Introduction to Islam:

Islam, one of the three major world religions, along with Judaism and Christianity, that profess monotheism, or the belief in a single God. In the Arabic language, the word Islam means “surrender” or “submission”—submission to the will of God. A follower of Islam is called a Muslim, which in Arabic means “one who surrenders to God.” The Arabic name for God, Allah, refers to the same God worshiped by Jews and Christians. Islam’s central teaching is that there is only one all-powerful, all-knowing God, and this God created the universe. Islamic teaching maintains that all people are equal before God, provides Muslim with the basis for a collective sense of loyalty and faith to God that transcends class, race, color and nationality, the only difference is in the degree of faith and piety to Allah and his orders. Thus, all Muslims equally belong to one community, the "Umma", no matter what are their ethnic or national backgrounds.

The Muslim community contains about 1.4 billion followers on all five continents, and Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. The most populous Muslim country is Indonesia(200millions), followed by Pakistan and Bangladesh(130 millions each). Beyond the Middle East(400millions), large numbers of Muslims live in India(180 millions), Nigeria(70millions), the former republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)(80millions), China(20 to 50millions), south east Asia, Europe (26millions) and USA(8 millions).

One of the reasons for the growth of the Muslim community has been its openness to new members. Children born to Muslim parents are automatically considered Muslim. At any time, a non-Muslim can convert to Islam by declaring himself or herself to be a Muslim. A person’s declaration of faith is sufficient evidence of conversion to Islam and need not be confirmed by others or by religious authorities.

Islam taught that there was one God, and that Muhammad was the last in a series of prophets and messengers. Through his messengers God had sent various codes, or systems of laws for living, culminating in the Qur’an (Koran), the holy book of Islam. These messengers were mortal men, and they included among many others Moses, the Hebrew prophet and lawgiver, and Jesus, whom Christians believe to be the son of God rather than a prophet.

Islam also taught that the Christian Bible, Hebrew Torah and the Qur'an were all holy books. But according to the Qur’an, the two earlier Scriptures had been altered and distorted over time from their original forms given by God, while the Qur'an would remain perfect, preserved by God from such distortion. In addition to distinguishing itself from the Hebrew and Christian traditions, the new religion taught that the God of Islam had provided humanity with the means to know good from evil, through the prophets and the Qur’an. Therefore, on the Day of Judgment people will be held accountable for their actions.

Islam has 5 pillars that are the most central rituals of Islam and constitute the core practices of the Islamic faith. These pillars are the profession of faith (shahada), prayer (salat), almsgiving (zakat), fasting (sawm), and pilgrimage (hajj).

Many non-Muslim descriptions of Islam have focused critically on the Islamic concept of jihad. Jihad, considered the sixth pillar of Islam by some Muslims, in those non-Muslim descriptions Jihad has been understood to mean holy war. However, the word in Arabic means "to struggle" or "to exhaust one's effort," in order to please God. Within the faith of Islam, this effort can be individual or collective, and it can apply to leading a virtuous life; helping other Muslims through charity, education, or other means; preaching Islam; and fighting to defend Muslims. Western media of the 20th century continue to focus on the militant interpretations of the concept of jihad, whereas most Muslims do not.

Islamic doctrine emphasizes the oneness with no participant nor son, uniqueness, transcendence, and utter otherness of God. As such, God is different from anything that the human senses can perceive or that the human mind can imagine. The God in Islam encompasses all creation, but no mind can fully encompass or grasp him. Through thinking humankind can easily discern the wisdom and power behind the creation of the world. Because of God’s oneness and his transcendence of human experience and knowledge, Islamic law forbids representations of God and the prophets.

Islamic doctrine maintains that Islam’s monotheism continues that of Judaism and Christianity. However, the Qur’an and Islamic traditions stress the distinctions between Islam and later forms of the two other monotheistic religions. According to Islamic belief, both Moses and Jesus, like others before them, were prophets commissioned by God to preach the essential and eternal message of Islam. The legal codes introduced by these two prophets took different forms than the Qur’an, but according to Islamic understanding, at the level of doctrine they are the same teaching, but Christian Bible and Hebrew Torah you find to day are distorted.

Although Muslims believe that the original messages of Judaism and Christianity were given by God, but they also believe that Jews and Christians eventually distorted them. The mission of Islam, therefore, has been to restore what Muslims believe is the original monotheistic teaching and to supplant the older legal codes of the Hebrew and Christian traditions with a newer Islamic code of law that corresponds to the evolving conditions of human societies. Thus, for example, Islamic traditions maintain that Jesus was a prophet whose revealed book was the Christian New Testament, and that later Christians distorted the original scripture and inserted into it the claim that Jesus was the son of God. Or to take another example, Islam maintains that awful distortion is done on the Torah so it contains now some doctrines that opposite the principles of the God greatness like claiming that God was defeated by Jacob –God forbid-.

According to Muslim belief, God sent Muhammad with the last and perfect legal code that balances the spiritual teachings with the law, and thus supplants the Jewish and Christian codes. According to the teachings of Islam, the Islamic code, called Shariaa, is the final code, one that will continue to address the needs of humanity in its most developed stages, for all time.

 For the Muslim then, Islamic history unfolds a divine scheme from the beginning of creation to the end of time. Creation itself is the realization of God's will in history. Humans are created to worship God, and human history is punctuated with prophets who guarantee that the world is never devoid of knowledge and proper worship of God. The sending of prophets is itself understood within Islam as an act of mercy. God, the creator and sustainer, always providing human beings with the guidance they need for their salvation in this world and a world to come after this one. God is just, and his justice requires informing people, through prophets, of how to act and what to believe before he holds them accountable for their actions and beliefs. However, once people receive the teachings of prophets and messengers, God's justice also means that he will punish those who do wrong or do not believe and will reward those who do right and do believe. Despite the primacy of justice as an essential attribute of God, Islam maintains that God’s most fundamental attribute is mercy.

According to Islamic belief, in addition to sending prophets, God manifests his mercy in the dedication of all creation to the service of humankind. Islam maintains that God brought the world into being for the benefit of his creatures. His mercy toward humanity is further manifested in the privileged status God gave to humans. According to the Qur’an, God appointed humankind as his vice regents (caliphs) on earth.

The Islamic concept of a privileged position for humanity departs from the early Jewish and Christian interpretations of the fall from Paradise that underlie the Christian doctrine of original sin. In the biblical account, Adam and Eve fall from Paradise as a result of disobeying God’s prohibition, and all of humanity is cast out of Paradise as punishment. Christian theologians developed the doctrine that humankind is born with this sin of their first parents still on their souls, based upon this reading of the story. Christians believe that Jesus Christ came to redeem humans from this original sin so that humankind can return to God at the end of time. In contrast, in Islam a person will not carry the sins of others even his parents, moreover the Qur’an maintains that after their initial mistake, Adam and Eve repented and were forgiven by God. Consequently Muslims believe that the descent by Adam and Eve to earth from Paradise was not a fall, but an honor bestowed on them by God. Adam and his progeny were appointed as God's vice regents, and were entrusted by God with the guardianship of the earth.

The nature of humankind’s relationship to God can also be seen clearly by comparing it with that of angels. According to Islamic, angels were created from light. An angel is a being that commits no sins and serves as a guardian, a recorder of deeds, and a link between God and humanity. The angel Gabriel, for example, communicated God's message to the prophet Muhammad. In contrast to humans, angels are incapable of unbelief or disobeying God since angels don't have the capability to choose.

Islamic doctrine holds that humans are superior to angels. According to Islam, God entrusted humans and not angels with the guardianship of the earth and commanded the angels to prostrate themselves to Adam. Satan refused to prostrate so he was doomed, Satan insisted to lead human beings astray until the end of the world. According to the Qur’an, God informed the angels that he had endowed humans with a knowledge angels could not acquire.

As with other prophets and messengers, God supported Muhammad by some miracles and thus prove that he was a real prophet. All miracles of Muhammad and former prophets and messengers were temporary and momentary miracles except one important miracle of Muhammad and the ultimate proof of the truthfulness of Islam which is the Qur’an. In accordance with the words of the scripture itself, Muslims believe that the Qur’an is the timeless word of God, “the like of which no human can produce.” This feature of the scripture, called inimitability (i'jaz), is based on belief in the divine authorship of the Qur’an. Unlike other miracles, the miracle of Islam is a literary and scientific miracle. Muslims devote great intellectual energies for more than 14 centuries to the study of Quran contents and form, and to interpret the scripture and derive doctrines and laws from it. Moreover, a lot of modern scientific and digital facts are found every year in Quran which is an amazing thing. 

The Islamic faith categorically rejects the idea that God was ever born, as opposed to Christian belief that Jesus was born the son of God. Islam also rejects the idea that God shared his divinity with any other being, in Islam God is just one great God that is different from anything that the human mind can imagine, God is not like the Gods in Egyptian, Greek or Roman mythologies who have wives, sons, daughters, relatives or enemies who may defeat those Gods. A lot of Muslim scholars expect that Judaism and Christianity have influenced by these mythos.

 Qur’an and Islamic doctrine, in contrast to biblical accounts, elaborates that although prophets are capable of human errors, God protects them from committing sins. And God would not abandon his prophets in times of distress. For example, the Qur’an maintains that God interfered to save Jesus from torture and death by lifting him to heaven and replacing him on the cross with the traitor who is made to be looked like Jesus by God. Muslims believe that one day Jesus will return to lead them.

From its inception during the lifetime of Muhammad, Islamic doctrine gave priority to the preservation of Quran. As a result, one of the earliest expressions of religiosity focused on studying, reciting, and writing down the scripture. When Muhammad died, the preservation of the scripture was also a conscious concern among his companions and successors. Early historical sources refer to immediate efforts undertaken by successors of Muhammad to collect the chapters of the Qur’an in one copy. Muslims were interested in preserving Quran from distortion to protect it from getting the same end of Torah and Gospel.

the second source of authority in Islam is the  Hadith which provides the most extensive source for Islamic law. The understanding of the Qur’an sometimes depends upon the Hadith which is the context of Muhammad’s life, life and the ways in which he demonstrated and applied the message of Islam. There is evidence that Muhammad's sayings and practices were invoked by his companions to answer questions about Islam. But Hadith in contrast to Quran is not guaranteed to still exactly as it is since Hadith books are circulated as Muhammad's biography, commands, information and illustrations not as a holy book.

In general there are four sources from which Islamic law is derived. These are, in order of priority, the Qur’an, the Hadith, the consensus of the community (ijma), and legal analogy (qiyas). Functional only when there is no explicit ruling in the Qur’an or Hadith, consensus confers legitimacy retrospectively on historical practices of the Muslim community. In legal analogy, the causes for existing Islamic rulings are applied by analogy to similar cases for which there are no explicit statements in either the Qur’an or Hadith. Using these methods, Muslims specialists built a vast and diverse body of Islamic law which was laid out covering various aspects of personal and public life. This vast and diverse law guarantees a high degree of flexibility to match with any people anywhere at any conditions and at anytime.

In addition to the laws related to the five pillars, Islamic law covers areas such as dietary laws, purity laws, marriage and inheritance laws, commercial transaction laws, laws related to relationships with non-Muslims, and criminal law. Jews and Christians living under Muslim rule are subject to the public laws of Islam, but they are permitted to run their internal affairs on the basis of their own religious laws.

For several centuries intellectuals and cultural figures flourished in the vast, multinational Islamic world, and Islam became the most influential civilization in the world.

Islamic culture continued to develop as Islam spread into new regions and mixed with diverse cultures. The 19th-century occupation of most Muslim lands by European colonial powers was a main turning point in Muslim history. The traditional Islamic systems of governance, social organization, and education were undermined by the colonial regimes. Nation-states with independent governments divided the Muslim community along new ethnic and political lines.

Today about 1.4 billion Muslims are spread over dozens of Muslim countries and 5 continents, and their numbers are growing at a rate unmatched by that of any other religion in the world. Despite the political and ethnic diversity of Muslim countries, a core set of beliefs continues to provide the basis for a shared identity and loyalty among Muslims. Islam is a significant, growing, and dynamic presence in the world.

This article is collected from many sources. It is difficult to find a credited and reliable English source talking about Islam in an accurate way, so I did my best to bridge this gap. You should take care from unreliable sources which are written usually by non-Muslims. For any information about Islam you can ask me and I will try to help you.