Untitled Document
 Islam
is one of the oldest religions in human history. It was created
over 1,400 years ago in Mecca, Arabia. Mecca is the birth place of Muhammad,
the founder of the religion.
Muhammad is seen by Muslims as the messenger and prophet of God. Islam is
the world’s second largest religion after Christianity with over 1
billion followers. As a matter of fact, at least one out of every
6 people in the world is Muslim! However, we don’t
know much about the religion. This week, let’s learn all about Islam
and Muslims.
The word Islam means “submission to the will of God.” Followers of
Islam are called Muslims. Muslim means anyone or anything that submits itself to the will
of God. Muslims believe that there is only one God and they call him
“Allah.”
 Muslims
say that Allah has always existed and will always exist;
Allah knows everything that can be known; Allah can do anything
that can be done. But they believe
that Allah has no shape or form and can’t be seen or heard. The Islamic
concept of Allah is that
he is loving, merciful, and compassionate.
According to Muslims, Allah
sent a number of prophets including Jesus, Moses and
Abraham to mankind to teach them how
to live according to his law. Muslims believe that
the final prophet was Muhammad.
There are several different groups
of Muslims in the world. However, all of them regard their faith as a bond between them and as a major part of their identity. Today, there are
about 1.8 billion Muslims in the world and the number is growing every year. In fact, about 25,000 people
change their religions and become Muslims per year in the U.S. alone. Recently, American pop singer
Michael Jackson also converted to Islam.
 The Majority of Muslims do not
live in the Middle East. There are more
Muslims in India than the combined population of Syria, Iraq,
Jordan, Palestine and the whole of the Arabian Peninsula. The most
populous Muslim country is
Indonesia ? about 184 million Muslims live there. In Russia alone,
the Muslim population is over 50 million. Albania is the only European
country whose population is over 90% Muslim.
Muslims base their laws on their holy book the Koran. The
book has 30 parts. Some verses in the Koran refer to man being equal to woman. Mathematically, the number
of times the word “man” appears in the Koran is 24.
The number of times the word “woman” appears in the Koran is also
24! Milk is the best drink mentioned in the Koran, while honey is the best food
mentioned in the Koran. |
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