Islam Essay (over 1000 words)
Uploaded by the_nashie on Dec 04, 2003
Islam is the Arabic term meaning “submission” or “surrender”, this is the will of their God Allah.
It is interesting because the Islamic religion believes it was founded by through his first son, Ishmael while Judaism is believed to have been founded by his second son Isaac. It is said that after the birth of Isaac, Ishmael left his father’s country and went to live in Arabia with a group who were not of any religion of the time apart from their own belief, that there was only one God, the Hanifs. This group was and nomadic and for this reason as a child Muhammad is to have learnt of monotheism (the belief in only one god) through association with them when he was young.
The Arab means nomad and this rightly describes the life style of the many Arab tribes that roamed the Arabian Peninsula. There was no government in the region and each tribe held their own small area.
Early Arab Religion worshipped many Gods and nature spirits. During the early centuries of the Common Era there were although a minority of Christians and Jews in Arabia.
“The Prophet” as he is know but he is actually named Muhammad had a difficult childhood as he was orphaned at a young age and then moved through two more homes before he was eventually adopted by his uncle. It is said that even at a young age Muhammad showed a deep and reflective character and often conversed with the Hanifs and also went in to the nearby hills for days on end to seek solitude, pray and contemplate what were possibly, the “big deep questions” in religion.
As he aged he began to hold all night rituals at Mount Hira, a barren rock a few kilometres south of Mecca. He had many revelations at this spot, revelations, which eventually were the base of the religion he formed. The Qur’an is the Holy Book of Islam, which is worded by the actual commands given to the archangel Gabriel by God. The other authoritive text in the Islamic religion is the Sunna (traditions), which is based upon the Hadith (statements). This text is basically an autobiography of Muhammad who was considered to be the perfect Muslim and therefore is used as a role model in this text for other Muslims. This text contains various sayings, teachings and deeds of the prophet. The sunna...