| Teacher's Guide on Islam: Questions and Answers |
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What is Islam?
Islam
is a religious and legal system practiced today
in various forms by over one billion people. "Islam"
is an Arabic word which means "submission."
A related word, "Muslim," denotes a
person who is a member of the Islamic faith. The
practice of Islam differs among various ethnic
groups and between different Muslim sects. There
are also differences in outlook between those
who adhere to various interpretations of Islam,
from the mystical to the legalistic.
Nearly
all religious sects of Islam agree on five "pillars"
of Islam:
- Shahada means "bearing witness." It is the
Muslim declaration of faith: "I bear witness
that there is no god but Allah and I bear witness
that Muhammad is his prophet."
- Salat denotes the five required daily prayers.
- Zakat is an obligatory charity tax of approximately
2.5% of one's wealth, often given to religious
charitable institutions. Shi'ites pay the khums tax, a fifth of one's wealth.
- Sawm refers to the daily fast from first light until
sunset observed during the Islamic lunar month
of Ramadan.
- Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca, required of everyone
capable of making the trip.
How
did Islam get started?
Islam
began as the articulation of the ethical and theological
principles of Judaism and Christianity to Arab
audiences in the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th
century. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, received
divine inspiration to preach God's word in his
home town of Mecca, but the pagan townspeople
rejected his message. Exiled with a small number
of followers to the nearby town of Yathrib, he
gradually won enough converts to beat pagan armies
on the battlefield and conquer most of Arabia
through a combination of evangelism and force.
After
Muhammad's death, his followers continued his
wars of conquest far beyond Arabia and built one
of the largest landed empires in the history of
the world. The teachings of God that Muhammad
had preached were preserved in Arabic as the Qur'an,
Islam's holy book. Muhammad's own sayings and
deeds, known as Hadith, are remembered
through chains of transmission spanning generations.
Qur'an and Hadith form the basis of Islamic law
and religious practice.
How did Islam grow to become the second largest
empire in the history of the world?
Since
the 7th century, Islam has spread through a combination
of war and proselytism. Many of Islam's heartlands
- for example, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Egypt -
were conquered by Muslim armies in successive
incursions. The Muslim regime administered these
lands without imposing the new faith on subject
peoples; the conversion process was gradual and
in some cases took several hundred years.
Islam's
military expansion occurred over successive Muslim
empires. In the first century of Islamic history,
from the era of the prophet Muhammad's life to
the end of the Umayyad caliphate of Damascus,
the Islamic state came to engulf Syria, Palestine,
Egypt, North Africa, Spain, Armenia, Iran, and
as far as Chinese Turkestan A later phase of conquest
under the Abbasid empire of Baghdad, mostly through
the 10th century, added various Mediterranean
islands, such as Sicily. During this period, Islamic
culture consolidated and conversion in conquered
provinces became commonplace. The conquest of
India took place in stages, beginning around the
year 1000, culminating 200 years later.
The
fringes of the Muslim world in Asia and Africa
embraced the new religion largely through voluntary
conversion growing out of commercial relationships
with traders from Islam's heartlands. In east
Africa, colonies of Muslim merchants established
trading depots on the shores of the Indian Ocean;
their conviviality and rapport with locals won
converts far and wide. Indonesia, now the largest
Muslim country in the world, owes its Islamization
to a process that began with a Muslim trading
post in northwestern Sumatra in the 13th century.
What happened to the Muslim empire and what
stands in its place now?
The
fall of the Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad in 1258
marked the end of a nominally-unified Islamic
polity. But numerous Muslim empires carried the
torch of Islamic civilization forward for centuries
after, notably the Iranian Safavid and Ottoman
Turkish empires. The latter ruled Islam's Arabian,
eastern Mediterranean, Anatolian heartlands, and
portions of eastern Europe - and survived into
the second decade of the 20th century. The fall
of the Ottoman caliphate after World War I marked
the end of an era of Islamic empires spanning
well over a millennium.
The
Muslim world of Asia and Africa today is demarcated
by nation states. Most are either constitutional
monarchies or secular authoritarian republics,
although a small number has attempted to apply
Islamic law and identify as Islamic republics.
The vast majority of Muslims live in the religion's
historic heartlands. But far-flung communities
of émigrés and converts are growing
rapidly, particularly in Europe, Latin America,
and North America.
Who is a Muslim? Are all Muslims Arabs?
The
vastness and diversity of the Muslim world today
reflects the rich history of Islamic civilization.
Although Islam is commonly associated with Arabs,
the majority of Muslims are not Arabs. (And not
all Arabs are Muslims; many are Christians and
Jews.) The rest hail mainly from the Indian subcontinent,
east and south Asia, and west Africa, with important
historic communities in eastern and central Europe.
Converts from all over the world are joining this
billion-strong community in larger numbers every
day.
Muslims
in America form a microcosm of the larger Muslim
world. Immigrants from the Muslim east and their
children form a significant part of the community.
But a strong contingent (and probably the largest
Muslim ethnic group in America) are African-Americans,
mainly first- and second-generation converts to
Islam.
Muslim
communities are dynamic and evolving. Levels of
religiosity differ, as do attitudes toward tradition
and practice. The largest sect are known as Sunnis
and form nearly 90% of the global Muslim community.
The second largest group are Shi'is. Although
doctrinal and theological differences distinguish
the two, Sunnis and Shi'is have a great deal in
common. While many Muslims practice a legalist
form of the religion tradition and others adopt
a spiritual interpretation known as Sufism, the
majority of Muslims practice a form of Islam that
fuses elements of both.
How does Al-Qaeda fit?
Since
the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th
century, many Muslims have lamented the loss of
a unified Muslim polity and longed for the reestablishment
of a world empire. Some have organized movements
with the imposition of a Muslim world order as
their end goal. In recent years, there have been
numerous such movements, some but not all adopting
a strategy of armed struggle.
Al-Qaeda
is one such group. It is a coalition of armed
movements espousing a refined form of Wahhabism,
a stringent interpretation of Sunni Islamic law
that informs the state ideology of Saudi Arabia
and until recently Afghanistan. Usama bin Laden
and his followers wish to make Islam the only
religio-political force in the world.
In
practice, this means reclaiming Muslim countries
now ruled by secular governments they view as
illegitimate, reconquering lost Muslim lands like
Israel and Spain, unifying the entire Muslim world
under a new caliphate, and ultimately, advancing
into new territories and claiming them for Islam.
America's position as the only superpower pits
it inherently against their ambitions. Thus, weakening
America is a fundamental part of their agenda.
Is Usama bin Laden just angry about American
foreign policy?
Usama
and his followers oppose much of America's foreign
policy. They oppose America's support for Israel,
sanctions against Iraq, military presence in Saudi
Arabia, support for India in its rule over the
dispute region of Kashmir, and support for Middle
Eastern governments like Egypt that have tried
to put down Islamist political groups. At the
core, Usama and his followers oppose America because
it is the only superpower that stands in his way.
Does Al-Qaeda really think it can succeed?
Bin
Laden uses some of the lessons of Islamic history
to instill a sense of optimism in his followers.
In his many sermons and recruitment speeches,
he points out that the prophet Muhammad and a
much smaller group of supporters managed to defeat
not one but two superpowers: the Byzantine and
Sasanian empires.
Do American Muslims support Al-Qaeda?
The
people who carried out the atrocities of September
11 were not Americans, but resided in the United
States and used the American Muslim community
as a cover for their terrorist activities. Law
enforcement officials are concerned that there
are still such activists among us. No matter how
many remain, however, they are a tiny subset of
Muslims residing in America, and the vast majority
of Muslims living here oppose them as much as
other Americans do. Many Muslim Americans have
volunteered their energy, language skills, and
cultural knowledge to the FBI and other law enforcement
organizations to help root out the threat of Al-Qaeda
from American soil.
Are we at war with the Muslim world?
To
understand the American campaign called "Enduring
Freedom" as a war against Islam is to accept
Usama bin Laden's vision of the world. A number
of armed movements in the Middle East have declared
war on America. We are at war with these groups
and their supporters. But the majority of Muslims
around the world share with America common values
of family, education, freedom, human rights, and
democracy.
Part 3: Suggested Academic Projects
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