The Religious Tradition of Islam

THE RISE OF ISLAM AND CALIPHATES HIST 1301 | History The Religious Tradition of Islam In the early seventh century, while the Byzantine-Sasanian battle raged, western Arabia emerged as a major player in the formation of a new global religion that was heavily shaped by the landscape, populace, and customs of the late antique Middle East. Islam, which means "submission [to the one God]," was that faith. Islam is a monotheistic religion that has many characteristics in common with Judaism and Christianity, but it also has many characteristics that are specific to Arabia and that helped elevate the culture and customs of the Arabian Peninsula. It might be difficult to comprehend the early years of Islam. A significant portion of our knowledge of the first Muslim community originates from sources inside the community, many of which omit crucial data because they presume the reader is already a believer. We also have less historical material outside of religious texts to aid in our reconstruction because many people were illiterate during this period and did not write down their history as it happened. Although the Arabs put a high value on preserving the history of the region and its people, they mostly did it by oral recitation and memorization. Memory aids, like poetry, were especially useful in helping to retain knowledge as it was passed down through the generations. For the benefit of future generations, oral traditions' living "performances" of historical events were deemed more significant than written history. Although other modern cultures had been concentrating on writing for millennia before to the seventh century, the Arab dedication to oral transmission during this time was not unique. Similar oral traditions were used to pass down the history of early Judaism before it was written down much later. Historians likewise have difficulties when attempting to piece together the beginnings of Christianity in the absence of extensive contemporaneous writing. Epic poetry has also historically been used to memorialise, memorise, and transmit historical events. This is seen in the Mediterranean region, where works attributed to the Greek poet Homer, like The Iliad and The Odyssey, have been preserved, and in ancient India, where the Mahabharata is one example. The city of Mecca, the worship of Allah, the one true God, and the prophets' guidance were fundamental to the establishment of Islam. Even among Muslims today, Allah is only the Arabic term for "the one God," not a divinity distinct from the gods of Judaism and Christianity. In reality, in their own worship, Christians who are Middle Easterners and speak Arabic refer to the God of the Christian Bible as "Allah." The first and most significant of the "Five Pillars of Islam," sometimes referred to as the shahada, or statement of faith, is belief in the one God and the teachings of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Adherents of Islam must acknowledge the creed that states, "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of God," in order to accept the faith. Muslims believe that Muhammad was the last prophet in a lengthy line of prophets—including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus— with whom the one God had spoken throughout history. Muhammad is not, and has never been, regarded as a god or as a relative of God. Instead, he was a man chosen by God. Numerous additional tenets of Islam, such regular prayer, almsgiving, and fasting, are also shared by many other global religions. These rituals include praying every day with one's back to the holy mosque in Mecca; giving alms, or donating money and goods to the community and those in need; fasting during the holy month of Ramadan, when Muhammad received the first revelations from the Quran; and taking part in the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, at least once if one is able, to relive significant events in the life of Abraham and his family upon their arrival in Arabia and to circumambulate the house of God, the Kaaba, in prayer. Throughout history, Muslims have held the view that Islam and its sacred texts are not a brand-new religion that emerged in the seventh century. Rather, the religion that Muhammad introduced to the Arabs in the early sixth century was only an improvement over the other monotheistic faiths. The majority of Muslims believe that Islam is identical to Judaism and Christianity, that is, that all three religions recognise divine intervention in human affairs via the prophets' guidance and worship the same deity. Muslims acknowledge that the sacred texts of Christianity and Judaism were revealed to mankind by God and then became tainted throughout time. Islam consequently saw itself as intimately related to both of these faiths and a purer version of both. The prophet Abraham, whom the three claim as an ancestor, serves as the conduit for their common history and ancestry. For this reason, a lot of contemporary theologians refer to Islam, Christianity, and Judaism as the Abrahamic faiths. Islam was formed in the seventh century, but despite the impact of other monotheistic faiths in the area, the religion has many characteristics that make it distinctively Arab or Arabian. Of course, the location comes first. Even if the contemporary land The stories of Judaism and Christianity revolved around Israel and Palestine; the Hijaz, or western Arabia, is where most of the tale of Islam's emergence as a separate religion can be found. This area has its holiest places, and its founder lived there nearly all of his life. Arabic, the native tongue of the area, is closely associated with the faith, particularly in its most sacred texts and cultural elements like the persistence of Arabic poetry as a historical record. For the majority of the first century of the faith, it was nearly impossible to convert to Islam unless one was first accepted as a member of an Arab tribe. This social hierarchy was one of the features of preIslamic Arabian society that also shaped the first few decades of the religion and the states it inspired. This was how conversion was linked to the ancient Arab practices, which demanded that a convert accept the cultural customs and symbols of the Arabian tribal community but did not specify the convert's origin or lineage. Embracing these characteristics was probably a requirement for being considered one of the "chosen" people for these early believers in the faith, who probably believed that the one God had selected the western Arabian peoples and their customs for particular attention. Perhaps the most significant factor, though, was the Muslims' faith in the teachings and guidance of the man whom God selected as his last prophet—an Arab from the western Arabian Hijaz who lived in the early seventh century.