Islam

Islam (Islām). The religion of allegiance to God and to his prophet Muḥammad, the religion (dīn) which God always intended for his creation, but which is derived in its present form from the prophetic ministry of Muḥammad (c.570–632 CE), and from the revelation mediated through him, the Qurʾān. The verbal noun islām appears eight times in the Qurʾān: derived from the same Semitic root as Heb. shālom (peace), it means ‘entering into a condition of peace and security with God through allegiance or surrender to him’.

Islam began historically in the quest of Muḥammad to find the absolute truth of God in the midst of the many conflicting claims which he encountered in his environment about the nature of God. Muḥammad went off for periods of increasing isolation during which he struggled in prayer to find al-Haqq, the true One; and in a cave on Mount Ḥirāʾ, there came to him the overwhelming sense of that reality pressing upon him, and the first of the utterances that later became the Qurʾān were spoken through him (96. 1). From this absolute sense of God, Allāh, derived the insistence which is characteristic of Islam, that if God is indeed God, then there can only be what God is, the One who is the source of all creation and the disposer of all events and lives within it. The life of Muḥammad and the message of the Qurʾān then become a working out and application of that fundamental vision: all people (divided as they are from each other at present) should become a single ʾumma (community), and every action and every aspect of life should become an act of witness that ‘there is no God but God’ and that ‘Muḥammad is his messenger’.

Those latter affirmations, making up the basic witness (al-Shahāda), form the first of the Five Pillars of Islam. Muslim life and belief are derived directly from the Qurʾān, but since the Qurʾān does not deal with every issue or question which a Muslim might wish to ask, authoritative guidance is derived also from the traditions (ḥadīth) concerning the words, deeds and silences of Muḥammad and his companions. Even so, there remains much scope for application and interpretation. Methods of such interpretation emerged (see IJMĀʿ; IJTIHĀD; QIYĀS), as also did major schools of interpretation, which drew up law-codes to govern Muslim life: see SHARĪʿA.

When Muḥammad died, no exact provision had been made for any successor to lead the new community. Those who looked for the most effective leader chose Abu Bakr, known as caliph or khalīfa. Those who looked for the closest relative of Muḥammad supported ʿAlī. Although there were four immediate successors (al-Rāshidūn; see KHALĪFA) before a final split, the strains were too great, and the party (shīʿa) of ʿAlī broke away from those who claimed to be following the custom (sunna) of the Prophet, thereby creating the divide between Sunni and Shīʿa Muslims which persists to this day.

The spread of Islam was extremely rapid. Within a hundred years of the death of Muḥammad, it had reached the Atlantic in one direction and the borders of China in the other. It now amounts to about a billion adherents, and is found in most countries of the world. At one stage (from the 9th to the 13th cents. CE), the Muslim delight in creation led it into a passionate commitment to knowledge (ʿilm), which in turn led Muslims into spectacular achievements in philosophy (falsafa) and the natural sciences.

There were two major reactions to the achievements of Muslim philosophy and science. The first was a growing suspicion that perhaps the achievements of the human mind were taking priority over the revelation from God. ‘The Incoherence of Philosophy’ was exposed by al-Ghaz(z)ālī (1058–1111 (AH 450–505)), and since that time the prevailing tendency has been one of giving priority to revelation (and the sciences associated with it of exegesis) and obedience.

The second major reaction was a reinforcement of that style of Muslim life and devotion which is known as Sufism.

Islam is necessarily a missionary religion, since entrusted to it is the revelation of God's word and will for the world. The world is divided into three domains (see DĀR AL-HARB), with the clear expectation that in due course all will be unified in the single ʾumma of God's intent. In the mean time, that quest for community is much complicated by the imposition, during the colonial period of European expansion, of nation-states. The caliphate, which had created the great dynasties of the past (e.g. the Umayyads, the ʿAbbasids, culminating in the Ottomans) lingered on in Turkey, but was abolished in 1924 during the attempt to establish Turkey as a secular state. The resulting ambiguities in countries where Muslims are in a majority (e.g. over the extent to which sharīʿa law should be introduced or extended), and the many problems for the recovery of authentically Muslim life in a world of rapid change, have not yet been resolved.