ISLAMIC INFORMATION





System of beliefs and rituals based on the Koran. It is a monotheistic religion, founded by Muhammad in the seventh century. The term Islam is derived from the Arabic verb aslama ("submit"), and muslim means "one who has submitted," in the sense of acknowledging or admitting the truth and/or existence of something---in this case, the one God and the mission of Muhammad. In its barest outline, the creed consists of the declaration: "There is no god but God (Allah) and Muhammad is His prophet." Islam is a religion both of faith and works, faith being but one of the five pillars which comprise Islam and which a believer should observe. In addition to faith (iman), which is expressed in recital of the creed, a Muslim is required to observe salat, divine worship, five times a day; zakat, payment of the legal alms; sawm, the month-long fast of Ramadan; and hajj, pilgrimage to Mecca.
Like Judaism, Islam stresses the unity of God; the Koran specifically rejects the Christian concept of Trinity. God has revealed Himself to man through prophets, starting with Adam and including Noah, Abraham, and others; but He has given books only to three of them---the Law (tawrat) to Moses, the Gospel (injil to Jesus, and the Koran to Muhammad. Muhammad, however, is the last of the prophets, the chosen instrument by which God sent the eternal message in its last and definitive form.

The Jewish and Christian presence in Arabia, where Muhammad was born and raised, and his travels are generally considered the most crucial influences on Muhammad's life and on his mission. According to the Koran, at the age of about 40, in the year 610, Muhammad received a Divine call through the archangel Gabriel commanding him to assume the role of prophet bearing a new message embodied in an Arabic Scripture. In 622, following years of persistent opposition on the part of the notables of Mecca ---where he resided---Muhammad accepted an invitation to go to Yathrib (later known as Medina). The event was to prove to be the turning point in his mission. Arriving in Yathrib with a number of faithful followers, Muhammad established himself there as a political as well as spiritual leader, and soon became master of the situation, extending his control to Mecca itself, which he purged of idols and "infidels." Jewish and Christian tribes in and around Medina were brought under tribute and delegations from Arab tribes came to declare allegiance and pay zakat. At the time of his death in 632, Muhammad was the undisputed ruler of all Arabia, and the year of his and his followers' migration (hijra) to Yathrib came to mark the beginning of the Islamic era and became the first in the Muslim calendar.

At the time of Muhammad's appearance many Jews lived in Arabia; large-scale commercial relations between Arabia and Erets Israel had existed already in the days of Solomon. The Hebrew Bible has a number of references to the close relationship between Arabs and Jews, and the Books of Job and Proverbs contain many Arabic words. In addition, some paragraphs in the Mishnah refer to the Jews of the Arabian Peninsula.

Although proclaiming himself the Messenger of God and "the Seal of the Prophets," Muhammad did not intend to establish Islam as a new religion. Rather, he regarded himself as having been sent by Allah to confirm the Scriptures. His basic contention was that God could not have omitted the Arabs from the revelations with which he had favored the Jews and the Christians, and subsequently he accused the Jews of deliberately deleting from the Bible predictions of his advent.

Judaic influences in Islam abound, and there is a wealth of evidence to show the extent to which they have been deep-rooted and lasting. The very name for Islam's Scripture, Koran, while it may be a genuine Arabic word meaning "reading" or "reciting," is thought to be borrowed from the Hebrew or Aramaic mikra, used by the rabbis to designate the Scripture or Torah. Muhammad's principal Jewish source, however, was not the Bible but the later Aggadah, which was communicated to him by word of mouth. This is especially apparent in the numerous references in the Koran to "prophets" preceding Moses. Noteworthy among these is the exceptional position allotted to Abraham. Abraham is the "friend (of God)"---Ibrahim al-khalil; he is neither Jew nor Christian but, as a true believer in one God, is considered the first Muslim, the first to have submitted unquestioningly to the will of Allah.

While Judaism is a religion of Halakhah, Islam is a religion of shari'a, both words denoting the same thing, namely a God-given law minutely regulating all aspects of a believer's life: law, worship, ethics, social behavior. Halakhah and shari'a are both grounded upon oral tradition, called hadith in Arabic and torah she-be-al peh (Oral Law) in Hebrew. In both Jewish and Muslim literatures the oral tradition falls into two parts, one legal and the other moral, and in both cases they assume the same form of loosely connected maxims and short anecdotes. Again, the logical reasoning applied to the development of religious law is largely identical in Islam and Judaism, and has been seen not as mere coincidence inherent in the nature of things but, as the similar terms used in both traditions show, the result of direct contact. Finally, in both religions the study of even purely legal matters is regarded as worship, the holy men of Islam and Judaism being not priests or monks but students of the Divinely revealed law. Scholars have also remarked on the fact that Muslim religious law developed mainly in Iraq (Babylonia), which at the time was the leading center of rabbinic learning.

Another manifestation of this close interaction between Islam and Judaism is the laws governing taharah, ritual Purity and cleanliness, which are the same in both religions, as is the term itself. These laws concern forbidden food and drink, touching the sexual organs, bodily discharge, and contact with a corpse or a carcass---all of which cause ritual impurity and bar the affected from fulfilling religious duties such as prayer, presence in a place of worship, and recitation of Scripture.

Prayer is another shared feature of the two faiths. In Islam, the first essential of prayer is niyya, intent, literally corresponding to the Jewish Kavvanah, without which prayer is incomplete. As far as Jewish Dietary Laws are concerned, while Muhammad came to reject most of them (which he considered a punishment for the Jews), he retained the prohibition against eating pig, blood, and carcasses, and decreed ritual slaughter of all animals permitted for human consumption. Of social obligations and duties---which in both Islam and Judaism are considered religious duties incumbent upon every believer---zakat in Islam corresponds to tsedakah (the giving of Charity) in Judaism. The care of widows and orphans is also a religious obligation in both Islam and Judaism, while visiting the sick is commended in Islam in terms identical to aggadic recommendations.

Strictly speaking, as "People of the Book" Jews are not regarded as nonbelievers, since they share with Muslims the belief in the one and only God. However, Jews are not regarded as true believers because they have failed to accept the Koran and the mission of Muhammad. Consequently these "scriptuaries" (ahl al-kitab), while allowed to live in the Islamic domain unmolested, were granted this right on the condition that they pay a poll tax, jizya, and accept the status defined in treaties and charters concluded with the Muslim community. As a protected minority, however, the Jews, along with the Christians and other "People of the Covenant" (ahl al-dhimma), were exempted from payment of zakat, the alms tax imposed on Muslims as a religious precept. In this way the imposition of the jizya has been seen not as a penalty for religious nonconformity but as a kind of substitute for zakat. Equally important is the fact that the tolerated non-Muslims were supposed to pay this special tax also as a compensation for their exemption from taking part in the wars of the Muslims. See also Dhimmi Laws.