Program / Course 18: World Religions / Lesson 2.3
What you will learn
- Describe tawhid, the Muslim confession of the oneness of God.
- Outline the life of Muhammad as Muslims tell it and the Muslim understanding of the Qur’an.
- Name the Five Pillars and the main divisions of Islam.
- State Muslim belief in terms a Muslim reader would recognize.
The big idea
Islam, a word meaning submission to God, is the religion of about a quarter of the world’s people. Its center is tawhid, the oneness of God, who is Creator, Judge and Merciful. Muslims hold that God sent prophets to every people, from Adam through Abraham, Moses and Jesus, and that Muhammad, in the seventh century, received the final revelation, the Qur’an, which they hold to be God’s own speech in Arabic. A Muslim life is shaped by faith and by practice, summed up in the Five Pillars.
Key terms
- Tawhid
- The oneness and uniqueness of God. The central teaching of Islam. Its opposite is shirk, associating anything with God.
- Qur’an
- The scripture of Islam, believed by Muslims to be the word of God revealed to Muhammad in Arabic through the angel Gabriel, over about twenty-three years.
- Hadith
- Reports of the words and actions of the Prophet Muhammad, collected by scholars. With the Qur’an they are a main source of Islamic law and practice.
- Sunna
- The example of the Prophet, transmitted in the hadith.
- Sharia
- The path or law of God. It covers worship, ethics and social life, and is developed by scholars through schools of jurisprudence.
- Sunni and Shia
- The two largest branches of Islam. They separated over who should lead the community after Muhammad. Sunnis are the large majority.
- Sufism
- The mystical dimension of Islam, expressed through devotion, remembrance of God and orders led by spiritual teachers.
Background
Muslims tell the story of Muhammad, born in Mecca around the year 570, who in about 610 began to receive revelations. He preached the oneness of God against the idol worship of Mecca and faced opposition. In 622 he and his followers migrated to Medina, an event called the Hijra that begins the Islamic calendar. He returned to Mecca in triumph and died in 632. Muslims honor him as the last of the prophets and do not worship him. He is called the Messenger of God.
The faith spread rapidly across the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. Today Muslims live in many cultures, speak many languages and belong to different schools. Most live outside the Arab world. Indonesia has the largest Muslim population. A student should keep in mind that Islam as a faith is not the same as the actions of any government or group that claims its name.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Tawhid, the oneness of God
The Muslim creed, the shahada, says: “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” To say it sincerely makes one a Muslim. God (Allah in Arabic, the same word that Arab Christians use for God) is the Creator, who is merciful and compassionate, just and all-knowing. He has no partners, no children and no equal. Muslims hold that God is beyond all images and that he is nearer than the jugular vein, as the Qur’an puts it (50:16).
The great sin is shirk, giving to anything else the worship due to God alone. From this the Muslim judges the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and incarnation, a matter taken up in the next lesson.
Step 2: Prophecy and revelation
Muslims believe God has always guided humankind by prophets. The Qur’an names twenty-five, among them Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus. Each brought the same basic message of worship of the one God, and some received books: the Torah to Moses, the Psalms to David, the Gospel to Jesus. Muslims hold that these earlier books were forgotten or altered by their followers, and that the Qur’an confirms what was true in them and corrects the rest.
Muhammad is the Seal of the Prophets, the last in the line. Muslims do not hold that he founded a new religion but that he restored the religion of Abraham in its pure form.
Step 3: The Qur’an
The Qur’an, which means recitation, has 114 chapters (suras) in Arabic. Muslims believe that it is the speech of God and that Muhammad was its recipient, not its author. For this reason translations are regarded as interpretations of the meaning, and the Arabic is the Qur’an itself. It is memorized, recited in prayer and calligraphed, and a person who knows it by heart is called a hafiz.
Historians study the text’s collection after Muhammad’s death and variants in early recitation, and some of their conclusions differ from the Muslim account. Muslims in general hold that the text has been preserved without change. Interpretation of the Qur’an is a large discipline, and Muslims consult the hadith and the commentaries.
Step 4: The Five Pillars and the shape of life
The Five Pillars are the framework of practice: the shahada; salat, the prayer five times daily facing Mecca; zakat, alms for the needy; sawm, fasting from dawn to sunset in the month of Ramadan; and hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, required once in life for those able. Beyond these are laws on food (halal), family, business and conduct, drawn from the Qur’an and the Prophet’s example by scholars of the several schools.
Friday noon is the weekly congregational prayer. Mosques are places of prayer, learning and community. Islam has no priesthood in the Christian sense, though scholars (ulama) and imams who lead prayer have authority through learning.
Step 5: Judgment, mercy and the divisions of Islam
Muslims believe in the resurrection of the dead and a day of judgment, when each person is accountable for their deeds, followed by paradise or hell. They also hold strongly to God’s mercy: every chapter of the Qur’an but one begins by invoking God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Faith and right action are linked, and God forgives those who repent.
Sunni Muslims, about nine in ten, hold that the community chose Muhammad’s successors, the caliphs. Shia Muslims hold that leadership belonged to Muhammad’s cousin and son in law Ali and his descendants, the imams. The two groups share the pillars and the Qur’an but differ on authority, law and some rituals. Sufis are found among both. There are also smaller groups, such as the Ibadis.
- What does it mean to say that God has no partners, and what does it exclude?
- Why do Muslims regard a translation of the Qur’an as an interpretation and not as the Qur’an itself?
- What role does Muhammad play in Islam, and what role does he not play?
- How do the Five Pillars join belief and practice?
- What is similar and what is different between the Muslim view of earlier scriptures and the Christian view of the Old Testament?
- How do Muslims who disagree with extremist violence describe it?
Examples
The call to prayer
Five times a day the call to prayer (adhan) is sung from the mosque: “God is most great. I bear witness that there is no god but God.” Believers wash, face Mecca and pray in set movements of standing, bowing and prostration. The posture of prostration expresses submission to God, which is the meaning of the word Islam.
Ramadan
During the month of Ramadan, healthy adult Muslims abstain from food, drink and marital relations from dawn until sunset, and families gather to break the fast. The month is also a time of extra prayer, charity and reading the Qur’an. The month ends with a festival, Eid al-Fitr.
Two Muslims, two emphases
One Muslim describes faith mainly as obedience to the law of God, as taught by his school of jurisprudence. Another, in a Sufi order, describes it as remembering God with the heart through chanting his names. Both are within Islam, and the difference shows why one cannot say simply what Muslims believe without noting the stream.
Different perspectives
Muslim (Sunni)
Sunni Muslims hold that the Qur’an and the Sunna are the sources of guidance, that the first four caliphs were rightly guided, and that law is developed by four main schools. They consider the Qur’an to be uncreated speech of God. Sunni Islam has no single authority comparable to a pope.
Muslim (Shia and Sufi)
Shia Muslims revere the imams as guides of the community, and the largest Shia branch (Twelvers) holds that the twelfth imam is hidden and will return. Many Sufis emphasize the love of God and spiritual guidance by a teacher. Some Sunnis and Shia regard each other’s practices with suspicion, while many cooperate in daily life.
Catholic
The Catholic Church, in Nostra Aetate, states that it regards Muslims with esteem as people who worship the one God, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, creator of heaven and earth. It also notes that Muslims honor Jesus as a prophet but do not acknowledge him as God, and that they revere Mary. The Church holds that the Qur’an is not a revelation that adds to the faith given in Christ.
Orthodox and Protestant
Orthodox Christians in the Middle East and the Balkans have lived beside Muslims for centuries, with periods of peace and periods of hardship. Protestants hold a range of views. Some stress points of agreement on one God, and others stress that the Muslim denial of Christ’s divinity and death is a rejection of the gospel.
Scholarly
Historians study Islam through early sources, inscriptions and later Muslim biographies. They disagree about details of Muhammad’s life and the early compilation of the Qur’an. Most agree that the Qur’an took shape in seventh century Arabia and was widely recited and written down within decades.
Why it matters
Islam is a faith that shares much with Christianity: one Creator, prophets, scripture, judgment and a call to righteousness. The disagreement is also deep, on God’s nature and on Christ. A Christian who knows Islam as Muslims describe it is able to answer questions honestly, to correct common misreports, and to live as a good neighbor to Muslim friends.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Muslims worship a different god, Allah, who is not the God of Abraham.
Correction: Allah is simply the Arabic word for God, and Arab Christians use it too. Muslims worship the Creator, the God of Abraham. Christians and Muslims disagree sharply about God’s nature, but the claim that they refer to wholly different beings is not the position of the Catholic or most other churches.
Misunderstanding: Muslims worship Muhammad.
Correction: Muslims hold that worship belongs to God alone. Muhammad is honored as the final prophet and an example, but worshiping him would be shirk.
Misunderstanding: Islam is only Arab and uniform.
Correction: Most Muslims are not Arab. Islam includes Sunni, Shia and Sufi streams, many schools of law and many cultures.
Misunderstanding: The word jihad means holy war.
Correction: Jihad means striving. Muslims commonly speak first of striving against one’s own sin. Classical law also has rules for armed conflict, which some groups have abused. Mainstream Muslim scholars condemn terrorism.
Knowledge check
What is tawhid and why is shirk its opposite?
Tawhid is the oneness and uniqueness of God, the central Muslim teaching. Shirk is associating anything with God, such as treating a created being as sharing his divinity or his worship. Muslims regard shirk as the gravest sin, because it denies the truth that worship belongs to God alone.
Name the Five Pillars of Islam.
The Five Pillars are the shahada, the declaration of faith; salat, ritual prayer five times a day; zakat, almsgiving; sawm, fasting during Ramadan; and hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca for those who are able. Together they give a pattern of worship and community life for all Muslims.
How do Muslims understand the Qur’an differently from the way Christians understand the Bible?
Muslims hold the Qur’an to be the very speech of God in Arabic, delivered to Muhammad who recited it without authoring it. Christians generally hold that the Bible is inspired by God but written through human authors. Christians regard Christ himself as the Word of God, which has no counterpart in Islam.
What separates Sunni from Shia Islam?
They divided over who should lead the community after Muhammad. Sunnis accepted the caliphs chosen by the community, while Shia hold that leadership belonged to Ali and the imams from his line. They share the Qur’an and the Five Pillars but differ on authority, law and some rituals.
Think it through
- What might a Christian and a Muslim share in the daily practice of prayer, and what would differ?
- Why does the Muslim view of the Arabic Qur’an make translation different from translating the Bible?
- How would you respond to someone who says all Muslims are the same?
- What questions would you like to ask a Muslim neighbor?
Independent assignment
A Muslim account of Islam
In your notebook, write about 350 words describing Islam as a thoughtful Muslim would. Cover tawhid, prophecy, the Qur’an, the Five Pillars and judgment. Read at least three short suras of the Qur’an in a translation Muslims accept (for example sura 1, sura 112 and sura 19) and copy one verse that struck you. Add 100 words on one point where Christians and Muslims agree and one where they differ. Fill in the Islam column of your comparison grid.
Further study
- The Qur’an, The Qur’an in English translation Read suras 1, 112 and 19 in a translation acceptable to Muslim readers. Remember that Muslims hold the Arabic to be the Qur’an itself.
- Huston Smith, The World’s Religions Read the chapter on Islam and compare it with a Muslim author’s own account.
- Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity Use for the history of Christian and Muslim contact.
- Genesis 17:20 God’s promise concerning Ishmael, whom Muslims honor as an ancestor.
- Deuteronomy 6:4 The Shema, which Muslims will recognize as close to their confession of oneness.
- Genesis 21:13 God promises to make a nation of Hagar’s son.