TEACHINGS OF THE KORAN
There are three main world religions and nowadays, the most numerous are Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. People from all over the world treat them as a basis of their lives. These beliefs have their own systems and main principles.
Islam exists in more than 120 countries all over the world. In twenty eight of these states Islam is a state religion. These are such countries as Egypt, Morocco, Kuwait, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, etc. (Armstrong, 2000).
The holy book of Muslims is the Koran, the most readable book in the world. It contains main principles and teachings. Muslim tradition says that Allah transferred it to the prophet Mohammed. The prophet tried to convince people that there was only one God for Muslims, Christians and others.
The main principles of the Koran are:
- When a Muslim child is born, his mother says to him that there is no other God except for Allah, and that the Muslim people have to remember their prophet Mohammed. A Muslim person keeps these words in mind when dying; some people repeat these words twice a day with understanding and sincerity to worship their God. The Koran says that there is only one God who can exist without sleeping. He owns everything on the Earth and heavens. The most horrible sin in Islam is shirk, i.e. assimilation of anyone or anything to Allah. The God of Muslims is eternal; he wasn’t born and didn’t give birth to anyone. The holy book says that nobody is equal to him and this reflects his uniqueness. It is also written in the Koran that the essence of Allah is not understandable for a human. He has organized all the processes and events and he also has the ability to operate everything and change anything by his wish.
- People living by the rules of Islamic tradition also believe in the existence of angels – creatures created by Allah from the light. They execute the God’s will.
- The Judgment Day is another belief of the Muslims. According to it, the doomsday will come and every person will stand before God and respond for his actions and sins in life. And after the Judgment Day, as it is said in the Koran, a person goes to hell where the agony and fire waits for him or to paradise with a beautiful life in different colors where he meets his friends and relatives.
- Muslim people who misbehaved or lived in disbelief. If a person violates “the Koran’s law” without knowing that he sins, then Allah can excuse him.
- People who read the Koran believe that the first people on the Earth were the man and the woman who gave life to all of us. Everybody believed in a unique religion and spoke one language. However, before they spread around the world, they had gained different customs, spoken languages not similar one to another and all people had been divided into tribes. That is why, Islam says that all population came from the common parents and they all are brothers and sisters that have equal status in the society.
- A very important thought in the Koran is that people differ in faith and morality. Thus, Islamic people try to create a society from people based not on the nationality, race or skin color, but from those that have a single religion and similar ethical principles. This is the reason why Muslims have no racial, national or class differences.
- Muslims also believe that Allah has formed the lives of every existing creature on the Earth (that is called Kadar), this is the belief that all events have resulted from the God’s will.
- The Koran teaches that God gives richness for the benefit of all mankind and a person has to give some to the others. There also exists a Muslim belief that richness can turn into evil and this will separate a person who is rich from Allah. And people having more than enough money for their living have to help and give it to poor people or to a person who is not as rich as he is. When a Muslim comes to Mecca, he removes his clothes no matter whether it is an expensive suit or cheap things of a poor person. They put on two flaps of cloth in order to appear equal before God (Wilkinson & Salazar, 2002).
Religious traditions of the Muslims
Salah. Muslim people worship their God (pray) five times a day. Such prayer is called Salah and the Muslims pray it in a certain way, at the stated time and in a pose when a person bends to the floor. Salah is a reading of suras of the Koran and pleas (duah). Muslims pray collectively turning their faces to Mecca. Muslims from all over the world take part in this ritual at the same time, and it makes them feel that they belong to the world brotherhood (even if they are alone). People believe that the prayer clears hearts and gives spiritual and moral growth. It brings people closer to the God; brings them a feeling of peace and calmness; reminds about their equality, brotherhood and unity; promotes gratitude and humility; strengthens the discipline and their will power and, finally, calms down their passion and basic instincts.
Ramadan. It is a holy month in the Islamic calendar of the Muslims’ fasting. This month is very important in Islam because this month many years ago Mohammed has become a prophet and this is closely connected to the appearance of the Koran. The Islamic people during this period of time restrain from food, drinking, smoking and intimate pleasures from sunrise till sunset. They usually get up early and eat half an hour before the sunrise. Every day before fastening Muslim says aloud that he will follow holy month Ramadan in the name of Allah. The last ten days of Ramadan are called Al-Kadar night. Muslims believe that this day was when the first sura of Koran has been shown to Mohammed by the angel. Usually, people ask forgiveness from God for their sins and read their holy books. Ramadan is an intentional suppression of flesh to volitions (Douglass & Reeves, 2004).
Purdah. Every Muslim or a person of another religion has seen a woman dressed in purdah at least once in his life. Purdah is a long cloth for women covering their bodies from head to feet. Their faces are covered with transparent clothes in a way that she can see everything. The main intention of such dressing is to hide woman’s face and figure when she is in the public. Mainly, as Muslims think, only a husband of a woman in Islamic religion can have the right to see open parts of her body and, nobody else has to look at a woman without purdah. There is also a belief that purdah is invented for closing women’s hair that is considered to be an intimate part of her appearance in the Islamic world. These are three principal beliefs and traditions that are strictly kept in the countries with the Islamic religion and the breach of these rules are inacceptable in the local society.
Islam and Christianity are two different religions with their own principles and basic beliefs. But still they have something in common:
Muslims, as well as Christians (James, 2008), believe that there exists only one God whom they worship by prayers, fastenings and curtsies; Christian people also have the book where the wills, interdictions and oracles of God are gathered, and such book is a basis of both religions.
There are also some differences between these two basic religions:
Muslims and Christians call their God differently: Allah and God, respectively (there is a belief that there is only one God; although, different groups of people gave him different names); countries with Islamic religion use the Koran not only as a book of God, but also as a civil and criminal legislation, while Christians, vice versa, respect only religious rules, faith and behavior, and nobody has to lead his life as it is written in the Holy Bible. Christian tradition says that the God is a spirit and he can appear and vanish from nowhere, and Islam, vice versa, refuses from the idea of spirit, the Koran says that Allah and angels are mortal human souls; the Bible divides God into three hypostases: Father (mind), Son (word) and Holy Spirit that is called a Holy Trinity, and Islam does not discover the inner essence of Allah, neither his mind, nor his word or spirit; Islamic religion says that craft is one of Allah’s qualities as it is mentioned in the Koran, while the Bible says that such qualities of the character as craft and wickedness are properties of the devil.
This report shows that people from all over the world have different perception of the environment, they are guided by their own principles and beliefs, but still they have a lot in common and this does not hamper them from living as a unique civil society.
References
Armstrong, K. (2000). Islam: A short history (Modern Library ed.). New York: Modern Library.
Douglass, S., & Reeves, J. (2004). Ramadan. Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books.
James, W. (2008). The varieties of religious experience a study in human nature. Waiheke Island: Floating Press.
Wilkinson, P., & Salazar, B. (2002). Islam. New York: Dorling Kindersley.
