{"id":1602,"date":"2016-03-20T15:44:51","date_gmt":"2016-03-20T15:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/?p=1602"},"modified":"2020-06-28T10:50:37","modified_gmt":"2020-06-28T15:50:37","slug":"a-brief-introduction-to-islam-part-1-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/en\/a-brief-introduction-to-islam-part-1-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Brief Introduction to Islam (part 1 of 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Masters, AbdurRahman Squires, and I. Kaka<\/em><\/p>\n

Islam and Muslims<\/h2>\n

The word \u201cIslam\u201d is an Arabic word which means \u201csubmission to the will of God\u201d.\u00a0 This word comes from the same root as the Arabic word \u201csalam\u201d, which means \u201cpeace\u201d.\u00a0 As such, the religion of Islam teaches that in order to achieve true peace of mind and surety of heart, one must submit to God and live according to His Divinely revealed Law.\u00a0 The most important truth that God revealed to mankind is that there is nothing divine or worthy of being worshipped except for Almighty God, thus all human beings should submit to Him.<\/p>\n

The word \u201cMuslim\u201d means one who submits to the will of God, regardless of their race, nationality or ethnic background.\u00a0 Being a Muslim entails wilful submission and active obedience to God, and living in accordance with His message.\u00a0 Some people mistakenly believe that Islam is just a religion for Arabs, but nothing could be further from the truth.\u00a0 Not only are there converts to Islam in every corner of the world, especially in England and America, but by taking a look at the Muslim World from Bosnia to Nigeria, and from Indonesia to Morocco, one can clearly see that Muslims come from many various races, ethnic groups and nationalities.\u00a0 It is also interesting to note that in actuality, more than 80% of all Muslims are not Arabs – there are more Muslims in Indonesia than in the whole Arab World! \u00a0So, though even though it is true that most Arabs are Muslims, the large majority of Muslims are not Arabs.\u00a0 However, anyone who submits completely to God and worships Him alone is a Muslim.<\/p>\n

Continuity of the Message<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Islam is not a new religion because \u201csubmission to the will of God\u201d, i.e. Islam, has always been the only acceptable religion in the sight of God.\u00a0 For this reason, Islam is the true \u201cnatural religion\u201d, and it is the same eternal message revealed through the ages to all of God\u2019s prophets and messengers.\u00a0 Muslims believe that all of God\u2019s prophets, which include Abraham, Noah, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, brought the same message of Pure Monotheism.\u00a0 For this reason, the Prophet Muhammad was not the founder of a new religion, as many people mistakenly think, but he was the final Prophet of Islam.\u00a0 By revealing His final message to Muhammad, which is an eternal and universal message for all of mankind, God finally fulfilled the covenant that He made with Abraham, who was one of the earliest and greatest prophets.<\/p>\n

Sufficient is it to say that the way of Islam is the same as the way of the prophet Abraham, because both the Bible and the Quran portray Abraham as a towering example of someone who submitted himself completely to God and worshipped Him without intermediaries.\u00a0 Once this is realized, it should be clear that Islam has the most continuous and universal message of any religion, because all prophets and messengers were \u201cMuslims\u201d, i.e.\u00a0 those who submitted to God\u2019s will, and they preached \u201cIslam\u201d, i.e. submission to the will of Almighty God.<\/p>\n

The Oneness of God<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The foundation of the Islamic faith is belief in the Oneness of Almighty God – the God of Abraham, Noah, Moses and Jesus.\u00a0 Islam teaches that a pure belief in One God is intuitive in human beings and thus fulfils the natural inclination of the soul.\u00a0 As such, Islam\u2019s concept of God is straightforward, unambiguous and easy to understand.\u00a0 Islam teaches that the hearts, minds and souls of human beings are fitting receptacles for clear divine revelation, and that God\u2019s revelations to man are not clouded by self-contradictory mysteries or irrational ideas.\u00a0 As such, Islam teaches that even though God cannot be fully comprehended and grasped by our finite human minds, He also does not expect us to accept absurd or demonstrably false beliefs about Him.<\/p>\n

According to the teachings of Islam, Almighty God is absolutely One and His Oneness should never be compromised by associating partners with Him – neither in worship nor in belief.\u00a0 Due to this, Muslims are required to maintain a direct relationship with God, and therefore all intermediaries are absolutely forbidden.\u00a0 From the Islamic standpoint, believing in the Oneness of God means to realize that all prayer and worship should be exclusively for God, and that He alone deserves such titles as \u201cLord\u201d and \u201cSaviour\u201d.\u00a0 Some religions, even though they believe in \u201cOne God\u201d, do not make all of their worship and prayers for Him alone.\u00a0 Also, they also give the title of \u201cLord\u201d to beings that are not All-Knowing, All-Powerful and Un-Changing – even according to their own scriptures.\u00a0 Suffice it to say that according to Islam, it is not enough that people believe that \u201cGod is One\u201d, but they must actualize this belief by proper conduct.<\/p>\n

In short, in the Islamic concept of God, which is completely based on Divine Revelation, there is no ambiguity in divinity – God is God and man is man.\u00a0 Since God is the only Creator and continual Sustainer of the Universe, He is transcendent above His creation – the Creator and the creature never mix.\u00a0 Islam teaches that God has a unique nature and that He is free from gender, human weaknesses and beyond anything which human beings can imagine.\u00a0 The Quran teaches that the signs and proofs of God\u2019s wisdom, power and existence are evident in the world around us.\u00a0 As such, God calls on man to ponder over the creation in order to build a better understanding of his Creator.\u00a0 Muslims believe that God is Loving, Compassionate and Merciful, and that He is concerned with the daily affairs of human beings.\u00a0 In this, Islam strikes a unique balance between false religious and philosophical extremes.\u00a0 Some religions and philosophies portray God as just an impersonal \u201cHigher Power\u201d who is uninterested, or unaware, of the life of each individual human.\u00a0 Other religions tend to give God human qualities and teach that He is present in His creation, by being incarnate in someone, something – or even everything.\u00a0 In Islam, however, Almighty God has clarified the truth by letting mankind know that He is \u201cCompassionate\u201d, \u201cMerciful\u201d, \u201cLoving\u201d and the \u201cAnswerer of Prayers\u201d.\u00a0 But He has also emphasized strongly that \u201cthere is nothing like unto Him\u201d, and that He is high above time, space and His creation.\u00a0 Finally, it should be mentioned that the God that Muslims worship is the same God that Jews and Christians worship – because there is only one God.\u00a0 It is unfortunate that some people mistakenly believe that Muslims worship a different God than Jews and Christians, and that \u201cAllah\u201d is just the \u201cgod of the Arabs\u201d.\u00a0 This myth, which has been propagated by the enemies of Islam, is completely false since the word \u201cAllah\u201d is simply the Arabic name for Almighty God.\u00a0 It is the same word for God which is used by Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians.\u00a0 However, it should be clarified that even though Muslims worship the same God as Jews and Christian, their concept of Him differs somewhat from the beliefs of other religions – mainly because it is based completely on Divine Revelation from God.\u00a0 For example, Muslims reject the Christian belief that God is a Trinity, not only because the Quran rejects it, but also because if this was God\u2019s true nature, He would have clearly revealed it to Abraham, Noah, Jesus and all of the other prophets.<\/p>\n

\n

From: Islamreligion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Masters, AbdurRahman Squires, and I. Kaka Islam and Muslims The word \u201cIslam\u201d is an Arabic word which means \u201csubmission to the will of God\u201d.\u00a0 This word comes from the same root as the Arabic word \u201csalam\u201d, which means \u201cpeace\u201d.\u00a0 As such, the religion of Islam teaches that in order to achieve true peace … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2808,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[102,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-introducing-islam","category-main-services"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/brief-introduction-to-Islam-1.jpg","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/brief-introduction-to-Islam-1.jpg",1280,720,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/brief-introduction-to-Islam-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/brief-introduction-to-Islam-1-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/brief-introduction-to-Islam-1-768x432.jpg",768,432,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/brief-introduction-to-Islam-1-1024x576.jpg",1024,576,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/brief-introduction-to-Islam-1.jpg",1280,720,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/brief-introduction-to-Islam-1.jpg",1280,720,false],"gform-image-choice-sm":["https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/brief-introduction-to-Islam-1.jpg",300,169,false],"gform-image-choice-md":["https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/brief-introduction-to-Islam-1.jpg",400,225,false],"gform-image-choice-lg":["https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/brief-introduction-to-Islam-1.jpg",600,338,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Site Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/en\/author\/admin\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Daniel Masters, AbdurRahman Squires, and I. Kaka Islam and Muslims The word \u201cIslam\u201d is an Arabic word which means \u201csubmission to the will of God\u201d.\u00a0 This word comes from the same root as the Arabic word \u201csalam\u201d, which means \u201cpeace\u201d.\u00a0 As such, the religion of Islam teaches that in order to achieve true peace…","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcT0IL-pQ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1723,"url":"https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/en\/islam\/","url_meta":{"origin":1602,"position":0},"title":"Islam101","author":"Site Admin","date":"07\/02\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"[vc_row][vc_column width=\"1\/1\"][image type=\"none\" float=\"none\" info=\"none\" info_place=\"top\" info_trigger=\"hover\" src=\"414\" alt=\"Mercy\"][text_output] Islam, a mercy and guidance for humankind The Arabic word \u2018Islam\u2019 means \u2018submission\u2019, and is derived from a word meaning \u2018peace\u2019.\u00a0 As such, the religion of Islam teaches that in order to achieve true peace of mind and surety of heart,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9259,"url":"https:\/\/www.ask-a-muslim.com\/en\/a-brief-introduction-to-islam\/","url_meta":{"origin":1602,"position":1},"title":"A Brief Introduction to Islam","author":"Site Admin","date":"06\/26\/2020","format":false,"excerpt":"(part 1 of 2) Islam and Muslims The word \u201cIslam\u201d is an Arabic word which means \u201csubmission to the will of God\u201d. 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