Aniconism in Islam Aniconism is the avoidance of images of sentient beings in some forms of Islamic art. Islamic aniconism stems in part from the prohibition of idolatry and in part from the belief that creation of living forms is God’s prerogative. Although the Quran does not explicitly prohibit visual...
Ali ibn Abi Talib Ali ibn Abi Talib (عَلِيّ ٱبْن أَبِي طَالِب, ʿAlī ibn ʾAbī Ṭālib; 13 September 601 – 29 January 661) was a cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, who ruled as the fourth caliph from 656 to 661. He is one of the central figures in Shia Islam and...
History of Islam The history of Islam concerns the political, social, economic and developments of the Islamic civilization. Islam originated in Mecca and Medina at the start of the 7th century, approximately 600 years after the founding of Christianity. Muslims, however, believe that it did not start with Muhammad, but that...
Ahl al-Hadith Ahl al-Ḥadith (أهل الحديث, The people of hadith) was an Islamic school of thought that first emerged during the 2nd/3rd Islamic centuries of the Islamic era (late 8th and 9th century CE) as a movement of hadith scholars who considered the Quran and authentic hadith to be the only authority...
Khawarij The Khawarij (الخوارج, al-Khawārij, singular خارجي, khāriji), Kharijites, or the ash-Shurah (الشراة, ash-Shurāh “the Exchangers”) were a sect that appeared in the first century of Islam during the First Fitna, the crisis of leadership after the death of Muhammad. It broke into revolt against the authority of the Caliph Ali after he agreed to arbitration...
Muʿtazila Muʿtazila (المعتزلة al-muʿtazilah) is a rationalist school of Islamic theology that flourished in the cities of Basra and Baghdad, both now in Iraq, during the 8th to the 10th centuries. The adherents of the Muʿtazili school, known as Muʿtazilites, are best known for rejecting the doctrine of the Qur’an as uncreated and co-eternal with...
Worshipping and Praying within Sight of our Children There should be a place and time for performing our prayers at home. We should either perform our prayers at home in congregation, if possible, or we should take our children to the mosque, holding their hands on the way. The latter...
Shahada The Shahada (الشهادة aš-šahādah,”the testimony”) is an Islamic creed, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, declaring belief in the oneness of God (tawhid) and the acceptance of Muhammad as God’s prophet. The declaration, in its shortest form, reads (right to left in Arabic): لَا إِلٰهَ إِلَّا ٱلله مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ ٱلله lā ʾilāha ʾillā llāh muḥammadun rasūlu llāh...
Madhhab A madhhab ( مذهب maḏhab, “way to act”; pl. مذاهب maḏāhib) is a school of thought within fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). The major Sunni madhhabs are Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i and Hanbali. They emerged in the ninth and tenth centuries CE and by the twelfth century almost all jurists aligned themselves with a particular madhhab. These four schools recognize...
Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) Fiqh (فقه) is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is often described as the human understanding of the sharia, that is human understanding of the divine Islamic law as revealed in the Quran and the Sunnah (the teachings and practices of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and His companions). Fiqh expands and develops Shariah through interpretation (ijtihad) of the Quran and Sunnah by...
Islamic Culture Islamic culture and Muslim culture refer to cultural practices common to historically Islamic people. The early forms of Muslim culture, from the Rashidun Caliphate to early Umayyad period and early Abbasid period, were predominantly Arab, Byzantine, Persian and Levantine. With the rapid expansion of the Islamic empires, Muslim culture has...
Muslims Muslims are people who follow or practice Islam, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion. Muslims consider the Quran, their holy book, to be the verbatim word of God as revealed to the Islamic prophet and messenger Muhammad. The majority of Muslims also follow the teachings and practices of Muhammad (sunnah) as recorded in traditional accounts (hadith). The derivation...
Islamic Holy Books Islamic Holy Books are the texts which Muslims believe were authored by God through various prophets throughout humanity’s history. All these books, in Muslim belief, promulgated the code and laws that God ordained for those people. Muslims believe the Quran to be the final revelation of God to mankind, and a...
Islamic Dietary Laws Islamic jurisprudence specifies which foods are halāl (حَلَال “lawful”) and which are harām (حَرَامْ “unlawful”). This is derived from commandments found in the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, as well as the Hadith and Sunnah, libraries cataloging things the Islamic prophet Muhammad is reported to have said and done. Extensions of these rulings are issued, as fatwas, by mujtahids, with varying...
Haram Haram (حَرَام , ḥarām) is an Arabic term meaning forbidden. This may refer to: either something sacred to which access is forbidden to the people who are not in a state of purity or who are not initiated into the sacred knowledge; or to an evil thus “sinful action that...
Halal Halal (حلال, ḥalāl; also spelled halaal) is an Arabic word that translates to “permissible or lawful” into English. In the Quran, the word halal is contrasted with haram (forbidden). This binary opposition was elaborated into a more complex classification known as “the five decisions”: mandatory, recommended, neutral, reprehensible and forbidden. Islamic jurists disagree on whether...
Mosque A mosque (مَسْجِد, masjid, literally “place of ritual prostration”) is a place of worship for Muslims. Any act of worship that follows the Islamic rules of prayer can be said to create a mosque, whether or not it takes place in a special building. Informal and open-air places of worship are called musalla, while mosques used for...
The Kaaba The Kaaba (كَعْبَة kaʿbah, “Cube”), also referred to as al-Kaʿbah al-Musharrafah (ٱلْكَعْبَة ٱلْمُشَرَّفَة, lit. ‘Honorable Ka’bah’), also spelled Ka’bah, is a building at the center of Islam‘s most important mosque, Great Mosque of Mecca (ٱلْمَسْجِد ٱلْحَرَام, lit. ‘The Sacred Mosque’), in the Hejazi city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is the most sacred site in Islam. It is considered by Muslims to be the Bayt Allāh (بَيْت ٱللَّٰه, “House of God”). Its...
Farewell Sermon The Farewell Sermon (خطبة الوداع, Khuṭbatu l-Wadāʿ), also known as Muhammad’s Final Sermon or the Last Sermon, is a religious speech, believed by Muslims to have been delivered by the Islamic prophet Muhammad on Friday the 9th of Dhu al-Hijjah, 10 AH (6 March 632) in the Uranah valley of Mount Arafat, during the Islamic pilgrimage of Hajj. Muhammad al-Bukhari refers to the sermon...
Event of Mubahala According to Islamic sources, The Event of Mubahala was a meeting between the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a Christian delegation from Najran (present-day Saudi Arabia), in the month of Dhu’l-Hijja, 10 AH (October 631, October 631-2, October 632-3), where Muhammad invoked a curse attempting to reveal who was lying about...
![Countries in which apostasy or blasphemy against the local or state religion was punishable by execution under the law as of 2013. Currently, this occurs only in some Muslim-majority countries and Muslim-majority states in Northern Nigeria.[1][2][3][4]](https://slife.org/wp-content/uploads/Map_of_countries_with_death_penalty_for_atheists.svg_-80x80.png)
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