Islam / Muslim | History & Beliefs of Islamic Religion | Quran / Koran - indian-enews

Islam / Muslim
History & Beliefs of Islamic Religion.
Quran / Koran, Muhammad (Mohammed) Quotes

There is no god but God; Muhammad is the messenger of God.

Allah has revealed to me that you should adopt humility so that no one oppresses another.
(Riyadh-us-Salaheen, Hadith 1589)

Even as the fingers of the two hands are equal, so are human beings equal to one another. No one has any right, nor any preference to claim over another. You are brothers. (Final Sermon of Muhammad)

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Introduction to Islamic Religion & Arabic Philosophers

The religion and philosophy of Islam, is based upon the belief that God (Allah) transmitted knowledge to Muhammad (c. 570–632) and other prophets (Adam, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus). The followers of Islamic religion, muslims, believe that this revelation to humanity was written down in the Quran, which is the flawless word of God.
The theology of the Islamic scriptures informs most aspects of muslim life and culture. The Five Pillars of Islam is expressed in the Quran (Koran), which is a practical doctrine that encourages Muslims to pray 5 times a day, fast during Ramadan, pilgrimage to Mecca, declare 'There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet' and pay money to the poor.

Do not turn away a poor man...even if all you can give is half a date. If you love the poor and bring them near you...God will bring you near Him on the Day of Resurrection.
(Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1376)

The Hadith is a collection of sayings and stories which are commonly related back to the life and sayings of prophet, Mohammed.

With such a strong foundation in revelation and prophets of God, Islamic philosophy benefited in the eighth century a.d. by the translations ofancient Greek philosophy into Arabic. In the ninth century a.d. a school of translators and intellectuals, known as 'The House of Wisdom' was founded in Baghdad. It was here and largely through the translations of these scholars, that the writings of Plato, Aristotle and the Neoplatonists became known to the Arabs, and subsequently to the western world which led to the Renaissance. The influence of the ancient Greek philosophers upon the arabic philosophers / thinkers stimulated them to study and interpret the Quran / Koran from a rational foundation.

I think the history of Islamic religion is really interesting (even though I am not Muslim). I hope you find the following information on Islam / Muslim beliefs, the Quran and Mohammed useful.

Islam / Islamic / Muslim Beliefs

Followers of Islam, known as Muslims, believe that God (or, in Arabic, Allah) revealed his direct word for mankind to Muhammad (c. 570–632) and other prophets, including Adam, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Muslims assert that the main written record of revelation to mankind is the Qur'an, which they believe to be flawless, immutable and the final revelation of God. Muslims believe that some parts of the Bible and the Torah may have been misinterpreted or distorted by their followers. With that perspective they view the Qur'an as corrective of Jewish and Christian scriptures.
Muslims hold that it is essentially the same belief as that of all the messengers sent by God to mankind since Adam, with the Qur'an (the one definitive text of the Muslim faith) codifying the final revelation of God. Islam sees Judaism and Christianity as derivations of the teachings of certain of these prophets - notably Abraham - and therefore see them as fellow Abrahamic religions, and People of the Book. Islam has two primary branches of belief, based largely on a historical disagreement over the succession of authority after Muhammad's death; these are known as Sunni and Shi'ite.
The basis of Muslim belief is found in the shahadatan ("two statements"): la ilaha illa-llahu; muhammadur-rasulu-llahi — "There is no god but God; Muhammad is the messenger of God." In order to become a Muslim, one needs to recite and believe these statements. All Muslims agree to this, although Sunnis further regard this as one of the five pillars of Islam.
There are six basic beliefs shared by all Muslims:
Belief in God, the one and only one worthy of all worship.
Belief in the Angels.
Belief in the Book (al-Quran / Koran) (sent by God).
Belief in all the Prophets and Messengers (sent by God).
Belief in the Day of Judgment (Qiyamah) and in the Resurrection.
Belief in Fate (Qadar)
The Muslim creed in English:
I believe in God; and in His Angels; and in His Scriptures; and in His Messengers; and in The Final Day; and in Fate, that Good and Evil are from God, and Resurrection after death be Truth.
I testify that there is nothing worthy of worship but God; and I testify that Muhammad is His Messenger.

Islam God / Allah

The fundamental concept in Islam is the oneness of God (tawhid). This monotheism is absolute, not relative or pluralistic in any sense of the word. God is described in Sura al-Ikhlas, (chapter 112) as follows: Say "He is God, the one, the Self-Sufficient master. He never begot, nor was begotten. There is none comparable to Him."
In Arabic, God is called Allah, a contraction of al-ilah or "the (only) god". Allah thus translates to "God" in English. The implicit usage of the definite article in Allah linguistically indicates the divine unity. In spite of the different name used for God, Muslims assert that they believe in the same deity as the Judeo-Christian religions. However, Muslims strictly disagree with the Christian theology concerning the unity of God (the doctrine of the Trinity and that Jesus is the eternal Son of God), seeing it as akin to polytheism.

"O People of the Scripture! Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter aught concerning Allah save the truth . The Messiah , Jesus son of Mary , was only a messenger of Allah , and His word which He conveyed unto Mary , and a spirit from Him . So believe in Allah and His messengers , and say not "three" . Cease! ( it is ) better for you! Allah is only One God . Far is it removed from His transcendent majesty that he should have a son . His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth . And Allah is sufficient as its defender." [Chapter 4 : Surah 171]

No Muslim visual images or depictions of God exist because such artistic depictions may lead to idolatry and are thus prohibited. Moreover, many Muslims believe that God is incorporeal, rendering any two or three dimensional depictions impossible. Instead, Muslims describe God by the many divine attributes mentioned in the Qur'an, and also with the 99 names of Allah. All but one Surah (chapter) of the Qur'an begins with the phrase "In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful". These are consequently the most important divine attributes in the sense that Muslims repeat them most frequently during their ritual prayers (called salah in Arabic, and in India and Pakistan called "namaz" (a Persian word)).

 The Qur'an (Koran)

The Qur'an is the sacred book of Islam. It has also been called, in English, the Koran and the Quran. Qur'an is the currently preferred English transliteration of the Arabic original (قرآن); it means “recitation”.
Muslims believe that the Qur'an was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel on numerous occasions between the years 610 and Muhammad's death in 632. In addition to memorizing his revelations, his followers are said to have written them down on parchments, stones, bones, sticks, and leaves.
Muslims believe that the Qur'an available today is the same as that revealed to Prophet Muhammad and by him to his followers, who memorized his words. Scholars accept that the version of the Qur'an used today was first compiled in writing by the third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, sometime between 650 and 656. He sent copies of his version to the various provinces of the new Muslim empire, and directed that all variant copies be destroyed. However, some skeptics doubt the recorded oral traditions (hadith) on which the account is based and will say only that the Qur'an must have been compiled before 750.
There are also numerous traditions, and many conflicting academic theories, as to the provenance of the verses later assembled into the Qur'an. (This is covered in greater detail in the article on the Qur'an.) Most Muslims accept the account recorded in several hadith, which state that Abu Bakr, the first caliph, ordered Zayd ibn Thabit to collect and record all the authentic verses of the Qur'an, as preserved in written form or oral tradition. Zayd's written collection, privately treasured by Muhammad's widow Hafsa bint Umar, was used by Uthman and is the basis of today's Qur'an.
Uthman's version organized the revelations, or suras, roughly in order of length, with the longest suras at the start of the Qur'an and the shortest ones at the end. Later scholars have struggled to put the suras in chronological order, and among Muslim commentators at least there is a rough consensus as to which suras were revealed in Mecca and which at Medina. Some suras (eg surat Iqra) were revealed in parts at separate times.
Because the Qur'an was first written [date uncertain] in the Hijazi, Mashq, Ma'il, and Kufic scripts, which write consonants only and do not supply the vowels, and because there were differing oral traditions of recitation, there was some disagreement as to the correct reading of many verses. Eventually scripts were developed that used "points" to indicate vowels. For hundreds of years after Uthman's recension, Muslim scholars argued as to the correct pointing and reading of Uthman's unpointed official text, (the rasm). Eventually, most commentators accepted ten variant readings (qira'at) of the Qur'an as canonical, while agreeing that the differences are minor and do not greatly affect the meaning of the text.
The form of the Qur'an most used today is the Al-Azhar text of 1923, prepared by a committee at the prestigious Cairo university of Al-Azhar.
The Qur'an early became a focus of Muslim devotion and eventually a subject of theological controversy. In the 8th century, the Mu'tazilis claimed that the Qur'an was created in time and was not eternal. Their opponents, of various schools, claimed that the Qur'an was eternal and perfect, existing in heaven before it was revealed to Muhammad. The Mu'tazili position was supported by caliph Al-Ma'mun. The caliph persecuted, tortured, and killed the anti-Mu'tazilis, but their belief eventually triumphed and is held by most Muslims of today. Only reformist or liberal Muslims are apt to take something approaching the Mu'tazili position.
Most Muslims regard the Qur'an with extreme veneration, wrapping it in a clean cloth, keeping it on a high shelf, and washing as for prayers before reading the Qur'an. Old Qur'ans are not destroyed as wastepaper, but deposited in Qur'an graveyards. The Qur'an is regarded as an infallible guide to personal piety and community life, and completely true in its history and science.
From the beginning of the faith, most Muslims believed that the Qur'an was perfect only as revealed in Arabic. Translations were the result of human effort and human fallibility, as well as lacking the inspired poetry believers find in the Qur'an. Translations are therefore only commentaries on the Qur'an, or "translations of its meaning", not the Qur'an itself.