Muhammad was the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet, sent to present and confirm the monotheistic teachings preached previously by Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets. He is viewed as the final prophet of God in all the main branches of Islam, though some modern denominations diverge from this belief. Muhammad united Arabia into a single Muslim polity, with the Quran as well as his teachings and practices forming the basis of Islamic religious belief.
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to promote their faith or perform ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin missionem, meaning "act of sending" or mittere, meaning "to send". The word was used in light of its biblical usage; in the Latin translation of the Bible, Christ uses the word when sending the disciples to preach The gospel in his name. The term is most commonly used for Christian missions, but can be used for any creed or ideology.
Heterodoxy in a religious sense means "any opinions or doctrines at variance with an official or orthodox position". Under this definition, heterodoxy is similar to unorthodoxy, while the adjective "heterodox" could be applied to a dissident.
Islamic–Jewish relations started in the 7th century AD with the origin and spread of Islam in the Arabian peninsula. The two religions share similar values, guidelines, and principles. Islam also incorporates Jewish history as a part of its own. Muslims regard the Children of Israel as an important religious concept in Islam. Moses, the most important prophet of Judaism, is also considered a prophet and messenger in Islam. Moses is mentioned in the Quran more than any other individual, and his life is narrated and recounted more than that of any other prophet. There are approximately 43 references to the Israelites in the Quran, and many in the Hadith. Later rabbinic authorities and Jewish scholars such as Maimonides discussed the relationship between Islam and Jewish law. Maimonides himself, it has been argued, was influenced by Islamic legal thought.
Ummah is an Arabic word meaning "community". It is distinguished from Shaʻb which means a nation with common ancestry or geography. Thus, it can be said to be a supra-national community with a common history.
Over the centuries of Islamic history, Muslim rulers, Islamic scholars, and ordinary Muslims have held many different attitudes towards other religions. Attitudes have varied according to time, place and circumstance.
Shiva Naipaul, born Shivadhar Srinivasa Naipaul in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, was a Trinidadian and British novelist and journalist.
Islam is the largest religion in Sudan, and Muslims have dominated national government institutions since independence in 1956. According to UNDP Sudan, the Muslim population is 97%, including numerous Arab and non-Arab groups. The remaining 3% ascribe to either Christianity or traditional animist religions. Muslims predominate in all but Nuba Mountains region. The vast majority of Muslims in Sudan adhere to Sunni Islam of Maliki school of jurisprudence, deeply influenced with Sufism. There are also some Shia communities in Khartoum, the capital. The most significant divisions occur along the lines of the Sufi brotherhoods. Two popular brotherhoods, the Ansar and the Khatmia, are associated with the opposition Umma and Democratic Unionist Parties respectively. Only the Darfur region is traditionally lacking the presence of Sufi brotherhoods found in the rest of the country.
In classical Islamic literature the futūḥ were the early Arab-Muslim conquests which facilitated the spread of Islam and Islamic civilization.
Mark A. Gabriel, is a lecturer and writer on Islam who lives in the United States. He is the author of five books critical of salafi Islam, including Islam and Terrorism, Islam and the Jews, and Journey into the Mind of an Islamic Terrorist.
Criticism of Islam has existed since Islam's formative stages. Early written disapproval came from Christians and Jews as well as from some former Muslims such as Ibn al-Rawandi. Later the Muslim world itself suffered criticism. Western criticism has grown in the 21st century especially after the September 11 attacks and other terrorist incidents. As of 2014, about a quarter of the world's countries and territories (26%) had anti-blasphemy and anti-apostasy laws or policies, of which 13 nations, all of which were Muslim majority nations, had the death penalty for apostasy.
Religion plays an important role in Sudan, with 97% of the country's population adhering to Islam. The vast majority of Muslims in Sudan are Sunni belonging to the Maliki school of jurisprudence. Protestants are about 5% of the population mainly in the south. Roman Catholics are 3.2%.
Islam is the religion of approximately 9.7 to 11.1 percent of the Kenyan population, or approximately 4.3 million people. The Kenyan coast is mostly populated by Muslims. Nairobi has several mosques and a notable Muslim population.
Islam in Haiti is a small minority of Muslims forming less than 1% of the total population. The Muslims are composed of some locals and foreign immigrants. A number of Mosques and Islamic organizations are present in the country. There are both Sunni and Ahmadi Muslims, with their own point of views.
Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey is a book by the Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul. Published in 1981, the book describes a six-month journey across the Asian continent after the Iranian Revolution. V.S. Naipaul explores the culture and the explosive situation in countries where Islamic fundamentalism was growing. His travels start with Iran, on to Pakistan, Malaysia and end in Indonesia, with a short stop in Pakistan and Iran on the return to the UK.
Christianity came to North Africa in the Roman era. According to historian Theodor Mommsen what is now Mediterranean Algeria was fully Christian by the fifth century. A notable Berber Christian of Algeria was Saint Augustine, important saints of Roman Catholicism. Christianity's influence declined during the chaotic period of the Vandal invasions but was strengthened in the succeeding Byzantine period. After the Arab invasions of the 7th century, Christianity began to gradually disappear.
Imaduddin is an Indonesian religious and political activist and the spiritual head of the Indonesian Association of Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI). An engineer by training, Imaduddin was imprisoned by the Suharto regime for his Islamic activism, before being permitted to organise ICMI under the patronage of the Indonesian vice-president, B. J. Habibie.
Muslim conquests following Muhammad's death led to the creation of the caliphates, occupying a vast geographical area; conversion to Islam was boosted by missionary activities, particularly those of Imams, who intermingled with local populations to propagate the religious teachings. These early caliphates, coupled with Muslim economics and trading and the later expansion of the Ottoman Empire, resulted in Islam's spread outwards from Mecca towards both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the creation of the Muslim world. Trading played an important role in the spread of Islam in several parts of the world, notably southeast Asia.
