What Is Islam and Who Are Its Followers?
what is truth about the religion and its followers? How Islam and Muslims can be truly defined?
Monotheism is the foundation of Islam and its most important concept which cannot be compromised in any way.
An individual in the West might see religion within a limited context pertaining to worship alone – a private matter between a person and God. But in Islam it is a dynamic system that organizes the progression of life according to basic general principles and flexible rulings that guarantee potential benefit from advancements in science and technology as well as new material facilities.
Since there is no conflict between Islam and scientific research, every new discovery in the world of matter, energy, time and space only increases the believer in faith and humility towards Him Who devised, projected and systematized such a plan and then assigned to mankind his
place and noble role within it.
Within this understanding it remains to be said that knowledgeable followers of Islam (the Muslims) are not in need of secularism since they have no problem with religion.
So what is truth about Islam and Muslims?
What Is Islam?
“Islam” is an Arabic word which means peaceful, willing submission; submission to the code of conduct ordained by god. So Islam is a religion, but it is also a complete way of life based upon a voluntary relationship between an individual and his creator. It is the way of life ordained by God which was taught by each of his prophets and messengers.
What distinguishes Islam from other religions is that it refuses to accept any form of creation whatsoever as a deity worthy of worship. Instead, it emphasizes the exclusive worship of the One God who created the entire universe and to whom all creation will eventually return.
Monotheism is the foundation of Islam and its most important concept which cannot be compromised in any way. Not only is god acknowledged as the sole creator and sustainer of everything in existence, but Islam declares that he is the only true deity and he alone is worthy to be worshipped.
Further, it recognizes that the attributes of God are nothing like those of his creation and cannot be compared to it; He is absolute, perfect and unique.
Who Are the Followers?
A Muslim is someone who practices Islam; that is, who willingly submits to the revealed directives of god. Everything in the universe is inherently submissive to god, functioning according to the natural laws created by him. Human beings are physically “Muslim” in that their bodies function according to the genetic program set by god for the period of time he has decreed.
A “Muslim” in the religious sense, however, is someone who consciously commits himself to the worship of god alone, not according to his own inclinations or those of other men but according to the method conveyed by god through his appointed prophets.
The Qur’an gives many examples of people who lived before Muhammad and believed in and obeyed the prophet that god had sent them. they entered paradise because of their obedience to god, and that is the meaning of “Islam”.
all the prophets of god, from Adam to Muhammad, and those who believed and followed each of them during the period of his prophethood (1) were called “Muslims”.
But since Prophet Muhammad was the last of god’s messengers to mankind, a “Muslim” can now only be defined as one who accepts and complies with the final, completed message conveyed by god through him. For rationally, the most recently revised legislation always supersedes and invalidates whatever came before it.
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The article is excerpted from the book Clear Your Doubts about Islam, Compiled by Saheeh international, published by Dar Abul-Qasim, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 2013.
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