A BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF ISLAM

Islam is Arabic word which means “peace”. This is the most misunderstood religion by others and misinterpreted and misrepresented by the Muslims. Islam has three basic beliefs.

1. Tawheed (Oneness of God)

2. Prophethood

3. Day of Judgment

TAWHEED:

It means there is only One God who has no son, no daughter and no wife. We cannot resemble God into human being. So there is worship of only One True God. There is nobody equal to God.

If we think logically about the universe we would come to the conclusion that there is a super power or creator [God]. When there is the creator of this universe and of the human being, the human being should have some connection with the God. And God should guide the human being with his rules to make the life successful.

For example if a company makes some product (car, microwave, etc) they made a manual for it on how it functions and productivity. God created human being for a purpose and made the rules for the human being.

PROPHETHOOD:

As we have mentioned above, that created human being and made rules and regulations for human life, God does not talk directly with the human being and human being does not have ability to communicate directly to God. As the sensual organ of human being works only until certain capacity.

 If there is so much light, human eye cannot see the powerful light. If there is a powerful sound the human ears cannot get that sound, even the ears could stop working. So it is proven that human being has a limited capacity which cannot communicate directly to God.

So God appointed his chosen servants who get the message from God and deliver to the human beings. They are the role model for humanity and God give them miracles to prove their prophethood.

Prophet Adam is the father of humanity and first messenger of God. With the passage of time when humanity multiplied there where different messengers of God their names where written in the Bible and Quran. The prominent messengers of God are Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Prophet Muhammad.

According to the rule, usually prophets used to tell to the people who will be the next prophet and messenger of God, they introduce about the next prominent messenger. As Prophet Muhammad is the prominent messenger and the last messenger and head of all the prophets. The last book of God, the Quran, was revealed on Prophet Muhammad which contains rules and guidance for humanity until the Day of Judgment.

Islam says about the angels that angel brought the message of God on those prophets. Among those angels, Angel Gabriel is the most prominent angel who brought the message of God to Prophet Muhammad and other prophets and sometimes spoke directly with his prophets.

DAY OF JUDGMENT:

Believing in the Day of Judgment is the third belief in the belief system of Islam. Islam says that human being is created for a purpose, guidance and rules of God are sent down to human being and human being is being put to trials and test in this world.

Those people who proved themselves as a good believes, having righteous deeds they will get reward from God as heaven. Those people who did not believe in truly God’s commands and they performed bad deeds they will be punish in hell fire.

The logic says that there should be a logical end of this world, good people must be rewarded and bad people must be punished. We can see in this world those people who really did good deeds and work for humanity they must be rewarded with great reward. In this world maximum reward can be given to them with good accommodation, good car or beautiful wife.

We can see in this world even bad people enjoy all this facilities. For example: a person who invented the light and brightened the whole world the human logic says that there must be a system which can reward him completely of this good deed.

On the other hand we see there are really bad people who perform very bad deeds even cannot be punished in this world; their bad deeds sometimes cannot be proven in the court. They cannot be punished completely for their bad deeds. A person who killed thousands of people we can punish him with maximum of his death once. There should be a system which could punish all those bad people completely.

WHO IS PROPHET MUHAMMAD!

As we have mentioned on the beliefs in Islam that Prophet Muhammad is the last messenger of God. About Prophet Muhammad almost all the prophets told their nations about him. We can find these proofs in the Bible. As Prophet Solomon told about him, Prophet David told about him, Prophet Moses told about him and Prophet Jesus told about him in details because Prophet Muhammad was next to Jesus.

We want to quote here the verse from Old Testament that Prophet Moses talks about Prophet Muhammad.

“I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.”

 – Deuteronomy 18:18

In this verse Prophet Moses told to the Israelites that God will send a prophet from your brothers like me. We want to explain here if who are the brothers of Israelites, Prophet Ibrahim has 2 sons, Isaac and Ismael.

All Israelites belongs to the descendants of Isaac who lived in Jordan Palestine area. Descendants of Ismael lived in Mecca (Arab area). Prophet Muhammad is the descendants of Ismael. So we can say Israelites and the descendants of Ismael are brothers.

We also know that there are lots of Similarities between Prophet Moses and Prophet Muhammad mainly we can say here that Prophet Moses announced his prophethood at the age of 40 and came with the Sharia law (Torah), same thing with Prophet Muhammad he announced his prophethood at the age of 40 with the Sharia law (Quran).

Israelites can not show any other Prophet who was send down to them similar to Prophet Moses according to the above mentioned verse of the Bible.

PROPHET MUHAMMAD IN NEW TESTAMENT:

New King James Version (NKJV) John 16:7

Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the HELPER will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.

New King James Version (NKJV) John 16:12 -14

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify me, for He will take of what is mine and declare it to you.

We can see in the above verses in Bible that Jesus had last sapper with his decompiles. In his last address to his special decompiles Jesus mentioned about Prophet Mohammad.

In these verses Jesus (Peace Be upon Him) clearly mentioning about a personality who will come from God. He will not speak on his own, he will tell the people what guidance is given to him, he will tell the people about the righteousness and sin because he will be given the laws of God. And that person will glorify Jesus.

Our Christian fellows they have big misunderstanding about the Holy Spirit. They cannot explain it until now. In above verses Jesus is referring to Holy Spirit actually this is Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

We would like to mention here the verse of Quran about Prophet Muhammad that testifies about the words of Moses and Jesus.

“He does not speak out of his own desires. It is a revelations which has been revealed to him”

– Quran 53:3-4

There is so much misunderstanding about the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) for the non Muslim world. Prophet Muhammad who was the true picture of kindness and mercy; it is due to his miraculous personality and merciful teachings after his migration to Medina Islam spreaded out in whole Arab peninsula just in 9 years and there was no more idol worshipping.

Prophet Muhammad was born as an orphan, started his preaching at the age of 40 in Mecca where people used to worship idols. Prophet Muhammad told them about One True God, but in Mecca he faced so much challenges, hatred and problems. He spent his first 13 years of prophethood in Mecca by facing those conditions. Only few people believe on him. After the death of his uncle it was difficult for him to stay in Mecca so he migrated to another city, Medina.

There he found favorable atmosphere for his preaching, but still he faced lots of challenges and wars imposed on him to destruct his preaching and stop his message. But with all this challenges, he becomes the head of Arab peninsula in a very short time (9 years) and there was worship of one true God instead of idols. It is all due to his miraculous personality and God’s support to him.

We would like to mention some highlights about Prophet Muhammad. If we study his life we can see the lower class of society believed on him in first group and upper class of society opposed him. It is because he announced the equal rights of all human races. Prophet Muhammad(pbuh) practically gives the status to slave like Bilal. This teachings and examples set by him were unacceptable for that Arab society.

If we study the Prophet Muhammad’s life we can find the person named Zaid who was a slave of his wife, Khadija, he was brought up under the supervision of Prophet Muhammad. When the family of Zaid came to know that their child was kept slave in Mecca, they came in Mecca and requested the Prophet that they would like to take their son with them in exchange with the ransom of big amount of money. Prophet Muhammad allowed Zaid to go with his parents without any condition but Zaid refused to go with his parents and told them that because of the love and kindness which he got from the Prophet he cannot leave him.

We can see that Zaid lived his whole life as a loyal companion of Prophet Muhammad with him. We can also see the example that the Prophet used to belong in a very noble and upper class level family in Mecca. In Arab tradition still we can see the example of this upper class and lower class family system. Prophet Muhammad married his cousin Zainab with Zaid who came in Mecca as slave and did not have such royal family status but the Prophet set this example practically to tell the people that there is no upper class and lower class.

There are so many examples in Prophet’s life for his miracles and examples of kindness and mercy. We would like to mention here example from history. This history is proven to all Muslim and non-Muslim writers. The examples about different leaders can be made by their followers but the history cannot be made.

We know that Prophet Muhammad belongs to Mecca, he was expelled out of Mecca, and the wars were imposed on him by Meccan people. They try to harm and kill him and they also injured and killed his closest relatives including his loving uncle. But when the Prophet became powerful in Arab and went back to Mecca, Meccan people were not able to resist him; people were thinking that now the Prophet and his companion will take all the revenges from the Meccan people. But the Prophet set an example of kindness and mercy in human history. People thought that there would be bloodshed to Mecca according to that Arab tradition but the Prophet forgive all of them.

The history is witness that Prophet Mohammad delivered the historical charter of human rights at the victory of Mecca. Arab people could not think such words that there is no distinction between Arab and non Arab, there is no distinction between black and white, the only person who is most respectable the one who is pious among you.

Prophet Mohammad announced the rights of women in that society where women had no respect, Rights of women were not recognized in that society, Prophet Mohammad announces the rights of woman in inheritance of her father and husband.

It is amazing that in his time people were not used to give importance to education. Prophet Mohammad announced that seeking knowledge is obligatory for Muslim men and women.

We know well that there was no teacher for Prophet Mohammad; history cannot tell the name of anyone who taught anything to Prophet Mohammad. Prophet Mohammad was taught everything by the almighty God.

We would like to mention the book of Michael Hart who mentioned top 100 people who were most influential in the world. He mentioned the name of Prophet Mohammad at the top one who was the most influential person in the world.

We end our article with the beautiful saying of Prophet Mohammad. Someone asked Prophet Mohammad tell me the complete Islam. He got this answer by the Prophet.

“Islam is complete obedience of God (Allah) and being merciful on his creation.”