Is Islam for You?

This belief in absolute oneness is called Tawhid, and everything in Islam flows from it. God is not born and does not give birth; He has no gender, no body, and no rival. He is the Creator of everything, and nothing in creation resembles Him.

The Quran sums it up in four short lines, in a chapter called Al-Ikhlas (Sincerity): "Say, He is God, the One. God, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born, nor is there to Him any equivalent." (Quran 112)

Muslims also believe God has revealed Himself through His names and qualities: the Most Merciful, the Most Forgiving, the Provider, the Just. There are traditionally ninety-nine of these names.

Around twenty-five prophets are named in the Quran, and almost every one is familiar from the Bible. Islam teaches that humanity began with Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, created by God and honoured above the rest of creation.

In the Islamic telling, Adam and Eve lived in the Garden but ate from the forbidden tree. Importantly, they both took responsibility, both repented, and God forgave them. They were then sent down to live on Earth, not as a curse, but as the beginning of the human story. Islam does not teach that we inherit their sin; every soul is born pure.

From Adam, the chain of prophets continued: Noah and the flood, Abraham who smashed the idols, Moses who confronted Pharaoh, David and Solomon who ruled with wisdom, and many more, each one a reformer sent to call people back to God.

The Quran affirms the virgin birth clearly: Mary conceived Jesus by God's command, without a father. When angels brought her the news, they called her son "the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary." (Quran 3:45)

Muslims believe Jesus performed miracles by God's permission: healing the blind, curing the sick, and even raising the dead. They believe in his second coming, that he will return before the Day of Judgement to defeat falsehood and establish justice.

Here is where Islam respectfully differs from Christianity. Muslims honour Jesus as a beloved prophet and the Messiah, but not as God or the son of God, because Islam holds that God is one and does not have offspring. The love and reverence are deep; the understanding of his nature is where the two faiths part.

The Arabic names are familiar once you hear them: the Tawrat (Torah), the Zabur (Psalms), and the Injil (Gospel). Muslims revere these as genuine revelation from the same God.

Muslims believe the Quran is God's final revelation, given to the Prophet Muhammad over twenty-three years. They believe it has been preserved word for word, in its original Arabic, unchanged since the day it was revealed. Millions of people alive today have memorised the entire book from beginning to end.

Angels are beings of light who never disobey God. Several are shared with the Bible: Jibreel (Gabriel), the angel of revelation; Mikail (Michael); and Israfil, who will sound the trumpet on the Day of Judgement.

Jinn are a separate creation, made from smokeless fire (Quran 55:15). Like humans, they have free will: some are good, some are bad, and they too will be judged. They live alongside us but are normally unseen.

Iblis was a jinn who worshipped alongside the angels. When God created Adam and commanded everyone to honour him, Iblis refused out of arrogance, believing he was superior (Quran 2:34). He was cast out, and vowed to mislead humankind. From him come the shayatin (devils) who whisper people toward wrong.

Before revelation, Muhammad was known among his people as "the trustworthy one" for his honesty. He could not read or write. In the cave of Hira, Gabriel commanded him: "Read!" The first words revealed were about a God who "taught man what he did not know." (Quran 96:1-5)

Over the next twenty-three years he received the Quran, faced persecution, and built a community founded on justice, charity, and devotion to one God. His own sayings and example, the Sunnah, were carefully recorded by his companions as Hadith, and together with the Quran they form the foundation of Muslim life.

The Hajj and Abraham's test. Long before Muhammad, Abraham (Ibrahim) was tested with a command to sacrifice his son. He was willing to obey, and his son was willing too; at the last moment God spared the boy and replaced him with a ram. Islamic tradition holds this son was Ishmael, the ancestor of Muhammad. Had the lineage been cut, the final prophet would never have come. The annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj, re-enacts this family's story, and the festival of Eid al-Adha remembers Abraham's devotion to this day.

The Five Pillars:

1. Shahada (faith): to declare that there is no god but God, and Muhammad is His messenger.
2. Salah (prayer): to pray five times a day, facing Mecca.
3. Zakat (charity): to give a fixed portion of your wealth to those in need.
4. Sawm (fasting): to fast from dawn to sunset during the month of Ramadan.
5. Hajj (pilgrimage): to make the journey to Mecca once in a lifetime, if able.

Muslims believe that after death, every person will stand before God and answer for their life. Those who believed and did good are promised Paradise (Jannah); those who knowingly rejected truth and did wrong face Hell (Jahannam). God's mercy, in Islam, is vast.