Documents for "Islam":

• Abbas d. 653, uncle of Muhammad the Prophet and of Ali the caliph. A wealthy merchant of Mecca, he was at first opposed to the religious movement initiated by his nephew Muhammad. In 629 he became a convert, however, and from then on he was a companion...

• Ahmadiyya a contemporary messianic movement founded (1899) by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1839-1908), b. Qadiyan, the Punjab. His Barahin-i Ahmadiyya, which he began to publish in 1880, was well received by his Islamic community. In 1889, he announced that he had received a divine revelation authorizing him to accept the baya, the allegiance of the faithful; he later also declared himself the Mahdi and the promised Messiah ( masih ) of Islam (1891). His doctrine, incorporating Indian, Sufi, Islamic, and Western elements, attempted to revitalize Islam in the face of the British raj, Protestant Christianity, and resurgent...

• Allah [Arab.,=the God]. Derived from an old Semitic root refering to the Divine and used in the Canaanite El, the Mesopotamian ilu, and the biblical Elohim, the word Allah is used by all Arabic-speaking Muslims, Christians, Jews, and others. Allah, as a deity, was probably known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Arabic chronicles suggest a pre-Islamic recognition of Allah as a...

• American Muslim Mission see Black Muslims.

• Assassin European name for the member of a secret order of the Ismaili sect of Islam. They are known as Nizaris after Nizar ibn al-Mustansir, whom they supported as caliph; the European term Assassin is derived...

• ayatollah see Shiites.

• Azrael [Heb.,=help of god], in the Qur'an, angel of death, who severs the soul from the body. The name and the concept were borrowed from Judaism.

• Black Muslims African-American religious movement in the United States, split since 1976 into the American Muslim Mission and the Nation of Islam. The original group was founded (1930) in Detroit by Wali Farad...

• Caaba see Kaaba.

• Carmathians see Karmathians.

• dervish see fakir ; Rumi, Jalal ad-Din.

• Druse see Druze.

• Druze or Druse , religious community of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, with important overseas branches in the Americas and Australia. The religious leadership prefers the name Muwahhidun (Unitarians). While preserving many Islamic symbols, the Druze religion also incorporates Gnostic and neo-Platonic tenets. In the 10th cent. Cairo Hamza ibn Ali, a Persian dai (preacher, propagandist) and Muhammad al-Darazi, a Turkish dai who gave his name to the sect, pronounced the sixth Fatimid caliph and Ismaili imam, al-Hakim, as Divine. After al-Darazi's death (1020), Hamza declared himself to be the true manifestation of the...

• fakir [Arab.,=poverty], in Islam, usually an initiate in a Sufi order. The title fakir is borne with the understanding that poverty is the need to be in relation to God. This term, along with its...

• hadith a tradition or the collection of the traditions of Muhammad , the Prophet of Islam, including his sayings and deeds, and his tacit approval of what was said or done in his presence. The term, which literally refers to an individual tradition, is also used as...

• hajj the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, one of the five basic requirements ( arkan or "pillars" ) of Islam. Its annual observance corresponds to the major holy day id al-adha, itself a commemoration of Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his son on Divine orders. While the hajj is a religious obligation to be fulfilled at least once in the course of the life of each Muslim, religious law grants many exclusions on grounds of hardship. The hajj is a series of extensively detailed rituals. These include wearing a special garment that symbolizes unity and modesty, collective circumambulations of the Kaaba , and the symbolic stoning of evil. A central event of the pilgrimage is at the station on the plain of Arafat, some ten miles from Mecca, where, the massive crowds notwithstanding, the pilgrim is...

• Hegira or Hejira [Ar.,= Hijra =breaking off of relations], the departure of the prophet Muhammad from Mecca in Sept., 622. Muhammad was a monotheist and preached against the polytheism of the Meccan religion. This aroused the hostility of the merchant leaders of his native city, who derived...

• Hejira see Hegira.

• houri [Arab.,=black-eyed], one of the beautiful maidens said by some Muslims to dwell in paradise for the enjoyment of the faithful. The passages in the Qur'an detailing the physical delights of heaven...

• Hud a pre-Qur'anic prophet of Islam. Hud unsuccessfully exhorted his South Arabian people, the Ad, to worship the One God. The Qur'an mentions that their incredulity was punished by a decimating "sterilizing wind" ( ar-rih al-aqim ). While some traditions support the etymological identification of Hud with the biblical Heber, other accounts represent him as a southern Arabian merchant. Several sites are revered as Hud's tomb,...

• imam [Arab.,=leader], in Islam, a recognized leader or a religious teacher. Among the Sunni the term refers to the leader in the Friday prayer at the mosque; any pious Muslim may function as imam. The term has also been used as a synonym for caliph (see caliphate ), the vicegerent of God. The Shiites , with their numerous denominations throughout history, have developed specific meanings for the term. Zaydi Shiites recognize as Imam any pious descendant of Ali and Fatima who earns his...

• Islam [Arab.,=submission to God], world religion founded by the Prophet Muhammad. Founded in the 7th cent., Islam is the youngest of the three monotheistic world religions (with Judaism and...

• Islam in Africa the development of the Muslim religion on the African continent.

• Ismailis Muslim Shiite sect that holds Ismail, the son of Jafar as-Sadiq, as its imam. On the death of the sixth imam of the Shiites, Jafar as-Sadiq (d. 765), the majority of Shiites accepted Musa al-Kazim, the younger son of Jafar, as seventh imam. Those who remained faithful to Ismail, the eldest son, soon evolved the belief that Ismail was endowed with an infallible gift for...

• jihad see Islam.

• Kaaba or Caaba [Arab.,=cube], the central, cubic, stone structure, covered by a black cloth, within the Great Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The sacred nature of the site predates Islam: tradition says that the...

• Karmathians or Carmathians , a Muslim sect of the 9th and 10th cent., similar to the Assassin sect. They were part of a movement for social reform that spread widely through Islam from the 9th to the 12th cent. They were organized according to initiation and illumination, like other similar...

• Koran see Qur'an.

• liturgy, Islamic mandatory ritual prayer in Islam ( salat ) is performed five times a day at dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset, and night. It requires ritual cleanliness, and is preceded by ablutions. The salat is also preceded by a call to prayer announced by a muezzin. It consists of the repetition of prayer cycles ( raka ) each composed of a sequence of postures and recitation of Qur'anic passages and special formulas. The person performing the salat is positioned facing Mecca. While salat can be performed individually or communally, the Friday noon prayer is necessarily communal, and is therefore performed at the mosque. This prayer is preceded by a sermon. This, and other special...

• Marabouts [Arab.,=devotee hermit], members of a Muslim religious and military community, precursors of the Almoravids. They spread from NW Africa into Spain in the 11th and 12th cent. The Marabouts later became known as holy men and were greatly venerated as saints. They now live in monasteries or are attached to...

• Mohammedan and Mohammedanism: see Muslim and Islam respectively.

• Moslem see Muslim.

• mufti in Islamic law, attorney who writes his opinion ( futwa ) on legal subjects for private clients or to assist judges in deciding cases. The recorded opinions of the muftis are a valuable source of information for the actual working of Islamic law as...

• Muslim [Arab.,=one who surrenders (himself to God), an agent form of the verb of which Islam is a verbal noun], one who has embraced Islam, a follower of Muhammad. The form Moslem is also common in English;...

• Mussulman see Muslim.

• Nation of Islam see Black Muslims.

• Old Man of the Mountain in Islamic history: see Assassin.

• Qur'an or Koran [Arab.,=reading, recitation], the sacred book of Islam. Revealed by God to the Prophet Muhammad in separate revelations over the major portion of the Prophet's life at Mecca and at Medina, the Qur'an was intended as a recited text, and was not compiled as a single volume during the life of...

• Ramadan in Islam , the ninth month of the Muslim year, during which all Muslims must fast during the daylight hours. Indulgence of any sort is forbidden during the fast. There are only a few who are exempt, e.g.,...

• Sanusi or Senussi , Arabic Sanusiyya, a political-religious organization in Libya and Sudan founded in Mecca in 1837 by Muhammad bin Ali al-Sanusi (1791-1859), known as the Grand Sanusi. Sanusi was concerned with both the perceived...

• Senussi see Sanusi.

• sharia the religious law of Islam. As Islam makes no distinction between religion and life, Islamic law covers not only ritual but every aspect of life. The actual codification of canonic law is the...

• Shiah see Shiites.

• Shiites [Arab., shiat Ali, =the party of Ali], the second largest branch of Islam, Shiites currently account for 10%-15% of all Muslims. Shiite Islam originated as a political movement supporting Ali (cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam) as the rightful leader of the Islamic state. The legitimacy of this claim, as initially envisioned by Ali's supporters, was based on...

• Sufism an umbrella term for the ascetic and mystical movements within Islam. While Sufism is said to have incorporated elements of Christian monasticism, gnosticism, and Indian mysticism, its origins are...

• Sunni [Arab. Sunna,=tradition], from ahl al-sunnah wa-l-jamaa [Arab.,=the people of the custom of the Prophet and community], the largest division of Islam. Sunni Islam is the heir to the early central Islamic state, in its ackowledgement of the legitimacy of...

• Wahhabi or Wahabi , reform movement in Islam , originating in Arabia; adherents of the movement usually refer to themselves as Muwahhidun [unitarians]. It was founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahab (c.1703-1791), who was influenced by Ibn Taymiyya and taught that all accretions to Islam after the 3d cent. of the Muslim era—i.e., after c.950—were spurious and must be expunged. This view, involving essentially a purification of the Sunni sect,...

• zakat [Arab.,=purification], Islamic religious tax, one of the five basic requirements ( arkan or "pillars" ) of Islam. All adult Muslims of sound mind and body with a set level of income and assets are expected to pay zakat. Zakat is due yearly on certain types of property and is distributed to eight categories of individuals specified by the Qur'an. These categories are usually defined to include orphans, the poor,...