Introduction

Islam was founded by the religious reformer and prophet Muhammad (ca. 570-632 CE). Muhammad was a merchant born in Arabia, who married a wealthy widow, Khadija. When he was about forty he began to experience religious visions instructing him to preach, which continued for the rest of his life. Muhammad called his description of his revelations his Qur’an, or “recitation.” His followers memorized his words and some wrote them down. Shortly after the Prophet’s death, memorized and written materials were organized into an official standard version. Muslims regard the Qur’an as the direct words of God to his prophet, Muhammad. (When Muslims around the world use translations of the Qur’an, they do so alongside the original Arabic, the language of Muhammad’s revelations.)

Muhammad’s visions ordered him to preach a message of a single God, which he began to do in his hometown of Mecca. He gathered followers, but also provoked resistance. In 622 he migrated with his followers to Medina, an event termed the hijra that marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar. Muhammad was more successful in Medina, gaining converts and forming the first umma, a word meaning “those who obey God’s will.” This community united followers from different tribes and set religious ties above clan loyalty. Muhammad returned to Mecca at the head of a large army. He soon united the nomads of the desert and the merchants of the cities into an even larger umma of Muslims. By the time Muhammad died in 632, Muslim forces had conquered all of the Arabian peninsula. The religion itself came to be called Islam, which means “submission to God.” Mecca became its most holy city.

Religious ideas

The religious practices and ideas of Islam proved attractive to people both inside and outside Muslim states. This was partly because of the straightforward nature of its doctrines. The strictly monotheistic theology outlined in the Qur’an has only a few central teachings: Allah, the Arabic word for God, is all-powerful and all-knowing. Muhammad, Allah’s prophet, preached his word and carried his message. All Muslims have the obligation of jihad (literally, “self-exertion”), to strive to submit to God, spread God’s rule, and lead a virtuous life. According to the Muslim shari’a, or sacred law, five essential practices make up the Five Pillars of Islam: the profession of faith in God and in Muhammad as God’s prophet, regular prayer at home or in mosques, fasting during the sacred month of Ramadan, giving alms (charity) to the poor, and a pilgrimage to Mecca, if possible. In addition, the Qur’an forbids alcoholic beverages and gambling, as well as certain foods, such as pork.

Muhammad called for unity within the umma. However, after his death, the prophet’s followers split over who was his proper successor. A permanent division within Islam was formed, between a larger group known as Sunnis and a smaller group known as Shi’a. This split sometimes led to violence, but it did not halt the spread of Islam. As the Dar-al-Islam-the “abode of Islam”—grew, laws and practices developed in the Arabian peninsula mixed with existing traditions in other cultures.

The eighth century saw the beginning of a mystical movement within Islam known as Sufism. This movement emphasized personal spiritual experience. Sufis taught that the word of God could come not only to scholars studying the Qur’an, but also to certain holy individuals who could fully unite with God. Sufis lived a simple lifestyle, and some were poets. Many people came to regard them as saints, and made pilgrimages to shrines dedicated to them. Sufis developed their own rituals, often involving music, dance, or the recitation of sacred texts. Muslim clerics sometimes objected to these rituals, arguing that they led people away from the essentials of Islam, but they were very popular.

Society and family life

The Qur’an and other sacred texts of Islam recommend marriage for everyone. As in Judaism, most teachers, judges, and religious leaders in Muslim societies were married men. Men commonly had only one wife in Arabian society before Muhammad, though it was generally limited to wealthier families. The Qur’an restricted the number of wives a man could have to four, and prescribed that he treat them equally. As elsewhere, marriages in Muslim societies were generally arranged by the family.

The Qur’an holds men and women to be fully equal in God’s eyes. Both are capable of going to heaven and responsible to carry out the duties of believers for themselves. But it makes clear distinctions between men and women. For example, it sets a daughter’s share of inheritance at half that of a son’s. However, Muslim law allowed women more property rights than other law codes of the time. Though women played a major role in the early development of Islam, after the first generation the seclusion of women became more common in the Muslim heartland. Women were allowed to pray in public at the mosque, but they were usually separated from men.

Unlike many other religions, Islam gave merchants considerable respect. Muslim merchants developed a number of business practices that would later spread widely. One such practice was the sakk (the Arabic word that is the root of the English check), an order to a banker to pay money held on account to a third party.

Political developments and the spread of Islam

During the century after Muhammad’s death, Muslim rule expanded from the Iberian peninsula in the west to Central Asia and the Indus River in the east. Islam spread along the trade routes long used for the movement of people and ideas. In time, the unified Muslim state, called the caliphate, broke apart. Regional dynasties established their own Muslim states in Spain, North Africa, Egypt, and elsewhere. These states fought with one another. During the ninth and tenth centuries, Turkic peoples in Western and Central Asia converted to Islam, and in the thirteenth century many Mongols did as well. Merchants and teachers carried Islam to West Africa on the camel caravan routes that crossed the Sahara, and to the East African Swahili coast and Southeast Asia on the ships that criss-crossed the Indian Ocean. Intermarriage between Muslim traders from distant lands and local women was often essential to its growth. People were attracted by Islam’s spiritual and moral teachings, approval of trade, and global connections. Islam also appealed to many rulers for a combination of religious, political, and commercial reasons.

When people at any social level converted, they often blended in their existing religious ideas and rituals. They passed these on to their children, and very varied patterns of Islamic practices, rituals, and norms of behavior developed. For example, in Arabia, Persia, and South Asia, women’s presence in public was restricted. However, in Western Africa, Southeast Asia, and central Asia, women often worked, socialized, and traveled independently. This diversity has continued to today, when there are about 1.8 billion Muslims, in every country of the world.

Primary source: The Qur’an

The Qur’an is organized into chapters called suras, which are divided into verses. Below is an English translation of the first sura, recited in daily prayers and on other occasions.

Praised be God, Lord of the Universe, the Beneficent, the Merciful and Master of the Day of Judgment. You alone We do worship and from You alone we do seek assistance. Guide us to the right path, the path of those to whom You have granted blessings, those who are neither subject to Your anger nor have gone astray.