In the history of the great cultures the classic Arab-Muslim culture occupies one of the most important places. In its time, this highly developed unique culture flourished on the vast territories from India to Spain, including the Middle East and North Africa. Its influence has been visible in many parts of the world, it was an important link between the cultures of the antiquity and the medieval West, the uniqueness of this culture is due to the peculiarities of Islam, which is not just a world religion, but it is a complete culture including law and the state, philosophy and art, religion and science, that possess their uniqueness.
The third (and the latest by the time of occurrence) "world" religion is Islam. It is one of the most widespread religions: it has about 900 million, mainly in North Africa, South-West, South and Southeast Asia. Arabic-speaking peoples almost universally practice Islam, Turkic and Iranian speaking practise overwhelmingly. Many Muslims are among the peoples of Northern India. Indonesia's population almost entirely adheres to Islam.
Islam originated in Arabia in the VII century AD. The origin of it is clearer than the origins of Christianity and Buddhism, as almost from its beginning it has been illuminated by written sources. According to Muslim tradition, the founder of Islam was a prophet of God – Muhammad, an Arab who lived in Mecca; he allegedly received from God a series of "revelations", written in the holy book of the Muslims – Koran (Quran), and those revelations to the people. Quran – is a holy book of the Muslims, just as the Pentateuch for the Jews, the Gospel for Christians.
Muhammad himself did not write anything, he was probably illiterate. After his death scattered records of his sayings and teachings, made at different times, were left. Of these records in about 650 year AD (during the reign of the third successor of Muhammad – Osman) a set of teachings, named "Koran" ("recitation") was written. This book was declared as sacred.
The Quran is divided into 114 chapters (suras). They are arranged in Quran without any order, simply by size: the longest are nearer to the beginning, the shortest – to the end. Meccan suras (the earlier ones) and Medina suras (later ones) are mixed all over the Quran. The same concepts are repeated in different words in different suras. Praising of majesty and power of Allah is alternated with regulations, prohibitions and threats to all sinners with "Gehenna" (“hell”). The Quran has got absolutely no traces of editorial or literary polishing of the text, as in the Christian Gospel. It has got raw, unprocessed texts.
Another part of the religious literature of the Muslims is the Sunnah, consisting of haddiths: small reports on the life, miracles and teachings of Muhammad. Collections of hadiths were compiled in the IX century by Muslim theologians. But not all Muslims recognize the Sunnah. Those who do – are called the Sunnis, and they constitute the vast majority of Islam followers. The second largest group of Muslims is the Shiites.
The principles of Islam are very simple. A Muslim must firmly believe that there is only one God – Allah, that Muhammad was his messenger, a prophet; that before him God was sending other prophets to people – the biblical Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, but Muhammad is above them; that there are angels and evil spirits (jinns); that in the last day of the world all the dead will raise and will receive a reward for their deeds: those righteous and observing Quran will enjoy themselves in Paradise, sinful and unfaithful will be burning in hell; and, finally, that there is a divine predestination, for every person in advance Allah appointed his fate. The declaration of Faith for every Muslim reads as “There is no other object worthy of worship but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah” (“Basic Principles of Islam”).
As simple principles of Islam as simple are its practical and ritual commandments. They are as follows: mandatory five prayers every day during designated hours, compulsory ablutions before prayings and in other cases, tax (zakat) for the benefit of the poor, the annual fast (Eid al-Fitr Festival, in the tenth month – Ramazan) during the entire month; pilgrimage (Hajj) to the holy city of Mecca, which every Muslim should make at least once in his life.
Each of these regulations, despite the fact that they themselves are not so burdensome, allows exemptions and mitigation in difficult cases. Water for washing in case of its absence can be replaced with sand, dust; fasting is not necessary for the ill, travelers, they can and should fast the respective number of days later. By the way, the Muslim fast, unlike the Christian one, is an abstinence from all food and drink from sunrise to sunset, but in the rest of the day it is allowed to eat and drink anything and indulge in any pleasures.
In the countries conquered by the Arabs duties of peasant population were considerably eased, especially for those who adopted Islam. This facilitated in a shift of the broad masses of the population of different nationalities in the new religion. Islam originated as the national religion of the Arabs, was soon transformed into a supranational, "world" religion. Already in VII-IX centuries Islam became the dominant and almost the only religion in the Caliphate that swept through vast spaces terrains from Spain to Central Asia and the Indian border. In XI-XVIII centuries it was widely distributed to North India, again through conquest. In Indonesia, Islam was spread in the XIV-XVI centuries, mainly through Arab and Indian merchants, and almost completely supplanted Hinduism and Buddhism (except the island of Bali). In the XIV century, Islam penetrated the Golden Horde, Bulgars and other peoples of the Black Sea, a little later – it was spread to the peoples of the North Caucasus and western Siberia. The greater simplicity, accessibility, clarity to masses, especially in the eastern countries, where the patriarchal and feudal life was predominant, the religion of Mohammed often triumphed over the religion of Christ.
A characteristic feature of the Muslim religion is that it strongly intervenes in all aspects of human life. The personal and family life of Muslim believers, and the whole social life, politics, legal relationship, the court, cultural patterns – all of these should be entirely subject to religious laws. In earlier times, in Muslim countries there has been a complete merging of state and church authorities: the head of state (Caliph, Sultan) was considered the successor of the prophet, the higher clergy was the staff of his advisers, and the court was entirely in the hands of clerics. Both criminal and civil law was built entirely on religious law – Sharia. Muslim theologians have been monitoring the implementing the Sharia. Therefore, the Muslim clergy has been carrying out more secular than purely religious functions. At the head of the Muslim clergy in individual countries was Sheikh-ul-Islam – a prominent theologian, who was also an adviser of the state ruler. Given by Sheikh-ul-Islam clarifications on various controversial issues on politics were considered as indisputable law.
My choice of the religion of Islam for its presentation was determined with my great interest to the culture of the Muslim world. I am astonished with those cultural and scientific breakthroughs given to our civilization thanks to Muslim cultural heritage. Without knowledge received from the Islam world the present life would differ much, starting from lessons of Mathematics and finishing with space exploration. In the progress of writing this paper I came to conclusion that Islamic religion was a perfect sphere for conducting scientific researches and explorations as there was no ban in Islam on investigation of the essence of natural phenomenon, just as it was in inquisitional medieval Christianity. I consider way of life prescribed by Islam laws and regulations to be perfectly suing to the regions where it originated and to regions where it developed. However I strongly disagree with its extreme penetration into other cultures nowadays causing usually destructive influence of radical Islamist factions. Moreover, I always wanted to visit some Middle East countries, feel centuries-long history of such states as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey. For sure, I would visit most spectacular, open for visiting, religious places in those countries. The one last thing why I would like to do that, to slightly experience a life of Islam follower is that many of my friends are Muslims, hence, I heard much of their traditions, but never had a chance to feel their culture by myself.
References
Basic principles of Islam. (n.d.). Mission Islam. Retrieved from http://www.missionislam.com/discover/basic.htm
Seda, Pete. (2002). Islam is[PDF document]. Retrieved from The Religion of Islam Website http://www.islamreligion.com/ebooks/Islam-Is.pdf
The Religion of Islam. Website. Retrieved from http://www.islamreligion.com/
