How is “please explain Islam to me” an appropriate GQ? It doesn’t get much vaguer than that. If you’re really interested in Islamic beliefs, you’d already be reading some of the thousands of books you would have found at the library. Or there’s always this.
I am stunned and saddened to learn this. I hope you’re kidding.
Not to mention fundamentally irrational: are you under the bizarre impression that you are expected by anyone, much less everyone, to know everything about everything?
I love the “For Dummies” series. Great stuff. I have a few of their books and use them at my school. The kids get a kick out of me using that but I don’t mind learning stuff presented in a friendly manner, which, to me, is the hallmark of that series.
GQ isn’t for precise and specific questions, merely factual ones. The core beliefs in Islam are a matter of fact.
I’m not a Muslim, so I’m sure I’ll get some things wrong, but here are my understandings of the important beliefs of Islam –
The core belief of Islam is that God is the sole god and Muhammad is his prophet.
Other central beliefs -
- The Koran is the word of god as dictated to Muhammad
- The word of god, thus, the Koran, cannot be questioned. So if god says a man can have four wives (except for Muhammad, who was permitted 11), then one must accept it on faith. You can’t debate with god or question his reasoning – why four and not five, or three?
- It is imperative for each person to submit to god. Submission to god includes living one’s life as described in Koran and in the Sunnah (the descriptions of Muhammad’s behaviour)
I’m sure an actual Muslim would come up with a better list.
I think that link is a little light on information, but thats a different thread.
The core beliefs of Islam can probably be distilled to what are known as the “Five Pillars”, which are the foundation of Islamic belief:
Shahada: Professing that there is only one God, Allah, and that Muhammad is His final Messenger.
Salat: Prayer according to the prescribed rituals.
Zakat: The giving of alms and charity to the poor.
Sawm: Ritual fasting during Ramadhan
Hajj: The pilgrimage to Mecca, which every Muslim should complete during his/her lifetime if they’re able.
That’s the “official” basis of the faith, and different sects have different additional beliefs, but all are based on those five pillars.
For instance, the sect that I belong to, Shia Ismailism, (to take acsenray’s statement above about the Koran being the word of God), believes that yes, the Koran is the word of God, as dictated to Muhammad, as being entirely relevant for Muhammad’s time. The world changes in 1400 years, and things that were relevant 1400 years ago, are no longer relevant. Additionally, God wouldn’t leave mankind with a 1400 year old book and tell man to get on with it, that’s not in line with God’s compassion and mercy. Therefore, we also believe in a “living Koran” also, a spiritual, manifest guide, from the line of Ali and Fatima (Prophet Muhammad’s daughter), who is imbued with the same spiritual “light” as the Prophets were, and able to interpret the Koran so that it is relevant to the times.
Other core beliefs, which I think are probably relevant to this thread include the fact that Islam recognizes the Torah, Old Testament, Gospels and Koran as Holy Books, to be given equal importance and respect. And as others have mentioned, Moses and Jesus are given a status almost equal to that of Muhammad. Muhammad is seen as “the Seal of the Prophets”, bringing the final message of God to mankind, but both Judaism and Christianity are different paths to return to the same God.
To put it most simply, the “Anointed,” in Jewish tradition is the King of the Jews. All Jewish kings were “Messiahs.” It refers to a literal anointing with oil that was part of the coronation of a new king. The next “Messiah” is the blood heir to the throne of David. In Jewish tradition, he is expected to do a number of hings, including restoring the Davidic kingdom, rebuilding the Temple and bringing world peace, but he is not a “savior” in the Christian sense. He’s not a redeemer of sins. Islam and Judaism do not carry the Christian belief that people need to be “saved” in a spiritual sense, nor do they believe that Messiahs are divine.
I was exaggerating, but not totally kidding. (So as not to further derail the thread, I’ll mention that I have an IMHO thread on the front page right now if you’re interested in commenting further.)
I’ll second the recommendation to read Karen Armstrong’s book.
As for reading the Qu’ran, that raises a huge question: which translation? I asked a Qu’ran question here some time back, and was told that different translations can have dramatically different interpretations of some of the passages.
Honestly, I don’t think reading old holy books that haven’t changed in centuries gives a good feeling for what people believe–and how they act–today. Too much has changed, and clerics interpret things differently now.
I recall reading that the Qu’ran is, by definition, only in Arabic. Anything else is merely “a (imperfect) translation of the Qu’ran”.
Even the Family Circus has covered this
I don’t think this is correct. Mohammed visited Jerusalem in a spiritual journey, not in person. There, he (allegedly) ascended to heaven and talked with prophets, rather than being mocked:
He does get mocked by some, who disbelieve his account of his miraculous journey … but these doubters are not identified as Jews.
In one account, he changed the direction of prayers when Jewish tribes in what is now Medina, Saudi Arabia, refused to convert. Though there are various theories about this:
What? It directly disproves the assertion that the LDS view of Jesus is the same as the Muslim view. Here, let me help you a bit with an anecdote. I once had a Division Officer who would stop editing correspondence for his signature after he found one error. He expected the drafter to check for other errors on the second go-around preparing the thing. Well, that’s what we have here: an error and the correction. You don’t need any more information than that.
Speaking of corrected errors, thanks to acsenray for the list of prophets in Islam going all the way back to Adam, correcting my post above. More ignorance fought.
Islam rejects the deity of Jesus and considers the Trinity blasphemy. It’s disingenuous to pretend a “belief in Jesus” (as a historic person) is similar to the central belief of Christianity that Jesus is God incarnate.
They indeed have disbelieved who say: Lo! Allah is the Messiah, son of Mary. Say: Who then can do aught against Allah, if He had willed to destroy the Messiah son of Mary, and his mother and everyone on earth ? Allah’s is the Sovereignty of the heavens and the earth and all that is between them. He createth what He will. And Allah is Able to do all things.
Qur’an 5:17
“Verily they are disbelievers and infidels who say, ‘The Messiah, son of Mary, is God.’”
Muslims believe in Jesus as a significant Prophet of God/Allah. We believe that yes, he was imbued with the spiritual “light” of God, much the same as both Moses and Muhammad were. However, to call him God Incarnate is, in Islamic theology, blasphemous, since for God to become Man, God would take on the properties and imperfections of Man. Once God takes on the properties of Man, God becomes imperfect. God cannot be imperfect, else He would not be God. Therefore, Jesus being God incarnate is incompatible with Islamic beliefs of God being unique, infallible and perfect. You’re right in that Islam says that Jesus was not divine, but Islam also says that none of the prophets, Muhammad included, were divine.
Well, if we’re citing Family Circus, Cracked isn’t too far of a stretch. Here’s a recent article on some common misconceptions about Islam.
Agreed. Islam invented their theology 700 years after the Christians invented theirs, so it would seem the Christians get to decide who Jesus was, theologically. Still, the basic difference is that Mohammed decided Jesus should not be God incarnate, even though the Christians had already decided he was.
In any case, the main point is that it is a complete misrepresentation to pretend (typically for the sake of world peace, or something) that Muslims also “believe in Jesus.” They don’t. They demoted him to just another prophet. For Christians, to “believe in Jesus” means to believe he is God.
I don’t see that, because Christians formed their views about Jesus before Muslims did, therefore Christian view acquire some kind of superior validity. (And, if priority meant validity, then do we not have to accord priority, even over Christian beliefs, to what the contemporaries of Jesus himself thought, as recorded in the Gospels? The predominant attitudes towards Jesus of those who actually encountered him seem to have been disillusionment, dismissiveness, contempt and outright anger.)
Muslims have distinctive beliefs about Jesus. Those beliefs are of greater significance to them than the beliefs that Christians hold. To suggest that Muslims don’t “believe in Jesus” because what they believe is not what Christians believe strikes me as arrogant.
Yes, it would be very stupid to assume, or very misleading to imply, that Islamic beliefs about Jesus must coincide with Christian beliefs. But nothing in the OP suggests that. On the contrary, the OP contains a link to a Huffington Post article by a Muslim which sets out Muslim beliefs, and conspicuously omits to say anything about the divinity of Jesus, about Jesus as the Son of God or about Jesus as universal saviour.
So, for example, if I said that Christians “believe in Mohammed” while failing to mention that what they believe is that he was a nutcase who invented stuff de novo and did the work of Satan by attacking the True Church, that’s OK?
Whoever invents a belief system first “owns” those tenets. This doesn’t mean the tenets are scientifically correct; it just means that if the next guy comes along and negates the original tenets, well he’s a johnny-come-lately who doesn’t have the same authority regarding those tenets. More importantly, if the two belief systems are completely opposite, it’s completely disingenuous to gloss over that fact when juxtaposing the two belief systems.