Divisions Of The World In Islam The notions of “houses” or divisions of the world in Islam such as Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb does not appear in the Quran or the Hadith. According to Abou El Fadl, the only dar the Qur’an speaks of are “the abode of the Hereafter and the abode of the...
Adab (Islam) Adab (أدب) in the context of behavior, refers to prescribed Islamic etiquette: “refinement, good manners, morals, decorum, decency, humaneness”. While interpretation of the scope and particulars of Adab may vary among different cultures, common among these interpretations is regard for personal standing through the observation of certain codes of...
What is Dawah? Da‘wah or Dawah (also daawa, daawah or dakwah ; دعوة “invitation”) is the invitation to Islam. Etymology Da‘wah literally means “issuing a summons” or “making an invitation”. Grammatically, the word represents a gerund of a verb with the triconsonantal root d-ʕ-w دعو meaning variously “to summon” or “to invite”. A Muslim who practices da‘wah, either as a religious worker or in a...
Christian Influences In Islam Christian influences in Islam could be traced back to Eastern Christianity, which surrounded the origins of Islam. Islam, emerging in the context of the Middle East that was largely Christian, was first seen as a Christological heresy known as the “heresy of the Ishmaelites”, described as such in Concerning...
Islam And Other Religions This article covers the relationship between Islam and other religions. Over the centuries of Islamic history, Muslim rulers, Islamic scholars, and ordinary Muslims have held many different attitudes towards other religions. Attitudes have varied according to time, place and circumstance. Non-Muslims and Islam The Qur’an distinguishes between the monotheistic People...
Islam And Humanity This article covers the relationship between Islam and Humanity. Islamic teachings on humanity and human welfare have been codified in its central religious book known as the Quran, which the Muslims believe was revealed by God for the mankind. These teachings have often been exemplified by Islamic prophet Muhammad as displayed in his sayings and practices. To the Muslims, Islam...
Islamic Golden Age The Islamic Golden Age was a period of cultural, economic and scientific flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th to the 14th century. This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (786 to 809) with the inauguration...
Consultation And Submission This article covers the relationship between consultation and submission. Question: When a consultation committee makes a decision but the decision seems to contradict some of the participants’ minds and opinions, then what would be the best attitude for them to take moving forward? Submission – to use the...
Ahl al-Bayt Ahl al-Bayt (أَهْلُ ٱلْبَيْتِ, اهلِ بیت) is a phrase meaning “People of the House” , “People of the Household” or “Family of the House“. Within the Islamic tradition, the term mainly refers to the family of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and to a lesser extent (according to Muslims), his...
Islamic Economics Islamic economics (الاقتصاد الإسلامي) is a term used to refer to Islamic commercial jurisprudence (فقه المعاملات, fiqh al-mu’āmalāt), and also to an ideology of economics based on the teachings of Islam that takes a middle ground between the systems of Marxism and capitalism. Islamic commercial jurisprudence entails the rules of transacting finance or other economic...
Islamic Democracy There exist a number of perspectives on the relationship of Islam and democracy among Islamic political theorists, the general Muslim public, and Western authors. Some modern Islamic thinkers, whose ideas were particularly popular in the 1970s and 1980s, rejected the notion of democracy as a foreign idea incompatible with Islam....
Political Aspects Of Islam Political aspects of Islam are derived from the Qur’an, the Sunnah (the sayings and living habits of Muhammad), Muslim history, and elements of political movements outside Islam. Traditional political concepts in Islam include leadership by elected or selected successors to the Prophet known as Caliphs, (Imamate for Shia); the importance of following Islamic law or Sharia; the...
Tadabbur Tadabbur (contemplation) is an Arabic word which means -To ponder, reflect and think. Linguistic meaning Literally (Tadabbur), it means to look into the consequence or the end result of the matters, e. g. if we did that what would happen to us. Islamic meaning Tadabbur, means pondering over the...
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...
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...
Morality In Islam Morality in Islam encompasses the concept of righteousness, good character, and the body of moral qualities and virtues prescribed in Islamic religious texts. The principle and fundamental purpose of Islamic morality is love: love for God and love for God’s creatures. The religious conception is that mankind will behave morally and treat each other in...
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...
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 Dietary Laws This article covers 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...
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...