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The Canon · No. 045

Islam

al-Islam; submission to God

610 CE – present · Abrahamic · Living · Global; largest in Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt

V. THE MEDIEVAL WORLD — c.500 – 1500 CE

How many

About 2.0 billion (Pew, 2020), 25.6% of humanity — and the fastest-growing major religion, projected to draw level with Christianity around 2060. Only about 12% of Muslims are Arab; the largest Muslim population is Indonesian.

Who began it

Muhammad ibn Abdullah (c.570–632 CE), a merchant of Mecca, who at about forty began receiving revelations in a cave on Mount Hira through the angel Jibril (Gabriel). Muslims regard him not as the founder of a new religion but as the last in a line of prophets restoring the original monotheism of Adam, Abraham, Moses and Jesus.

What it is for

Submission to the one God, and the ordering of individual and collective life according to his guidance.

What it worships

Allah — the God, the same word Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews use. Absolutely one, with no partner, no offspring and no image. Shirk, associating anything with God, is the one unforgivable sin. God has ninety-nine names describing his attributes.

What it holds

Six articles of faith: God; angels; the revealed books; the prophets; the Day of Judgment; and divine decree. Tawhid, the absolute unity of God, is the organising principle and is what rules out the Trinity and the incarnation. The Quran is the uncreated, literal speech of God in Arabic, which is why translation is regarded as interpretation rather than scripture. Jesus (Isa) is a great prophet, born of a virgin, a miracle-worker and the messiah — but not divine, and not crucified, according to the standard reading of Quran 4:157. Humanity is not fallen; people are born pure and sin by choice, so there is no original sin and no need for atonement.

What it does

Five Pillars: shahada, the declaration that there is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger; salat, five daily prayers facing Mecca; zakat, obligatory alms of about 2.5% of accumulated wealth; sawm, the dawn-to-sunset fast of Ramadan; and hajj, pilgrimage to Mecca once in a lifetime for those able, which brings around two million people together annually. Also: dietary law (halal, no pork, no alcohol), male circumcision, Friday congregational prayer, and sharia, a body of jurisprudence developed by scholars across several schools rather than a single code. Jihad means struggle; classical scholarship distinguishes the greater jihad against one's own failings from the lesser, regulated, jihad of armed defence.

After death

Fully developed and vividly described. The dead undergo questioning in the grave by the angels Munkar and Nakir, then wait in barzakh, an intermediate state, until the Day of Resurrection. Then bodily resurrection, the scales of deeds, and the crossing of the bridge as-Sirat, thinner than a hair and sharper than a sword. Jannah, the garden, is described in concrete physical terms — rivers, shade, fruit, companions, and above all the vision of God's face, which the tradition names as the highest reward. Jahannam, the fire, has levels. A significant strand of Sunni thought, including Ibn Taymiyyah, has held that hell is not eternal for Muslims and may not be eternal at all. God's mercy is repeatedly said to outweigh his wrath.

Its texts

The Quran — 114 suras, compiled into its standard form under the caliph Uthman within about twenty years of Muhammad's death, and textually the most stable major scripture. The Hadith, reports of Muhammad's words and actions, graded for reliability, with the collections of Bukhari and Muslim ranked highest by Sunnis and different collections used by Shia. The sira, biography of the Prophet, chiefly Ibn Ishaq via Ibn Hisham.

Its branches

Sunni (~85–90%), Shia (~10–13%, chiefly Twelver, with Ismaili and Zaydi branches), Ibadi (Oman), plus Sufism as a cross-cutting mystical dimension rather than a sect. Ahmadiyya identify as Muslim and are declared non-Muslim by many states and bodies.

Of note

Islam is the youngest of the major religions and the one that most explicitly presents itself as a correction of the others. It also preserved and extended Greek philosophy and science during the centuries when Latin Europe had lost them, and handed them back.

Its timeline

  1. c.570 CE Birth of Muhammad.
  2. 610 CE The first revelation on Mount Hira.
  3. <strong>622 CE</strong> The Hijra, migration to Medina. The Islamic calendar counts from this year, not from the Prophet's birth or the first revelation — the founding of the community is the event that matters.
  4. 630 CE Mecca taken; the Kaaba cleared of idols.
  5. 632 CE Muhammad dies without naming an undisputed successor. The succession dispute produces the Sunni-Shia division.
  6. 632–661 CE The Rashidun caliphs; conquest of Persia, Syria, Egypt.
  7. 680 CE Karbala. Husayn, the Prophet's grandson, is killed with his companions. The defining event of Shia identity.
  8. 661–750 CE Umayyad caliphate; expansion to Spain and the Indus.
  9. 750–1258 CE Abbasid caliphate; Baghdad's House of Wisdom; the Islamic Golden Age in mathematics, medicine, optics, astronomy and philosophy.
  10. 1258 CE Mongols sack Baghdad.
  11. 1299–1922 CE Ottoman empire; 1453, the fall of Constantinople.
  12. 1501–1736 CE Safavid Persia makes Twelver Shiism the state religion of Iran.
  13. 1744 CE The alliance of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Muhammad ibn Saud in Najd.
  14. 1924 CE Atatürk abolishes the caliphate.
  15. 1928, 1979 CE Muslim Brotherhood founded; the Iranian Revolution establishes clerical rule.
  16. 2001–present The rise of transnational jihadist violence, condemned by the great majority of Muslim scholars and disproportionately lethal to Muslims themselves.

Sources

Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.

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