Islam

What is Islam?

Islam is the faith of about 2.0 billion people, or 25.6 percent of the world's population in 2020, according to Pew Research Center.¹² The Arabic word islam means submission or surrender to God. The commentator al-Tabari (died 923), as Jane I. Smith describes him, distinguished two levels: outward submission, which makes a person part of the community, and complete surrender of body, mind, and heart.³

Muslims worship one God. Allah is the Arabic word for God; Muslim scholars have read it as God's proper name or as a contraction of al-ilah, "the God."⁴ Muslims hold that God revealed the Quran to Muhammad in Arabia between 610 and 632 CE.⁵ Most Muslims are Sunni, a minority are Shia, and a small branch, the Ibadis, lives mainly in Oman and parts of Africa.⁶⁷

What do Muslims believe?

Muslims share a conviction that there is only one God and that Muhammad is his prophet, Pew Research Center reports.⁸ A short chapter of the Quran puts the first belief this way: Say: He is Allah, the One! Allah, the eternally Besought of all! He begetteth not nor was begotten. And there is none comparable unto Him. (Quran 112:1-4)⁹

Pew lists other traditional articles of faith: God has sent many messengers, Muhammad the last of them, and has revealed scriptures, among them the Quran. Angels exist, though people cannot see them. A Day of Judgment will decide whether each person goes to heaven or hell, and God's will and knowledge are absolute.⁸

Shia Muslims add belief in the imams. They uphold the right of Muhammad's family to lead the community, beginning with his cousin and son-in-law, Ali.¹⁰ Twelver Shia Muslims, the largest Shia group, hold that when the eleventh imam died in 874 CE, his son, the twelfth imam, had been hidden. In the lesser occultation that followed, he spoke through four successive deputies; the greater occultation began in 941 and continues.¹⁰ The Mahdi, Twelvers hold, will return to establish justice.¹¹ The Beliefs page gives each branch's answers.

How did Islam begin?

Muslims hold that islam, surrender to God, was the faith of every prophet from Adam on, and that Muhammad brought its final form.¹² The tradition places Muhammad's career in Mecca and Medina, in western Arabia. Historians date Islam's beginning to the early seventh century CE, and some, such as Patricia Crone, question whether Mecca was its setting.¹³ The History page gives both accounts in full.

What is the Quran?

The Quran is Islam's scripture, which Muslims regard as the exact record of the revelations delivered to Muhammad between 610 and 632.⁵ Sunni hadith reports in al-Bukhari's collection tell how it was gathered into one copy under the first caliph, Abu Bakr, and how the third, Uthman, sent standard copies to every province.¹⁶¹⁷ The Twelver Shia scholar Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei argues that the Quran was already a complete collection in Muhammad's lifetime.¹⁸ He writes that the accepted view among Muslims, and the common view among Shia scholars, is that no alteration has occurred in it.¹⁹

The Hadith are a separate source of guidance. Sunni Muslims rely on six standard collections, compiled around the middle of the ninth century and led by those of al-Bukhari and Muslim. Twelver Shia Muslims rely on four collections of their own, led by al-Kulayni's al-Kafi, which also record the sayings of the imams.²⁰ In legal matters, the scholar Alan Jones writes, Ibadis give more weight to the Quran and less to the Hadith than other branches.⁷ The Sacred Texts page explains how both were handed down.

How do Muslims practice?

Sunni and Shia hadith reports list the five foundations of Islam differently. In a Sunni hadith collected by al-Bukhari, Muhammad names the testimony that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is his messenger, prayer, zakat, the hajj, and the Ramadan fast.²¹ In a Twelver Shia hadith in al-Kafi, reported from Abu Jafar, the list is prayer, zakat, fasting, hajj, and wilayah, the authority of the imams.²²

Zakat is required giving, for the poor and needy and other groups the Quran names.²³ In a Sunni ruling from Egypt's Dar al-Ifta, zakat on money is 2.5 percent, due once a person has held at least a minimum amount, the nisab, for a full lunar year.²⁴ The Ramadan fast lasts from first light until sunset. Friday is the day of communal prayer, held at noon.²⁵

Two feasts are kept across the Muslim world. Eid al-Fitr ends the Ramadan fast, and Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, falls during the pilgrimage month.²⁵ The calendar is lunar, 354 days long, so the feasts move through the seasons. Ashura is a recommended fast day for Sunni Muslims and a day of mourning for Shia Muslims, who recall the death of Ali's son Husayn at Karbala in 680.²⁶²⁵ The Practices page covers the Islamic year.

What are the main branches?

Sunni and Shia identities first formed soon after Muhammad's death in 632, in a dispute over who should lead the community.⁶ Sunnis hold that since Muhammad had not explicitly named a successor, his example called for the community to choose one.²⁷ The core of the early Muslims acclaimed his companion Abu Bakr, whom all Sunnis regard as the first caliph.²⁸ Shia Muslims hold that Muhammad appointed Ali as his successor at Ghadir Khumm, shortly before his death.¹⁰

Pew estimated in 2009 that 87 to 90 percent of Muslims are Sunni and 10 to 13 percent are Shia, ranges it calls approximate.⁶ Shia branches include the Twelvers, the Ismailis, and the Zaydis.⁶ The Ibadis, Jones writes, are one of the main branches of Islam, though few in number, living mainly in Oman, Zanzibar, and parts of North Africa. Jones traces their roots to the Kharijites of the First Civil War (656 to 661); modern Ibadis tend to play down that link, and even those who accept it reject being called Kharijites.⁷

Sufism, the mystical tradition of Islam, is not a branch. Sufis often belong to orders led by a master, or shaykh, and practice dhikr, the remembrance of God.²⁹ Pew notes that Sufi practices have a following among both Sunnis and Shias.⁶ The Branches page describes each branch.

How many Muslims are there?

Their number grew by 347 million from 2010 to 2020, more than all other religions combined.¹ A third of Muslims live in Indonesia, Pakistan, or India, and Indonesia has the most, roughly 240 million.² The Today page has more. For a side-by-side look, see Christianity vs Islam and the book Christianity vs Islam.