Islam is one of the major and widespread monotheistic religions in the world. Therefore, Muslims, followers of Islam, believe in one God, whom they call Allah. It was found by the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century in Arabia. The interesting fact is that Muslims believe that the Prophet Muhammad did not establish their religion, but he revealed it, as it has always existed. According to Muslim’s holy book, Quran, there were other prophets before Muhammad such as Jesus, Moses and Abraham. The importance of the last one we can find in the Quran, where he considered as “a hernif - somebody who essentially and intrinsically knows that there is really only one God” (Siddiqui, 2009). All four prophets contributed to the development of Islam. For instance, Isa described in the Quran as “the prophet of peace par excellence” (Khalidi, 2009). His role in forming Islam religion is very important because he predicted the coming of Muhammad.
Islam has a long history. From the one little community in Arabia, it spread through all the Middle East in the beginning. It was a hard pass, full of wars, conquests and battles. The reasons of those conquests were different, such as religion, politics, economy and law. It influenced on the essence of Islam and its traditions. That is why Islam is not only a religion, but a big system of rules and principles of Muslim society, its everyday life, customs and laws. In other words, the whole life is regulated by dogmas and principles of Islam. Also, because of the historic reasons Muslims have a justification of war or a holy war, jihad. One of the key events that became a reason of some practices in Islam is Muhammad’s pilgrimage in 628, which became the reason of Haji. Also, the Prophet Muhammad gave an example of the first fasting, so now Sawm is one of the Five Pillars of Islam.
Nowadays Islam is not united, it has many subdivisions and in each country, where it is widespread, it has some peculiarities and assimilation with native traditions. For instance, the oldest division of Islam is “between Sunnis and Shi'as” (Islam, BBC.). First one believes that Caliph can be anyone from Muslims, and the other decided he must be a descendant of Muhammad. Even though Islam has existed already for 1400 years, it still tries to save its main believes and principles.
References
Islam. BBC. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/
Khalidi T. (2009). Jesus through Muslim eyes. BBC. Retrieved from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/beliefs/isa.shtml
Siddiqui M. (2009). Ibrahim - the Muslim view of Abraham. BBC.
Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/ibrahim.shtml
