Islam, the second-largest religion in the world today, literally means submission to God. That is the starting point. It signifies the natural inclination of human beings, a God-centred worldview.
Also, it’s worth noting that Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, continued the monotheistic tradition of Abrahamic religions – Judaism and Christianity – after the Quran was revealed to him. Therefore, these three beliefs became central to the newly formed religion of Islam in the seventh-century Arabia:
- There is one God
- Prophet Muhammad is His messenger
- The Quran
The Scriptures of Islam
The Quran is the holy text of Islam. In the literal sense, it means ‘reading’. It is believed to be the word of God revealed in Arabic to Prophet Muhammad through the agency of Archangel Gabriel.
It gets slightly tricky as you explore the religion further. Reading the Quran, you’d find, is not possible without understanding the historical context of the events that were played out during the Prophet’s lifetime. At the same time, the Prophet’s own interpretation of the holy book becomes even more important. And that’s how we get to the Hadith.
The daily utterances and discourses of Prophet Muhammad, from the day he received the first revelation till his death, are known as the Hadith. It literally means ‘statement’, that is, the statements made by the Prophet. Using elaborate system of categorisations, early Muslim scholars sifted through literally millions of such statements. Hence, we got different hadiths. Imam Bukhari, for instance, collected a reported six million statements but only accepted 7,275 as authentic. His collection is called as Sahih Bukhari. Similarly, we have Sahih Muslim and many more.
As you can see, at every step, different ideas were added, which eventually gave rise to different schools of thought in Islam. For instance, some Muslims only follow the word of the Quran and ignore the Hadith. It does not mean that certain Muslims reject certain utterances of the Prophet. It simply means that they don’t deem certain sources to be authentic. The Sunnah, which includes the deeds and words of Prophet Muhammad, remains sacred to every Muslim.
The Practice of Islam
The declaration that There is no god but Allah (first line of the Quran) is called Tawheed. It represents the Islamic outlook on life, the universe, and pretty much everything around us. It is the worldview of Muslims. From this belief stem the practices that a believing Muslim is supposed to follow. These are called the pillars of Islam. They are:
- Tawheed
- Salat or prayer, which has to be performed five times daily.
- Sawm, or fasting, during the month of Ramadan.
- Zakat, or charity, as a duty and social obligation
- Hajj, or pilgrimage, at least once in a lifetime, to the Sacred City of Mecca.
Reference books
Kalampedia 