Islam
There are an estimated 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide. They live in every world region and belong to many different cultures and ethnic groups. The 10 countries with the largest Muslim populations, in descending order, are Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Nigeria, China, and Ethiopia. Of these, only Egypt is an Arab country, and despite the stereotypes, only 200 million of the world’s Muslims — about one in eight or the total — are Arabs. The internal consolidation of Islam in Arabia was, strange to say, brought about by its diffusion abroad. The holy war against the border countries which Mahomet had already inaugurated, was the best means for making the new religion popular among the Arabs, for opportunity was at the same time afforded for gaining rich booty. The movement was organized by Islam, but the masses were induced to join it by quite other than religious motives. Nor was this by any means the first occasion on which the Arabian cauldron had overflowed; once and again in former times emigrant swarms of Bedouins had settled on the borders of the wilderness.
Islam is a system of religious beliefs and an all-encompassing way of life. The word Islam comes from the word salaam, which means submission or peace. Muslims believe that God (Allah) revealed to the Prophet Muhammad the rules governing society and the proper conduct of society's members. It is incumbent on the individual therefore to live in a manner prescribed by the revealed law and on the community to build the perfect human society on earth according to holy injunctions. Islam recognizes no distinctions between church and state. The distinction between religious and secular law is a recent development that reflects the more pronounced role of the state in society, and Western economic and cultural penetration. The impact of religion on daily life in Muslim countries is far greater than that found in the West since the Middle Ages.
The duties of Muslims form the five pillars of Islam, which set forth the acts necessary to demonstrate and reinforce the faith. These are the recitation of the shahada ("There is no God but God [Allah], and Muhammad is his prophet"), daily prayer (salat), almsgiving (zakat), fasting (sawm), and pilgrimage (hajj).
The believer is to pray in a prescribed manner after purification through ritual ablutions each day at dawn, midday, midafternoon, sunset, and nightfall. Prescribed genuflections and prostrations accompany the prayers, which the worshiper recites facing toward Mecca. Whenever possible men pray in congregation at the mosque with an imam, and on Fridays make a special effort to do so. The Friday noon prayers provide the occasion for weekly sermons by religious leaders. Women may also attend public worship at the mosque, where they are segregated from the men, although most frequently women pray at home. A special functionary, the muezzin, intones a call to prayer to the entire community at the appropriate hour. Those out of earshot determine the time by the sun. The Azan (Arabic for announcement) is the call or summons to public prayers proclaimed by the Muezzmn (crier) from the mosque twice daily in all Muslim countries. In small mosques the Muezzin at Azan stands at the door or at the side of the building; in large ones he takes up his position in the minaret.
The ninth month of the Muslim calendar is Ramadan, a period of obligatory fasting in commemoration of Muhammad's receipt of God's revelation. Throughout the month all but the sick and weak, pregnant or lactating women, soldiers on duty, travelers on necessary journeys, and young children are enjoined from eating, drinking, smoking, or sexual intercourse during the daylight hours. Those adults excused are obliged to endure an equivalent fast at their earliest opportunity. A festive meal breaks the daily fast and inaugurates a night of feasting and celebration. The pious well-to-do usually do little or no work during this period, and some businesses close for all or part of the day. Since the months of the lunar year revolve through the solar year, Ramadan falls at various seasons in different years. A considerable test of discipline at any time of the year, a fast that falls in summertime imposes severe hardship on those who must do physical work.
All Muslims, at least once in their lifetime, should make the hajj to Mecca to participate in special rites held there during the twelfth month of the lunar calendar. Muhammad instituted this requirement, modifying pre-Islamic custom, to emphasize sites associated with God and Abraham (Ibrahim), founder of monotheism and father of the Arabs through his son Ismail.
The lesser pillars of the faith, which all Muslims share, are jihad, or the crusade to protect Islamic lands, beliefs, and institutions; and the requirement to do good works and to avoid all evil thoughts, words, and deeds. In addition, Muslims agree on certain basic principles of faith based on the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad: there is one God, who is a unitary divine being in contrast to the trinitarian belief of Christians; Muhammad, the last of a line of prophets beginning with Abraham and including Moses and Jesus, was chosen by God to present His message to humanity; and there is a general resurrection on the last or judgment day.
The Muslim year has two religious festivals--Id al Adha, a sacrificial festival on the tenth of Dhu al Hijjah, the twelfth month; and Id al Fitr, the festival of breaking the fast, which celebrates the end of Ramadan on the first of Shawwal, the tenth month. To Sunnis these are the most important festivals of the year. Each lasts three or four days, during which people put on their best clothes, visit, congratulate, and bestow gifts on each other. In addition, cemeteries are visited. Id al Fitr is celebrated more joyfully, as it marks the end of the hardships of Ramadan. Celebrations also take place, though less extensively, on the Prophet's birthday, which falls on the twelfth of Rabi al Awwal, the third month, and on the first of Muharram, the beginning of the new year.
Sharia
Sharia refers to the body of Islamic law. The term means "way" or "path"; it is the legal framework within which public and some private aspects of life are regulated. Sharia deals with many aspects of day-to-day life, including politics, economics, banking, business law, contract law, sexuality, and social issues. Some Islamic scholars accept Sharia as the body legal theory established before the 19th century, while other scholars view Sharia as a changing body.
During his lifetime, Muhammad held both spiritual and temporal leadership of the Muslim community. Religious and secular law merged, and all Muslims have traditionally been subject to sharia, or religious law. A comprehensive legal system, sharia developed gradually through the first four centuries of Islam, primarily through the accretion of precedent and interpretation by various judges and scholars. During the tenth century, legal opinion began to harden into authoritative rulings, and the figurative bab al ijtihad (gate of interpretation) closed. Thereafter, rather than encouraging flexibility, Islamic law emphasized maintenance of the status quo.
The word “Islam” means “submission.” A “Muslim,” therefore, is one who submits to the will of God. Shariah, frequently translated as “Islamic law,” is neither a document nor a code in the strict sense, but rather an amalgamation of scriptural (Quranic) injunctions, sayings of the Prophet Mohammed, juridical rulings, and legal commentaries dealing with all aspects of social, economic and political life, similar to Jewish Halakhic law.
Islam, like Judaism, is a religion of laws – it is the legal code, not a theology, which establishes the criteria of right and wrong, proper and improper behavior. Like Halakhah, Shari’a is believed to be ordained by God and its scope to be total, ranging from the loftiest ideals to the minutiae of daily life. Even the words Halakhah and Shariah, have similar meanings and may be translated as the “path” or “road” to righteousness.
Islam as a system which enframes, confines, sets limits to what is possible according to very clear lines of what is acceptable or non-acceptable, halal or haram, what is preferred for society and community, istihsan or istihbab.
In its ideal form, Shariah ensures the rights of all in an Islamic state. Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence; it forms the basis of Shariah and is a process of ongoing interpretation. Thus it is neither static nor monolithic, and may take different forms in different countries or from one period of history to another. A classic text on Shariah, by the fourteenth-century scholar, Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, deals with a wide range of subjects, including purity of heart, fasting, divorce, backbiting, crimes, and rules of warfare.
The types of punishment presented include: (1) fixed punishment (Al-Hudud); (2) retaliation (Qisas or Qawad); and (3) punishment seeking to prevent, respect, and reform (Taazir). The Sharia model is a decentralized process to safeguard society, combat crime, and promote justice. It takes a very comprehensive approach to solving the crime problem, it combats the immoral environment that facilitates crime, and seeks to control the individual criminals. The hudud can be characterized as the Islamic “penal code” prescribed by Shariah. The rules of hudud identify punishable crimes, the types of witnesses needed to convict someone of a crime, and the punishments for various crimes.
Islam has no basic concept of inalienable rights and does not permit the individual to enjoy the freedoms of action and association characteristic of a democracy. In Islamic states, where there is no formally recognized separation between religion and law, mosque and state, Shari‘a is enshrined and presented (if not always consistently implemented) as the final and ultimate formulation of the law of God, not to be revised or reformulated by mere mortal and fallible human beings. In Egypt, Algeria, and Palestine, the Shari‘a is virtually ignored as a guide to specific legislation or government policy on many vital issues. The remaining Muslim countries, which adopted Western-style legal and political systems under colonial tutelage, enshrine Islamic law in their codes and constitutions to various degrees. These nations range from Pakistan, with its intense political agitation over the interpretation and implementation of Shari‘a, to Indonesia, a self-proclaimed secular nation that is the home to more than 180 million Muslims.
Rather than charging interest, Islamic financial institutions typically share some of their borrowers’ risks and profits through Sharia compliant assets (SCAs). A bank’s profit from a ‘loan’ will vary with the borrower’s profits from the application of the loan to new business activity. Islamic finance also avoids speculation (e.g., reliance on the occurrence of events that may or may not take place), and investing in ventures that may have components that are not in line with the values of Islam (alcohol, gambling, drugs and tobacco). Still, although Islamic financial principles may differ from those of conventional banks, in practice many differences tend to be negligible, and Islamic financial products look a lot like conventional mortgages, leasing, and business lending. As only relatively few strictly legal precepts have been given in the Koran, and the sunna and Hadîths necessarily restrict themselves to topics relevant at the lifetime of the Prophet, new issues may be addressed by new laws œ provided they do not contradict the basic Islamic tenets. The fact that Islamic law finds its‘ roots in the immutable word ofGod, does not, in legal doctrine, hinder the enactment of modern laws through parliaments. In the late 19th century the Ottoman Empire, in an effort tomodernize its administration and economic exchanges, codified thesharia pertaining to civil law and commercial law, the so-called Medjelle. The codification oriented itself at western codes and transformed the compendia of fiqh islamique, which consisted in collections of case law.
Takfir -- the condemnation of a Muslim by another Muslim as a kafir (i.e., disbelievers outside the pale of Islam) -- is strictly prohibited in the Quran, the Hadith, and the writings of many eminent Muslim authorities. But fatwas of apostasy and heresy as well as kufr within the Muslim ummah are neither few nor far in between.
Al Qaeda leaders have repeatedly said that their goal is to reestablish the caliphate, or Islamic State, and rule it with a narrow, strict interpretation of Sharia. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan was an example of rule by an extreme interpretation of Sharia. Some of the restrictions they called for include stoning to death married adulterers, amputating hands of convicted thieves, and restricting dress, as well as educational and employment opportunities for women.
