reconversion of indigenous converts from Islam to Hinduism. Mawdudi believed that a gradual social, rather than a violent political, Islamization of society from below was needed to create an Islamic state and society. He became editor of the journal Exegesis of the Qur’an, in which he published articles on his Islamic alternative. In 1938 he moved to Lahore (today in Pakistan) at the invitation of Muhammad Iqbal and, in 1941, organized the Jama’at-i-Islami (Islamic Society).

Both al-Banna and Mawdudi believed that their societies were dominated by, and dependent on, the West, both politically and culturally. Both men advocated an “Islamic alternative” to conservative religious leaders and modern Western secular-oriented elites.

The ‘ulama were generally regarded as passé, a religious class whose fossilized Islam and co-option by governments were major causes for the backwardness of the Islamic community. Modernists were seen as having traded away the very soul of Muslim society out of their blind admiration for the West.

For decades the symbol of revolutionary Islam was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902-1989), leader of Iran’s Islamic revolution of 1978-79. Born in the village of Khomein, he studied in Qum, a major center of Islamic learning, before teaching Islamic law and theology. In the mid-1960s Khomeini spoke out against the policies of the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, delivering fiery sermons that denounced laws or imperial decrees that directly affected religious endowments, extended the vote to women, and granted diplomatic immunity to the American military. He condemned Iran’s increasingly authoritarian and repressive government, the growing secularization and Westernization of Iranian society, and the country’s relationship with the United States and Israel. He was forced to live in exile from 1964 to 1979, first in Turkey, then in Iraq, and finally in France. Increasingly during the 1970s Khomeini moved from calling for reform to advocating the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty, which he denounced as un-Islamic and illegitimate, and its replacement with an Islamic republic. His calls from exile, distributed secretly through audiocassettes and pamphlets, might have remained marginal had it not been for the increasing broad-based opposition to the shah and his repressive response. Khomeini, who had early on been a voice of protest and opposition and was relatively free to speak out in exile, attracted a broad and diverse following: men and women, religious and secular intellectuals and students, journalists, politicians, liberal nationalists, socialists, and Marxists. However different, all were united in their opposition to the shah and by the desire for a new government.

After the revolution Khomeini surprised many when, in setting up an Islamic republic, he moved away from a constitutional government in which the clergy would advise on religious matters to advance the notion of clerical rule, a clergy-dominated government with himself at the apex as the supreme jurist. For a decade Khomeini, as supreme guardian of the republic, oversaw the implementation of his Islamically legitimated vision domestically and the export of Iran’s revolution internationally.

Mawlana Muhammad Ilyas (1885-1944), a significant ‘alim-e din (religious scholar) and respected elder (buzurg), was born in a region dominated by one of Asia’s largest Muslim seminaries, Dar al-‘Ulum, Deoband (est. 1866). Compelled to create dini islah (religious improvement) among all ordinary Muslims, in the 1920s Ilyas started a movement that began as a modest outreach into Mewat, the home of the Meo (a northern Indian ethnic group), from a place now in New Delhi called Nizamuddin. An apolitical purist movement, Tablighi Jama’at is led by ordinary Muslims, with guidance from ‘ulama, who sacrificially perform monthly, annual, or once-in-a-lifetime tours (chilla) aimed at preaching and teaching to Muslims the core beliefs and practices of Islam. Tablighi is known to emphasize simple living and simple religious faith and knowledge. It uses textbook-style publications for popular consumption but stresses face-to-face communication of ordinary preacher-teachers with ordinary people. In the early 21st century, the movement is experiencing a phenomenal growth not only in South Asia but also in more than 180 countries. It has a worldwide following in the millions that reaches from Indonesia to Nigeria, from South Africa to Central Asia, into the United Kingdom, Canada, and France.

Major Theologians and Authors

Islamic religion and civilization have produced many great intellectuals and writers, including philosophers, theologians, legal scholars, and scientists, who have sought to understand their faith and its relationship to the world. From earliest times a key issue has been the relationship of reason to revelation.

Yaqub ibn Ishaq as-Sabah al-Kindi (795-866), known in Europe as “the philosopher of the Arabs,” was among the early great Islamic philosophers. A prolific, encyclopedic author, he made significant contributions to philosophy, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, and the theory of music. Al-Kindi drew heavily on the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle and was especially influenced by Neoplatonism. He championed inquiry into the source of all being and unity, which he believed reinforced the Muslim belief in the existence of God, the world’s creation, and the truth of prophetic revelation. In the more than 300 volumes attributed to him, al-Kindi addressed a wide range of classical learning that encompassed logic, metaphysics, ethics, and astronomy and developed a scientific and philosophical vocabulary that influenced his successors. Like many who followed him, he resolved apparent contradictions between reason and revelation by resorting to an allegorical, rather than a literal, interpretation of the Koran.

The Persian Abu Bakr ar-Razi (865-923) was also a great admirer of Greek philosophy but was diametrically opposed to al-Kindi on the relationship between philosophy and revelation. For ar-Razi revelation was superfluous, since only reason was needed to lead to truth and the development of morals. His concept of the five eternal principles (the creator, soul, matter, space, and time), some of which had a basis in Plato, led to his designation as Islam’s greatest Platonist. Ar-Razi incorporated Plato’s concepts of the soul, creation in time, and the transmigration of the soul into his own philosophical system.

Even more influential in shaping the direction of Islamic thought was Abu Nasr al-Farabi (878-950), from northern Persia, who was known as the founder of Islamic Neoplatonism and political philosophy. Drawing upon the Koran, al-Farabi also developed the terminology of Arab scholasticism, which was adapted into Latin and later used by the great Christian theologian Thomas Aquinas. Al-Farabi rejected the Sufi concept of a solitary life, believing, like Aristotle, that because man was a political animal happiness could be achieved only within society, within a “virtuous city” somewhat like Plato’s ideal state. But as a Muslim, al-Farabi saw such a state as embodied in the ideal of Muhammad and the early Muslim community.

Al-Farabi’s thought was further developed by the most famous Neoplatonist of Islam, Ibn Sina (Avicenna in Latin; 980-1037), the renowned physician and philosopher of the Middle Ages whose works became widely known in both the East and the West. Born in Bukhara, he worked as a physician, serving as court physician for a number of princes, and he traveled widely. Ibn Sina’s Canon on Medicine was translated into Latin and remained a major text in Europe until the 17th century. His influence and reputation earned him the title “prince of the physicians.” He wrote with authority on medicine, physics, logic, metaphysics, psychology, and astronomy.

Ibn Sina, who drew on the writings of both Plato and Aristotle, credited al-Farabi with giving him the first keys that led to his understanding of Aristotle. He completed Aristotle’s idea of the prime mover, developed the philosophy of monotheism, and taught that creation was a timeless process of divine emanation. His rationalist thought was condemned by the religious establishment.

Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (1058-1111), a philosopher, theologian, jurist, and mystic, was an extraordinary figure, remembered as the “renewer of Islam,” who deeply affected the religion’s later development. Born and raised in Iran, al-Ghazali received a first-class Islamic education. In Baghdad he became a renowned lawyer and wrote a series of books. Among the most influential was The Incoherence of the Philosophers, in which he refuted Avicenna, maintaining that, while reason was effective in mathematics and logic, applying it to theological and metaphysical truths led to confusion and threatened the fabric of faith. Al-Ghazali’s teachings brought him fame and fortune. After several years, however, he experienced a crisis of faith and conscience, both spiritual and psychological, which rendered him unable to speak or function professionally. He withdrew from life and spent many years traveling, practicing Sufism, and reflecting. During this time he wrote what many consider his greatest work, The Revivication of the Religious Sciences, his great synthesis of law, theology, and mysticism.

Al-Ghazali lived in a turbulent time, when conflicting schools of thought emphasizing faith or reason or mysticism contended with one another, each claiming to be the only authentic view of Islam. “To refute,” he said, “one must understand.” His comprehensive knowledge of all of the schools and arguments, as well as of philosophy, theology, law, and mysticism, enabled him to establish a credible synthesis of the intellectual and spiritual currents of the time. He presented law and theology in terms that religious scholars could accept, while grounding the disciplines in direct religious experience and the interior devotion seen in Sufism, which he helped to place within the life of the Muslim community. He tempered rationalism by an emphasis on religious experience and love of God.

Because he criticized the blind acceptance of authority, and emphasized a thorough study of a discipline and objectivity of approach, al-Ghazali continues to receive considerable attention from both Muslim and Western scholars. His “modern” approach is seen in his focus on the essentials of religion, his willingness to entertain doubt and put it in perspective, and his concern for the ordinary believer.

Ibn Rushd (Averroës in Latin; 1126-1198) was the greatest Aristotelian philosopher of the Muslim world. His prominence and commentaries, which provided many Europeans in the medieval world with their only source of knowledge about Aristotle, led to his title “the commentator.” His writings and ideas influenced Jewish and Christian thinkers such as Maimonides, Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas. Born in Córdoba, Spain, Ibn Rushd sought to harmonize the Koran and revelation with philosophy and logic. Like Ibn Sina, he believed that there was no contradiction between religion and philosophy, although, while religion was the way of the masses, philosophy was the province of an intellectual elite. Some have called this a “two-truths” theory and labeled Ibn Rushd a “freethinker.” But when he spoke of religion, Ibn Rushd, who recognized that the higher truth resided in revelation, was referring more specifically to the formulations of theology, the product of fallible human beings and theologians and thus subject to the limitations of language, and not to divine revelation itself.

Ibn Rushd’s contributions in philosophy, theology, medicine, and Islamic jurisprudence were voluminous, comparable in comprehensiveness to the works of al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. His extensive influence in the West led to his condemnation by Muslim religious scholars opposed to the view that religious law and philosophy have the same goal and that creation is an eternal process. His intellectual stature, influence, and significance are demonstrated by the fact that European philosophers and theologians during the 13th century participated in major pro- and anti-Averroist battles.

Ibn ‘ Arabi (1165-1240), known among Sufis and admirers as al-shaykh al-akbar (the greatest Sufi master), was a controversial figure but believed by many to be the very model of sainthood. In attempting to base his ideas on Islam’s foundational sources, Ibn Arabi put himself squarely in the mainstream of Islam, the Koran, and the hadith—making him a traditional thinker—but his most prodigious writings (often difficult to comprehend) were commentaries on these foundational sources. He served as a symbol of using rationalistic means to knowledge, which he considered less epistemically reliable than direct mystical knowledge. Ibn Arabi was a philosopher in the sense that he used Islamic Neoplatonic language and categories; he was a traditional theologian in that he considered the Koran to be the starting point of all enquiry; and he was a mystic in the sense that he subscribed to the primacy of direct or mystical knowledge unmediated by reason or effort. His legacy continues through his followers in Turkey and though the Sufi brotherhoods of South Asia.

Ibn Taymiyya (1268-1328) lived during one of the most disruptive periods of Islamic history, which saw the fall of Baghdad and the conquest of the Abbasid Empire in 1258 by the Mongols. He was forced to flee with his family to Damascus, an experience that affected his attitude toward the Mongols throughout his life and made an otherwise conservative religious scholar a militant political activist. As with many who followed him, his writing and preaching earned him persecution and imprisonment. He combined ideas and action to express belief in the interconnectedness of religion, state, and society, thus exerting an influence on modern revivalist movements.

A professor of the conservative Hanbali School of law in Sunni Islam, Ibn Taymiyya relied on a rigorous, literal interpretation of the sacred sources (the Koran and the examples of the Prophet and of the early Muslim community) for Islamic renewal and the reform of society. Like many who came after him, he regarded the community at Medina as the model for an Islamic state. Ibn Taymiyya distinguished sharply between Islam and non-Islam (dar al-Islam and dar al-harb, respectively), the lands of belief and unbelief. In contrast to his vision of a close relationship between religion and the state, he made a sharp distinction between religion and culture. Although a pious Sufi, a practitioner of Islamic mysticism, he denounced as superstition such popular practices of his day as the worship of saints and the veneration of shrines and tombs. He is known also for his opposition to the ideas of Ibn Arabi, which were expanded and popularized by his disciples in Syria, Turkey, and beyond.

Ibn Taymiyya’s revolutionary ire was especially directed at the Mongols, who were locked in a jihad with the Muslim Mamluk rulers of Egypt. Despite their conversion to Islam, the Mongols continued to follow the code of laws of Genghis Khan instead of the Islamic law, the Sharia, and Ibn Taymiyya regarded them as no better than the polytheists of pre-Islamic Arabia. He issued a fatwa (legal opinion or judgment) that denounced them as unbelievers (kafirs) who were thus excommunicated (takfir). His fatwa established a precedent that has been used by contemporary religious extremists. Despite their claim to be Muslims, the Mongols’ failure to implement Sharia rendered them, and by extension all Muslims who acted accordingly, apostates and hence the lawful object of jihad. Thus, “true” Muslims had the right, indeed duty, to revolt or wage jihad against such governments or individuals. Later generations—from the Wahhabi movement in Arabia and Sayyid Qutb in modern Egypt, from Islamic Jihad, the group that assassinated Egypt’s President Anwar el-Sādāt, to Osama bin Laden—would use the logic of Ibn Taymiyya’s fatwa against the Mongols to call for a jihad against their “un-Islamic” Muslim rulers and elites and against the West.

The writings of Muhammad Iqbal (1873-1938) embodied the conflicting agendas of modernists. Educated at Government College in Lahore, British India (now in Pakistan), he later studied in England and Germany, where he earned a law degree and a doctorate in philosophy. Iqbal’s modern synthesis and reinterpretation of Islam combined the best of his Islamic heritage with the Western philosophy of Johann G. Fichte (1762-1814), Georg W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), Freidrich W. Nietzsche (1844-1900), and Henri-Louis Bergson (1859-1941). He was both an admirer and a critic of the West. Acknowledgment of the West’s dynamic spirit, intellectual tradition, and technology was balanced by his sharp critique of European colonialism, the materialism and exploitation of capitalism, the atheism of Marxism, and the moral bankruptcy of secularism. Iqbal’s reformist impulse and vision, embodied in his extensive writings and poetry, were succinctly summarized in The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam.

Like other Islamic modernists, Iqbal rejected much of medieval Islam as static and stagnant, part of the problem and not the solution for a debilitated community. He saw Islam as emerging from 500 years of “dogmatic slumber” and compared the need for Islamic reform to the Reformation. Iqbal emphasized the need to reclaim the vitality and dynamism of early Islamic thought and practice, calling for a bold reinterpretation of Islam. Drawing on tradition, he sought to “rediscover” principles and values that would provide the basis for Islamic versions of such Western concepts and institutions as democracy and parliamentary government. He looked to the past to rediscover principles and values that could be reinterpreted to reconstruct an alternative Islamic model for modern Muslim society. Because of the centrality of such beliefs as the equality and brotherhood of believers, Iqbal concluded that democracy was the most important political ideal in Islam. He maintained that, although the seizure of power from ‘Ali by Muawiyah, the founder of the Umayyad dynasty, had ended the period of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, led to the creation of dynastic governments, and prevented the realization of an Islamic democratic ideal, it remained the duty of the Muslim community to realize this goal. He was one of the few from South Asia knighted for their contributions to political and social thought. He is credited with having inspired the movement for a separate state for Muslims within South Asia, “the Pakistan Movement.”

It would be difficult to overestimate the role played by Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) on both mainstream and militant Islam. His journey from educated intellectual, government official, and admirer of the West to militant activist who condemned both the Egyptian and the U.S. governments and who defended the legitimacy of militant jihad has influenced and inspired many militants, from the assassins of Anwar el-Sādāt to the followers of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Qutb’s interpretation of Islam grew out of the militant confrontation in the late 1950s and the 1960s between the repressive Egyptian state and the Muslim Brotherhood. Like Hasan al-Banna, Qutb had a modern education at Dar al-‘Ulum College. After graduation he became an official in the Ministry of Public Instruction as well as a poet and literary critic. A devout Muslim who had memorized the Koran as a child, he began to write on Islam and the Egyptian state. In 1948 he published Islam and Social Justice, in which he argued that Islam possessed its own social teachings and that Islamic socialism avoided both the pitfalls of Christianity’s separation of religion and society and those of Communism’s atheism.

An admirer of Western literature, Qutb visited the United States in the late 1940s. It proved to be a turning point in his life, transforming an admirer into a severe critic of the West. His experiences in the United States produced a culture shock that convinced him of the moral decadence of the West and made him more religious. He was appalled by U.S. materialism, sexual permissiveness and promiscuity, the free use and abuse of alcohol, and racism, which he experienced personally because of his dark skin. Qutb felt betrayed when he saw what he considered to be anti-Arab and pro-Jewish coverage in U.S. newspapers and movies that fostered contempt for Muslims. Shortly after his return to Egypt, Qutb joined the Muslim Brotherhood.

He quickly emerged as a major voice in the organization and, amid a growing confrontation with Gamal Abdel Nasser’s repressive regime, its most influential ideologue. Imprisoned and tortured for alleged involvement in a failed attempt to assassinate Nasser, he became increasingly militant and radicalized, convinced that the Egyptian government was un-Islamic and must be overthrown. A prolific author, Qutb published more than 40 books, many translated into Persian and English and still widely distributed. During 10 years of imprisonment, Qutb developed a revolutionary vision captured in his most influential tract, Milestones, which was used as evidence against him and led to his being sentenced to death. His ideas would reverberate loudly in the radical rhetoric of revolutionaries.

Like Ibn Taymiyya before him, Qutb sharply divided Muslim societies into two diametrically opposed camps: the forces of good and the forces of evil, those committed to the rule of God and those opposed, the party of God and the party of Satan. His teachings recast the world in black and white; there were no shades of gray. Since the creation of an Islamic government was a divine commandment, he argued, it was not simply an alternative but rather an imperative that Muslims must strive to implement or impose immediately. Qutb used the classical designation for pre-Islamic Arabian society, jahiliyyah (a period of ignorance), to paint and condemn all modern societies as un-Islamic and anti-Islamic. Given the authoritarian and repressive nature of the Egyptian government and many other governments in the Muslim world, Qutb concluded that change from within the system was futile and that Islam was on the brink of disaster. For Qutb, jihad, as an armed struggle in the defense of Islam against the injustice and oppression of anti-Islamic governments and the neocolonialism of the West and the East (Soviet Union), was incumbent upon all Muslims. He denounced Muslim governments and their Western, secular-oriented elites as atheists, against whom all true believers must wage holy war.

Thinker, theologian, and jurist Yusuf al-Qaradawi (1926- ) is increasingly being seen as a central figure in discourses on Islam and modernity, especially as they pertain to the Muslim minorities in the West. Al-Qaradawi is chief among those who are popularizing the Islamic notion of wasatiyya (centrism). Many recognize him as a moderate Islamist whose ideas—communicated through his speeches, television appearances, and fatwa—are understood as relating to and addressing the real-life issues being faced by Muslims in the West in a way that promises, among many things, better interfaith relations, engagement in nation building, and participation in the democratic life of the countries in which Muslims are living. His approach is seen to reconcile faith and reason through the creative application of ijtihad (independent reasoning). His approach is increasingly being appreciated by many Muslims in the West, as it enables them as minorities to not just maintain their religious distinctiveness but also integrate within their communities as Muslims. His legal pronouncements that pertain to such contextual factors are known as fiqh al-a-qalliyyat (jurisprudence for Muslim minorities), which some consider an interesting contrast to the deeply conservative Salafist approach.

Organizational Structure

In general, Islam does not have an official organizational structure or hierarchy. It technically lacks an ordained clergy, and major religious rituals, such as prayers or marriage ceremonies, do not require a religious official. Over time, however, the early scholars of Islam, the ‘ulama, became a clerical class, asserting their prerogative as the guardians and official interpreters of Islam and adopting a clerical form of dress. They became the primary scholars of law and theology, teachers in schools and universities or seminaries (madrassas), judges, muftis, and lawyers, as well as the guardians and distributors of funds from religious endowments that provided support for such institutions as schools, hospitals, and hostels and for the poor. In time, in some Muslim countries, senior religious officials were appointed by governments with titles such as grand mufti. Some sub-sects among the Shia, in particular the Twelvers (ithna ‘ashariyah) of Iran and Iraq, developed a hierarchical system of religious officials and titles. Their senior leaders are called ayatollahs (signs of Allah), and at the apex of the system are grand ayatollahs.

The Sufi orders, or brotherhoods of Islamic mystics, also developed an institutional structure and organization of disciples, followers, and helpers led by the master (murshid, pir or shaykh), who functions as the spiritual leader and head of the community. Some of the more prominent brotherhoods developed international networks. At times the heads of Sufi brotherhoods also became military leaders. When these religious and social organizations turned militant, as with such 18th- and 19th-century jihad movements as the Mahdi in the Sudan, the Fulani in Nigeria, and the Sanusi in Libya, they fought colonial powers and created Islamic states. The majority of the Sufis, however—even those who have been named as “warrior Sufis,” especially in the Asian continent—served to translate Islam into local contexts not by sword but by a message of love, sacrifice, and brotherhood. Many of these early influxes of Sufis (11th and 12th centuries) into South Asia, for example, led to the establishment of mainstream orders such as the Chishtiyyah, with a central dargah (shrine complex) housing the tomb of Moiniddin Chishti (1141-1236), also known as gharib nawaz (helper of the poor) and a large number of related dargahs of Chishti’s major and minor disciples all over South Asia. The institutionalization of mysticism in this way receives its legitimation through the silsila (chain) linking living or dead Sufis to the Prophet or a member of his family.

Schools of thought (maslaks) are another form of organization in Islam. For example, in South Asia at least four main schools of thought have been identified: the the contextualized mystical Islam represented by the Barelwis; the Wahhabi-inspired Ahl-e Hadith, who seek to radically transform contextually formed culture of South Asian Muslims; Jama’at-e Islami, who take a modernity-triggered, transhistorical-ideology-driven approach; and the Deobandis, the pragmatic centrists open to relationship building with neighbors of other faiths. Each group maintains and promotes their beliefs, among other means, through a network of madrassas affiliated with them and their program of outreach (da’wah, tabligh). The Tablighi Jama’at, an off-shoot of the Deobandis, is a major organization in its own right, with its central markaz (headquarters) in Nizamuddin, New Delhi. Like the Tablighi, most of the mentioned schools of thought—especially the Jama’at and Deobandis—are transnational and transregional, though a few maintain an organizational connection with their parent institutions.

Houses of Worship and Holy Places

word “mosque” comes from the Arabic masjid (place for ritual prostration). For many Muslims, Friday at a mosque is a day of congregational prayer, religious education (“Sunday school”), and socializing. The atmosphere is one of tranquility and reflection and also of relaxation. A visitor to a mosque may see people chatting quietly or napping, as well as praying and reading the Koran. The mosque’s main prayer area is a large open space adorned with Oriental carpets. When they pray, Muslims face the mihrab, an ornamental arched niche set into the wall, which indicates the direction of Mecca. Near the mihrab is the minbar, a raised wooden platform, like a pulpit, that is similar to the one the Prophet Muhammad used when giving sermons. Prayer leaders deliver sermons from the steps of the minbar. Most mosques also have a spot set aside, away from the main area, where Muslims can cleanse themselves before they pray.

Throughout history, wherever Muslims have settled in sufficient numbers, they have made erecting a mosque an important priority. In the United States, for example, the construction of mosques, which serve as community centers as well as places of worship, has increased greatly. More than 2,100 mosques and Islamic centers serve a diverse Muslim community in the United States, whose membership is often drawn along such ethnic or racial identities as Arab, South Asian, Turkish, and African American. Mosques of various sizes are located in small towns and villages as well as major American cities.

In addition to individual worship and the Friday congregational prayer, mosques are often the sites for Koranic recitations and retreats, especially during the fast of Ramadan, and as centers for the collection and distribution of charitable contributions (zakat). Muslim pilgrims visit their mosques before they leave for, and when they return from, a pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj), and the bodies of those who have died are placed before the mihrab for funerary prayers. Mosques are also sites where marriages and business agreements are contracted and where educational classes are often held. In contemporary times mosques have become centers for political mobilization in those countries that control or ban public meetings or opposition politics. Preachers deliver sermons that incorporate political messages, criticizing government leaders, corruption, and injustice.

In Shia Islam, the family of Ali and the imams became objects of imitation and veneration. Sites associated with their lives or deaths became mosques and shrines, the objects of veneration and pilgrimage. Shrines and holy cities such as Najaf (the burial place of ‘ Ali) and Karbala (the site of the martyrdom of Hussein), both in Iraq, or Mashhad and Qum, in Iran, became centers for learning and pilgrimage, where rituals of commemoration, prayer, and celebration were performed. In Sunni Islam places associated with the Prophet Muhammad, his family, and companions, as well as with later martyrs and Sufi saints, became shrines and centers of pilgrimage and places for prayer, petitions, blessings, and miracles.

What is Sacred

Islam emphasizes the oneness, or unity, of God and rejects the substitution of anything for God that could be considered idolatrous. Thus, while animals and plants are regarded as part of creation, they are not sacred, a category reserved only for God.

Historically, however, in popular practice, especially in Sufism, some masters came to be viewed as walis (friends of God, or saints), and their tombs became the focus of pilgrimages, where they were appealed to for blessings and assistance. The master’s spiritual power and intercession before God might be invoked to request a safe pregnancy, overcoming sickness, a prosperous business, or success in taking exams. Special rituals and celebrations were held to commemorate the dates of the master’s birth and death. The death anniversaries, also called urs, center around the tomb of the walis. They continue to be a focal point of celebrations in a large number of dargahs around the world, especially in Asia.

For many Muslims objects reportedly associated with the Prophet Muhammad—a tooth or strand of hair, for example—have come to be regarded as relics. Similarly, a mosque in Cairo to which Hussein’s head was transferred in the 12th century has been a popular shrine for Sunni and Shiite alike.

Holidays and Festivals

Muslims celebrate two great holidays. One is Eid al-Fitr, the feast celebrating the breaking of the Ramadan fast. The second, which occurs two and a half months later, is Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice. This latter holiday, the greater of the two, marks the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca and commemorates God’s testing of Abraham by commanding him to sacrifice his son Ismail (Isaac in Jewish and Christian traditions). The feast is a worldwide celebration that lasts for three days.

The two holidays, which are a time for rejoicing, prayer, and social visits, represent a religious obligation as well as a social celebration. Both are occasions for visiting relatives and friends, for giving gifts, and for enjoying special desserts and foods that are served only at these times of the year. Many Muslim children stay home from school to celebrate the festivals, and in some areas school authorities recognize them as holidays for Muslim youngsters.

Muslims also celebrate other religious holidays, including the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday. In Shia Islam the birthdays of Ali and the imams are also celebrated. The Shia annually commemorate the “passion” of Hussein during a 10-day period (ashura) of remembering, during which they ritually reenact and mourn the last stand of Imam Hussein and his followers against the army of the caliph.

Mode of Dress

Islamic dress for men and women reflects a focus on modesty in public and private spaces as defined in the hadith (the reports of Muhammad’s sayings and deeds) and in popular tradition. Historically dress in the Muslim world was also strongly influenced by hot and arid climates with wind and sandstorms, where long and flowing garments ensured comfort and head coverings served as protection.

Contemporary dress in the Muslim world varies greatly, depending on geographic location, diverse customs, Koranic interpretations, and marital status, as well as differing ages, tastes, identities, occupations, or political orientations. Nonetheless, there is a particular style of Islamic dress for men and women that was adopted in the 20th century by Muslim communities throughout the world. Female dress typically consists of an ankle-length skirt and long-sleeved top or a long robe, unfitted at the waist, along with a head covering, low on the forehead and draped over the neck and sometimes the shoulders. Austere colors (black, white, dark blue, beige, or gray) and opaque materials are the most common. This outfit, called the hijab and voluntarily chosen by many Muslim women, is distinctly modern, bought ready-made in shops or sewn by hand. Male dress, less popular than the female version, includes a traditional long-sleeved tunic and baggy pants or a robe, along with a prayer cap or other traditional head wrap. A beard, either untrimmed or trimmed but covering areas of the cheek, is also sometimes worn. Islamic dress is less popular among men because it often leads officials to identify them as activists subject to identification and arrest.

This Islamic dress represents a new public morality. It strengthens Islamic identity and is a sign of protest and liberation that distances the believer from Western values and its emphasis on materialism and commercialism. Some women believe that Islamic dress makes them better able to function as active, self-directed subjects, commanding respect and valued for who they are rather than what they look like. This dress code has also developed political overtones, becoming a source of national pride, desire for participatory politics, and resistance to authoritarianism and Western cultural and political dominance.

Special dress is worn on a pilgrimage. For women this includes an outer covering and a headscarf. Men on pilgrimage wear two seamless pieces of white cloth and a waistband, an outfit that symbolizes the equality of all believers.

Dietary Practices

Muslims are required to eat meat that has been slaughtered in a religiously appropriate way (halal), which requires the pronouncement of bismillah (in the name of Allah) with a knife that cuts the animal cleanly and quickly to drain the blood. All processed food and items using animal products must be halal to make it permissible for use by Muslims. Food from the Christian and Jewish sources is also considered halal based on Surah 5:5, though there may be local variation in practice. Increasingly, in the West, there are special counters in supermarket and local shops that stock halal food.

A dietary prohibition against pork comes from the Koran (Surah 5:3). The widespread use of pork products and by-products by U.S. food manufacturers creates difficulties for American and European Muslims. Lard, commonly used in the many countries in the West as shortening, is sometimes an ingredient in cookies, for example, and potato chips may be fried in it. Some mosques and Islamic centers circulate lists of specific products known to contain either pork or alcohol so that they can be avoided.

Not all Muslims eat meat. Some recent Muslim converts—for example, the Gujjars, who inhabit the foothills of the Himalayas in South Asia—have traditionally been vegetarian. Although their Islamization through the Deobandis and the Tabligh has taken place since the early 1990s, the majority of them remain vegetarian. They rely mainly on milk products, rice, and lentils.

The sale, purchase, and consumption of alcohol by Muslims is strictly prohibited by Islamic law, although in rare cases it is permitted for medicinal purposes. This prohibition is based upon the Koran (Surah 5:90-91; 6:118-19), which specifically forbids the consumption of date wine. Most jurists, however, apply the injunction to all substances that produce an altered state of mind, including alcohol and narcotics. Despite this, opium consumption has been part of the local cultures of Asia for centuries, and the use of opium continues to be widespread in many Muslim countries, including Iran, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Bahrain. The consumption of khat, a mild narcotic from Arabia and the Horn of Africa, has also traditionally been part of the local custom of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Somalia.

Rituals

In a well-known hadith, Muhammad is reported to have said, “Purity is half of faith.” This saying dramatically emphasizes the importance of purity and purification in the Islamic tradition, especially as a preparation for worship and an encounter with God. Thus, physical purification culminates in a spiritual purity that results from worship. The two major purification rituals are the bath (ghusl) and the ablution (wudu), the latter consisting of washing the face, both arms up to the elbows, the head, and the feet. A bath is a precondition for all forms of worship in Islam, but to overcome any impurities encountered during the day, an ablution should also be performed before praying (salat) and circumambulating the Ka’bah. The salat is a ritual performed five times daily. Individually or in groups, Muslims face the holy city of Mecca to pray in Arabic. Believers stand, bow, kneel, and touch the ground with their foreheads—an expression of ultimate submission to God—as they recite verses from the Koran, glorify God, declare their faith, and then privately and informally offer personal prayers of request or thanksgiving.

The most intricate of Islamic rituals is the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca, which every Muslim who is financially and physically able must make once in his or her lifetime. During the pilgrimage Muslims perform a series of symbolic and emotional rituals—reenactments of faith-testing events in the lives of Abraham, Hagar, and Ismail—as determined by Muhammad shortly before his death. Muslims pray at the spot where Abraham, the patriarch and father of monotheism, stood. But the focus of the pilgrimage is the Ka’bah, the cube-shaped structure that Muslim tradition teaches was originally built by Abraham and his son Ismail to honor God. The black stone the Ka’bah contains is believed to have been given to Abraham by the angel Gabriel. Thus, it is a symbol of God’s covenant with Ismail and, by extension, with the Muslim community. Pilgrims circumambulate the Ka’bah seven times, symbolizing the believer’s entry into the divine presence. They try to touch or kiss the black stone as they pass by in their procession around the Ka’bah.

Pilgrims also walk or run between the nearby hills of Safa and Marwa to commemorate Hagar’s frantic search in the desert for water for her son Ismail. In the midst of her running back and forth, water sprang from the earth, from the well of Zamzam. According to Islamic tradition, both Hagar and Ismail are buried in an enclosed area next to the Ka’bah. Pilgrims cast small pebbles, a symbolic stoning, toward the three pillars where Abraham was tempted by the devil to disobey God and refuse to sacrifice his son. Finally, they visit the Plain of Arafat, near the Mount of Mercy, the site where Muhammad delivered his last sermon, to seek God’s forgiveness for themselves and for all Muslims throughout the world. At the culmination of the hajj, the important ritual of Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) celebrates the ram substituted by God when Abraham, in a test of his faith, offered to sacrifice his son Ismail. Collectively, the hajj celebrates renewal and reunion across cultures and the continuity over time of the worldwide Islamic community (ummah). Individually it often coincides with major events in the believer’s life cycle—adulthood, marriage, retirement, illness, a personal crisis or loss—and thus is also viewed as a key rite of passage. The simple garments pilgrims wear, which symbolize the equality and humility of all Muslims regardless of their class, gender, nationality, or race, is often used years later as their burial shroud.

In Sufi-dominated regions of the Muslim world such as South Asia, the majority of Muslims also participate in performative rituals associated with the cult of the saints. A local shrine becomes an extension of the larger distant shrine of the Sufis of eminence such as Moinuddin Chishti (1141-1236; dargah in Ajmer, Rajasthan, India), Nizamuddin Awlia’ (1238-1325; dargah in Nizamuddin, New Delhi), Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki (1173-1235; dargah in Mahrauli, New Delhi), and Fariduddin Ganjshakar (1173?-1266?; dargah in Pakpattan, Pakistan). The death of a saint is commemorated annually with much fanfare, and the local celebration typically leads to a main shrine. In Hyderabad, India, instead of proceeding to a local dargah, the celebration concludes in a rented hall where a representative of Chishti Sufism presides over the rituals. The celebration includes receiving and giving of gifts, singing qawwalis (devotional songs) in praise of Muhammad and the Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, and displaying and blessing a chador (carpet) woven in honor of God, Muhammad, and the saint and in prayer or thanksgiving to God. The chador is then carried by a delegation representing the local community up to Ajmer Sharif, where the dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti is located. It is offered at his mazar (tomb) along with other delegations from different parts of the country and abroad.

Rites of Passage

Life-cycle rituals in Islam serve to provide meaning and reinforce an individual and communal worldview. In addition to the Five Pillars of Islam, rites of passage for birth, puberty, marriage, and death symbolize the theme that a Muslim’s purpose is to serve God by submission and thanksgiving.

At birth the call of prayer is recited in the infant’s right ear. Names for babies are often derived from those of the prophets or their wives or companions, or a name is formed from the prefix ‘abd (servant) and an attribute of God, such as “servant of the Almighty” (‘ Abd al-Aziz). In addition, a goat or sheep is sacrificed to express gratitude to God and joy at the birth, as well as to form an association with Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son for God. Although circumcision of males is sometimes practiced, it has no doctrinal basis in Islam and is viewed as an act of hygiene. Puberty, the entrance into adulthood, represents the beginning of religious and social responsibility, the obligation to perform purification rituals to ensure physical cleanliness and daily prayers, and participation in the fast during Ramadan.

Marriage (nikah) is encouraged as an integral part of humanity, and celibacy is discouraged. Marriage is considered a contract, however, not a sacrament. As with other rites of passage, marriage customs in the Muslim world reflect local customs. Because Islam views sexuality as a part of life requiring rules that preserve social morality, the Koran and sunnah (example of the Prophet) provide guidelines for prayer before, as well as a ritual bath (ghusl) after, conjugal relations.

Death in Islam is seen as the transition from life in this world to life in the next. Burial normally occurs on the day of death after funerary rituals based on practices of Muhammad that include bathing and wrapping the body are performed. The salat al-janazah, a funeral prayer led by a relative or an imam, is said in the mosque after any of the daily prayers, and the shahadah (declaration of faith) is recited by the family and friends at the burial. The deceased is placed in the grave with his or her face turned toward Mecca. To reinforce humility and the mindfulness of death, each funeral participant contributes three handfuls of earth toward filling the grave.

Membership

Islam is a world religion in geographic scope and mission. All followers have an obligation to be an example to others and to invite them to Islam. Muslims believe that Islam is the religion of God, possessing his final and complete word, the Koran, and his final prophet, Muhammad. Thus, while God’s revelation had been revealed previously and covenants had been made with other communities, such as Jews and Christians, Muslims believe that Islam possesses the fullness of truth and that they have a divine mandate to be an example to others and to preach and spread their faith.

The “call” (da’wah) to Islam, or propagation of the faith, has been central to the origins of the Muslim community. It has a twofold meaning: the call to non-Muslims to become Muslim, and the call to Muslims to return to Islam or to be more religiously observant. From earliest times commercial and military ventures were accompanied by the spread of Islam, with traders, merchants, and soldiers its missionaries. Caliphs also used the spread of Islam as a means to legitimate their authority over Muslims and to justify imperial expansion and conquest.

Modern interpretations of da’wah have taken many forms—political, socioeconomic, and cultural—as governments, organizations, and individuals have sought to promote Islam’s message and impact. Governments and modern Islamic movements and organizations have supported diverse activities, including the distribution of the Koran; the building of mosques, libraries, hospitals, and Islamic schools in poor Muslim countries; and greater Islamization of law and society in Muslim countries. As part of their foreign policies, some governments, including Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Iran, have created da’wah organizations to promote Islam and their influence in the Muslim world and in the West. At the same time, nongovernmental Islamic organizations throughout the world have created strong networks of educational institutions and medical and social services. While the majority of these activities have been supported by mainstream groups, extremist organizations have also used social services to enhance their credibility, recruit supporters, and provide aid for the widows and families of their members.

Religious Tolerance

The Koran stresses religious tolerance, teaching that God deliberately created a world of diversity: “O humankind, We have created you male and female and made you nations and tribes, so that you might come to know one another” (Surah 49:13). In addition, the Koran stresses that “there is to be no compulsion in religion” (Surah 2:256).

Islam regards Jews and Christians as People of the Book, as people who have also received revelations and scriptures from God. It is recognized that followers of the three great Abrahamic religions, the children of Abraham, share a common belief in the one God, in such biblical prophets as Moses and Jesus, in human accountability, and in a final judgment followed by eternal reward or punishment. In later centuries Islam extended recognition to other faiths.

Historically, while the early expansion and conquests spread Islamic rule, Muslims in general did not try to impose their religion on others or force them to convert. As People of the Book, Jews and Christians were regarded as protected people (dhimmi), permitted to retain and practice their religions, be directed by their own religious leaders, and be guided by their own religious laws and customs. For this protection they paid a poll, or head, tax (jizya). While by modern standards this treatment amounted to second-class citizenship, in premodern times, compared with the practices of Christianity, for example, it was highly advanced.

The most frequently cited example of religious tolerance is that of Muslim rule in Spain (Andalusia, or Al-Andalus) from 756 to about 1000, which is usually idealized as a period of interfaith harmony, or convivencia (living together). Muslim rule offered the Christian and Jewish populations seeking refuge from the class system elsewhere in Europe the opportunity to become prosperous small landholders. Christians and Jews occupied prominent positions in the court of the caliph in the 10th century, serving as translators, engineers, physicians, and architects. The archbishop of Seville commissioned an annotated translation of the Bible for the Arabic-speaking Christian community.

In the contemporary era religious and political pluralism has been an issue in the Muslim world threatened by political and socioeconomic tensions and conflicts. Discrimination and conflict between Muslims and Christians, for example, have occurred from Egypt, the Sudan, and Nigeria to Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Indonesia. The situation has been exacerbated in the countries that have attempted to implement self-described Islamic states or Islamic law. A major factor has been extremist religious groups that have targeted non-Muslims. Religious conflict and violence have also occurred within Islam, between Sunnis and Shiites in countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan under the Taliban.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an example of religion and politics intimately intertwined. Jewish and Islamic activist organizations in the two nations have brought a religious dimension to the conflict between Israeli and Palestinian nationalism. The use of suicide bombings, with their connection to martyrdom, by such Palestinian organizations as Hamas and Islamic Jihad has added a further religious element to the conflict. The struggle over the future of Jerusalem has come to symbolize the religious dimension of the conflict.

A key Islamic issue in the early 21st century regarding tolerance and pluralism is the relationship of past doctrine to current realities. Mainstream conservative Muslims call for a reinstatement of the gradations of citizenship that accompanied the dhimmi (protected people) status, which, however progressive in the past, would deny equal rights to non-Muslims today. Others recognize that this approach is not compatible with the pluralistic realities of the contemporary world or with international standards of human rights. Muslim reformers insist that non-Muslims be afforded full citizenship rights. Advocates of reform maintain that pluralism, rather than being a purely Western invention or ideology, is the essence of Islam as revealed in the Koran and practiced by Muhammad and the early caliphs. Thus, while militants and traditionalists advocate classical Islam’s dhimmi or millet (protected religious community) system, reformers call for a reinterpretation of pluralism.

Social Justice

Muslims, like Christians and Jews before them, believe that they have been called to a special covenant with God, as stated in the Koran, constituting a community of believers intended to serve as an example to other nations (2:143) in establishing a just social order (3:110). The Koran envisions a society based upon the unity and equality of all believers, in which morality and social justice counterbalance economic exploitation and the oppression of the weak. The new moral and social order called for by the Koran reflects the fact that the purpose of all actions is obedience to God’s law and fulfillment of his will, not individual, tribal, ethnic, or national self-interest. Men and women are entrusted equally with promoting a moral order and adhering to the Five Pillars of Islam.

The socioeconomic reforms of the Koran are among its most striking features. Muslims are held responsible for the care and protection of members of the community, in particular the poor, the weak, women, widows, orphans, and slaves (4:2, 4:12, 90:13-16, 24:33). Bribery, false contracts, the hoarding of wealth, the abuse of women, and usury are condemned. The practice of zakat, giving 2.5 percent of one’s total wealth annually to support the less fortunate, is a required social responsibility intended to break the cycle of poverty and to prevent the rich from holding on to their wealth while the poor remain poor: “The alms [zakat] are for the poor and needy, those who work to collect them, those whose hearts are to be reconciled, the ransoming of slaves and debtors, and for the causes of God, and for travelers” (9:60). The redistribution of wealth underscores the Muslim belief that human beings are caretakers, or vice-regents, for God’s property, that everything ultimately belongs to God.

Opposition to interest, seen as exploitation of the poor, originates in Koranic verses that prohibit usury, or riba, an ancient Arabian practice that doubled the debt of borrowers who defaulted on their loans and doubled it again if they defaulted a second time. In the early 21st century opposition to interest comes from the Koranic prohibition against riba and the belief that interest gives an unfair gain to the lender, who receives money without working for it, and imposes an unfair burden on the borrower, who must repay the loan and a finance charge regardless of whether his money grows or he suffers a loss. Opponents also believe that interest transfers wealth from the poor to the rich, promotes selfishness, and weakens community bonds. Reformers argue that the condemnation of riba does not refer to the practices of modern banking but to usury, for, as the Koran warns, usurers face “war from God and His Prophet” (2:279).

Koranic reforms in marriage, divorce, and inheritance sought to protect and enhance the status and rights of women. While the Koran and Islam did not do away with slavery, which was common in pre-Islamic Arabia and thus presumed to be part of society, Islamic law set out guidelines to limit its negative impact and assure the just treatment of slaves. It forbade the enslavement of free members of Islamic society and, in particular, orphans and foundlings. Slaves could not be abused, mutilated, or killed. The freeing of slaves was regarded as an especially meritorious action. Similarly, in war clear regulations were given to protect the rights of noncombatants and the clergy.

The Koran and sunnah teach that Muslims should make every effort, or struggle (jihad), to promote justice. This includes the right, if necessary, to engage in armed defense (jihad) of the rights of the downtrodden, in particular women and children (4:74-76) and victims of oppression and injustice, such as those Muslims who were driven out of their homes unjustly by the Meccans (22:39-40).

Social Life

Marriage and family life are the norm in Islam. In contrast to Christianity, marriage in Islam is not a sacrament but rather a contract between a man and a woman, or perhaps more accurately between their families. In the traditional practice of arranged marriages, the families or guardians, not the bride and groom, are the two primary actors. The preferred marriage, because of concerns regarding the faith of the children, is between two Muslims and within the extended family. In Islam, as in Judaism, marriage between first cousins has been quite common.

As in most societies, the early form of the family in Islam was patriarchal and patrilineal. (The term “patriarch,” referring to Jewish and Christian prophets, exemplifies this tendency.) Islam, however, brought significant changes to the seventh-century Arabian family, significantly enhancing the status of women and children. The Koran raised the status of women by prohibiting female infanticide, abolishing women’s status as property, establishing their legal capacity, granting women the right to receive their own dowry, changing marriage from a proprietary to a contractual relationship, and allowing women to retain control over their property and use their maiden name after marriage. In addition, the Koran granted women financial maintenance from their husbands and controlled the husband’s free ability to divorce. The hadith (Prophetic tradition) saying that “The best of you is he who is best to his wife” also reflects Muhammad’s respect for, and protection of, women.

Islamic law views the relationship of husband and wife as complementary, reflecting their differing capacities, characteristics, and dispositions, as well as the different traditional roles of men and women in the patriarchal family. In the public sphere, the primary arena for the man, the husband is responsible for the support and protection of the family. The woman’s primary role of wife and mother requires that she manage the household and supervise the upbringing and religious training of their children. Both men and women are seen as equal before God, having the same religious responsibilities and equally required to lead virtuous lives, but women are viewed as subordinate in family matters and society because of their more sheltered and protected lives and because of a man’s greater economic responsibilities in the extended family.

In Muslim countries, to a greater extent than in the West, the extended family, which includes grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins, has traditionally provided its members with counseling, child care, financial assistance, insurance, and social security. Women in the family have always been seen as the bearers of culture, the center of the family unit that provides a force for moral and social order, and the means of stability for the next generation. In the 19th century the family provided religious, cultural, and social protection from colonial and Western domination, as well as a site for political resistance. In a rapidly changing, unpredictable, and sometimes hostile 20th century, the family in many Muslim countries came to face economic and political and personal pressures brought about by unemployment and economic need and by disruption from war and forced migration. Debates throughout the Muslim world center on better family support from the state, as well as the changing roles and rights of men, women, and children.

Islam has always recognized the right to divorce under certain circumstances. Both the Koran and Prophetic traditions, however, underscore its seriousness. Muhammad is reported to have said, “Of all the permitted things, divorce is the most abominable with God.” Countries with Muslim majorities where the Sharia is applied in full include Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, and Iraq. In other Muslim-majority nations, such as Tunisia, Central Asian countries, and Turkey, Sharia does not play a major role in the matter of marriages, divorce, and the inheritance of property.

In countries where Muslims are a minority, such as South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Israel, Singapore, and Sri Lanka, Muslims have chosen to be governed by their own “personal laws.” This can be problematic, however. For instance, if a legally married Muslim couple divorces under the Sharia, but there is a problem in the civil legal process, their claims to property could be affected. In India there has been a move toward making civil laws uniform and applying the laws to all religious communities. Fearing this, some Muslims have organized themselves into a nationwide NGO called the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, whose goal is to protect the right to personal laws.

Migration has been one of most fundamental aspects of Muslim life and experience. The model and inspiration for this is rooted in the collective memory of Muslims of the hijra (migration) from Mecca to Median. Scholars investigating the deeper role of religious motivations for travel argue that some forms of travel fundamentally differ from the compulsion to travel for pilgrimage. These include travel for learning; to visit shrines; when exiled by circumstances of violence, persecution, political or economic instability; or for better economic and labor prospects. These travels, whether expressly for religious purpose or for economic, political, or social factors, are often performed with a sense of connection with other believers. In their adoptive communities Muslims typically cross national, ethnic, language, and sect divisions to create a sense of transnationality, where being Muslim is more significant than being Indian, Pakistani, Bangaldeshi, and so on. Furthermore, such migrations can bring nominal Muslims in contact with the larger body of believers, exposing them to religious reformation.

Controversial Issues

In Islam procreation is considered an important result of marriage, and for this reason many Muslims oppose abortion. According to Muslim religious scholars, abortion after the fetus obtains a soul (views differ on whether this occurs at fertilization or after 120 days) is considered homicide. The Koran emphasizes the preservation of life (Surah 17:31), with neither poverty nor hunger justifying the killing of offspring, and stresses that punishment for unlawfully killing a human being is to be imposed both in this life and in the afterlife (Surah 4:93). Therapeutic abortions, performed as a result of severe medical problems, are justified by a general principle of Islamic law that chooses the lesser of two evils. Instead of losing two lives, the life of the mother, who has important duties and responsibilities, is given preference.

Muslim voices differ regarding birth control. Islam has traditionally emphasized the importance of large families that will ensure a strong Muslim community. Although family planning is not mentioned in the Koran, some traditions of the Prophet mention coitus interruptus. Some conservative ulama object to the use of birth control because they believe it opposes God’s supreme will, can weaken the Muslim community by limiting its size, and contributes to premarital sex or adultery. In the early 21st century, however, the majority of ‘ulama permit contraception that is agreed to by both the husband and the wife, since this guarantees the rights of both parties. On the other hand, sterilization is opposed by most ‘ulama on the grounds that it permanently alters what God has created.

The Koran states that men and women are equal in God’s eyes, that they are equal parts of a pair (Surah 51:49) or like each other’s garment (Surah 2:187). Their relationship should be of “love and mercy” (Surah 30:21). The Koran also says, “The Believers, men and women, are protectors of one another; they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil; they observe regular prayers, pay zakat and obey God and His Messenger. On them will God pour His mercy: for God is exalted in Power, Wise. God has promised to Believers, men and women, gardens under which rivers flow, to dwell therein” (Surah 9:71-72). This verse was the last to be revealed, and as a result some scholars believe that it defines the ideal, a relationship of equality and complementarity.

Nonetheless, one of the most controversial issues in Islam in the early 21st century is the status of women and their lack of legal rights in family law. Some Muslim women are speaking out for themselves and rethinking women’s issues regarding marriage, modest dressing, equality, and honor killing. Many of these problems, however, can be traced not to Islam but rather to the customs of the patriarchal societies in which Islamic laws were originally interpreted.

Until the 20th century women were not actively engaged in interpreting the Koran, hadith, or Islamic law. For example, in order to control a husband’s unbridled right to divorce, the Koran requires the man to pronounce his intention three times over a period of three months before the divorce becomes irrevocable (Surah 65:1). The delay allows time for a possible reconciliation and time to determine if the wife is pregnant and in need of child support. Despite these guidelines, an abbreviated form of divorce, allowing the man to say “I divorce you” three times in succession, became common. Although considered sinful, this kind of divorce was declared to be legal, and it affected women’s rights in many Muslim countries. In one well-known case, a 62-year-old woman, Shah Bano, filed a case against her husband asking for financial support. Her husband had divorced her under Islamic law in 1978 and filed a case against her in the apex court, which ruled in her favor. In a strange turn of events the apex court’s decision was overturned by parliament under intense pressure from the Muslim Personal Law Board.

Using the Koran and the courts, certain Muslim nations have instituted reforms to oversee divorce and to improve women’s rights. Although there continue to be patriarchal Muslim societies in which custom provides extensive rights of divorce for men but only restricted rights for women, in many countries Muslim women can obtain a divorce in court on a variety of grounds. There also have been significant reforms in women’s rights in other spheres. In the majority of Muslim countries, for example, women are entitled by law to a public education. Many Muslim countries also protect the rights of women to vote and to work outside the home, including holding political office. Among the most important reforms have been the abolition of polygamy in some countries and its severe limitation in others; expanded rights for women to participate in contracting marriage, including the stipulation of conditions favorable to them in the marriage contract; expanded rights for financial compensation for a woman seeking a divorce; and the requirement that a husband provide housing for his divorced wife and children as long as she holds custody over the children. There also have been reforms prohibiting child marriages and expanding the rights of women to have custody over their older children.

Muslim women have also returned to the foundational sources of Islam, the Koran and the hadith, to argue against the support of certain tribal, cultural, or ideological practices. They argue that a more accurate portrayal of women’s rights needs to be recovered, using a review of the Prophet’s own words and deeds as well as independent reasoning (ijtihad) given the changing contexts of modern life. They see this as their right as faithful Muslim women to fight against a form of oppression.

Terrorism and the violence associated with it is another controversial issue. On September 11, 2001, violent extremists and terrorists headed by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, acting in the name of Islam, hijacked commercial airliners and flew them into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., resulting in the loss of almost 3,000 lives. Similar attacks have occurred in other parts of the world, including London on July 7, 2005, when homegrown extremists killed 52 and injured more than 700; Mumbai on November 26, 2008, when Pakistani nationals killed 166 and injured about 300; and Bali on October 12, 2002, when a local Islamist group killed more than 200 and injured 240. The individuals who committed these acts reflect a religious radicalism that, for several decades, has threatened governments and societies in both the Muslim majority and minority contexts around the world. The challenge, however, has been to be aware of the threat from Muslim extremist groups while also understanding that the vast majority of mainstream Muslims do not support these acts.

Muslims around the world are shocked by the hijacking of Islam by the radical fringe and the subsequent labeling of all Muslims as “fundamentalist” and “violent.” They are seeking to take back Islam by reinterpreting the meaning of jihad, taking positive steps toward peace, and promoting participation in nation building. Noting that there is nothing in the Koran or Muhammad’s life and example that can justify the killing of the innocent, they argue that those Muslims who engage in this sort of jihad are employing narrow, selfserving readings of the Koran. They believe it is important to “stand for justice, even if it is against ourselves” (Surah 4:135).

The possibility of democratic Islamic states is another controversial issue in the early 21st century. A study conducted in 2012 showed that most Muslims want democracy and personal freedoms though not at the expense of faith in public life. The research also found that there was “limited support for extremist groups” where Muslims were in the minority and such groups were “largely rejected in predominately Muslim nations”. Muslims around the world—especially in Muslim-majority states like Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, and Tunisia—increasingly feel “concerned about religious extremist groups in their country”. One example of the movement to “take back Islam” is A Common Word between Us and You, also called A Common Word Letter, which by 2013 had more than 400 signatories, including Sultan Muhammadu Sa’ad Ababakar of Sokoto, Anwar Ibrahim, former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the secretary-general of the Islamic Conference, and ‘Ali Juma’a, the grand mufti of the Republic of Egypt. It was inspired by a verse in the Koran, in which God “enjoins Muslims” to invite “the People of the Book” to “come to a common word” (Surah 3:64).

Cultural Impact

Muslim views of music have been influenced by hadith (Prophetic traditions) that caution against music and musical instruments. Nothing in the Koran bans music, however, and historically music has been a popular and significant art form throughout the Muslim world. It has played an important role in religious festivals and in life cycle rituals, including those for birth, circumcision, and marriage. In addition, throughout Muslim cities the daily calls to prayer are traditionally sung or chanted by a muezzin and projected from on high from loudspeakers on minarets. The most important musical form in Islam, however, is recitation of the Koran, done as a chant, in which annual competitions are held throughout the Muslim world. Recordings of Koran recitation are widely sold, and some of Islam’s best-known singers have been reciters of the Koran. The Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum and others have imitated Koran recitation in their music.

As part of their devotions, the Sufi orders typically use music, both vocal (through repetition of words or phrases and in chanting) and instrumental. For Sufis music is a vehicle for spiritual transcendence and a means of attaining the experience of divine ecstasy. Folk music has also been an important expression of culture throughout the Muslim world, used to express moral and devotional themes as well as heroism and love. The music produced by the Muslims of Andalusia, like their poetry, had an enormous impact on the development of classical music in Europe. The qawwali is a local form of singing and music among South Asian Sufis that has been in existence for hundreds of years. The qawwali plays an important part in religious ceremonies, especially during the death anniversary celebrations of the Sufi saints. It is usually sung in the Urdu language by one or two lead singers, who sometimes also double as musicians playing the harmonium (the South Asian organ); others provide background chanting, singing, clapping, and other musical accompaniments such as the drums or the tabla (a percussion instrument similar to bongos).

In Islamic visual art concerns about idolatry have historically led to bans on the representation of human beings. Thus, the Islamic art that is most cherished is based upon the use of Arabic script in calligraphy (the art of beautiful writing) or of arabesque (geometric and floral) designs. A hadith attributed to the Prophet Muhammad says that one who beautifully writes the phrase “In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate,” the first words in the opening chapter of the Koran, will enter paradise. The belief that God’s direct words in the Koran should be written in a manner worthy of divine revelation has led to the development of calligraphy in many styles and forms. Calligraphy sometimes uses the stylized lettering of Koranic quotations or religious formulas to reflect animal, flower, or even mosque figures. Interest in calligraphy remains high, as is evidenced in its varied use as decorations for holiday cards, announcements of important events, and book covers. Computer programs have been developed that can create decorations from Arabic script.

Because figures are not usually used in Islamic art, a form of decoration that came to be known in the West as arabesque—the use of natural forms such as stems, leaves, vines, flowers, or fruits to create designs of infinite geometric patterns—developed as a major artistic technique. Arabesque designs are used to decorate such objects as interior and exterior walls, mosque furniture like the minbar (pulpit), and fine Koran manuscripts. Some designs combine calligraphy with colorful geometric and floral or vegetal ornamentation.

Designs in Islamic art are often enhanced by exuberant colors, for example, in the glittering golden or azure domes and multicolored tiles of buildings or in the colors of pottery, textiles, and manuscripts. Colors are used symbolically in Islamic literature, although their meanings and associations are determined by context. For example, black can be associated with the black stone in the Ka’bah in Mecca or with vengeance, violence, or hell. White is less ambiguous, usually representing faithfulness (as in the clothes worn by pilgrims on hajj), lightness, royalty, or death (as in its use as a burial shroud). Blue is the color of magical qualities, which can be used to protect a person from evil spirits or, in contrast, to dispense evil. Green was the color of the Prophet and of turbans worn by descendants of the Prophet, and it was also the color of the cloak of Ali, for the Shia the first imam. As the color of living plants, green is also symbolic of youth and fertility.

The ambiguities of color in Islamic art are matched by the Arabic language itself, which facilitates plays on words and the varied interpretations that result. These multiple meanings contribute to the enjoyment of both unchanging and variable insights and thus represent part of the appeal of Islamic literature. As the direct word of God, the Koran is viewed as religious literature as well as a perfect literary document.

Although in pre-Islamic Bedouin society poetry was the dominant literary form, the first centuries of Islam were dominated by a fear that poetry might conflict with the Koran’s divinely inspired words. In the emotionally charged atmosphere generated by mysticism in the 10th and 11th centuries, however, Sufi poems of longing for the divine beloved proliferated. By the 12th century poetry emphasizing praise of the Prophet had developed in a number of forms, from short devotional verses to long, elaborate descriptions of Muhammad’s greatness to pious songs. These forms remain common in the Muslim world in the early 21st century. This tradition also has been extended to include the praise of the Sufi saints in some areas. Devotional material can be bought not just from religious institutions but also from music stores in cities around the world. The development of such modern technology as DVD and MP3 players has also fostered the growth of Islamic religious poetry in regional languages and in remote areas of the world.

Islamic prose forms include Koranic verses, the hadith, biographies, and autobiographies. Along with poetry and plays, novels, short stories, and autobiographies are used to advocate a religious way of life. Modern autobiographies place emphasis on the individual, in contrast to classical texts, which focus primarily on collective Islamic norms. This emphasis on biographies, narrative, and actual words and deeds of the Prophet and his companions sets Islam apart from other religions. Christianity, for example, puts more of an emphasis on theological formulations than interpretive narratives. In Islam, the Sunnah (prophetic example) plays a central role in informing the sources of law (usul al-fiqh) than does kalam (rationalistic theology). The aim of jurisprudence is not intellectual but rather practical—to guide believers to live a life of obedience to God wherever they live.