What is Islam

What’s Islam ?

What’s Islam? That is a question many people are asking today, and really Islam is the topic of many discussions yet very often people don’t really have the essence of the meaning even Muslims themselves are not really sure how to translate it. The word Islam is the only word not translated from the Quran when they bring it to the English language. And there is a reason for that when we go to the Arabic dictionary, we find that it takes a series of words to represent the concept of what “aslama” means. ASLAMA is the verb for the noun Islam. It carries a meaning of surrender, submission, obedience, sincerity and peace. We understand about surrender to give in, submit to go along with something. To obey the commandments and to be sincere and we can stop right there for a moment and think about it. If it requires sincerity then there is no possible way that you would be forced on anyway. Because if anyone was forced to do anything, then it would no longer be sincerity, Thus we realize the concept of Islam being spread by the sword or any type of force is impossible, because Islam requires sincerity. Finally the word peace, this is the peace that a person has in their heart, after they have done the other four. Meaning that they have surrendered, submitted in obedience and sincerity and now they are going to be in peace in whatever transpires or comes out of it.


 There is another word related to it, “Muslim” for you and I we might not think the word Muslim would be read Islam, but that is because you use in Arabic prefix “MU” before a verb to denote the one performing the action where as in English we use “er” the letters E R as a suffix in the end of the word to represent the one who does the action, like walk walk-er, talk talk-er, think think-er, and then in Arabic you put the “MU” ahead of it, adhan Mu’adhan one who calls the prayer. Salli, Musalli the one who prays. Safar, musaafir the one who travels. This helps us to understand that word Islam. But what does Islam imply? We talked about the meaning the etymology of the word, but what does it really imply? And what is it about? What does Islam have to do with Allah? Is Allah “God”? Is there a purpose behind all of this? Who is this God? Who is the ILLAH? And in fact in Islam the most important subject is Allah. Allah does not exactly translate into the word God and that is because the word God in English only has one form “God” where as in Arabic the word “Allah” comes from illah, and illah is anything worshipped, anything can be a God, a rock, a stick, a stone, a bone, things made with the hand, things that you can put out on a shelf or carry along with you and worship, could be the stars, the moon, the universe, whatever a person worships that is there “illah” even their position in life, who they are, their degrees, their job, their wealth, their position as a human being, all of these things are illaha “gods”. But in English  you don’t have a proper noun for the one in only God, so what they do is take the word god and make a big G out of it and say this is the proper noun, where as in Arabic, you can take illah and then you have Allah and it doesn’t just mean the God because that would be al illah, but Allah is the actual name of the one and only God and you don’t have to worry about capital letters in Arabic, because there aren’t any, you can hear it clearly ALLAH, the one and only to be worshipped. Now is this the God of the Arabs. As Muslims, YES. What about Arab Christians? Did you know there are Arab Christians, Arab Jews? They use the exact same word, in fact in the Arabic Bible, which by the way is much older than the English bible you find the word Allah on page one of genesis 17 TIMES, that is right. And in the new testament you will find it very easily in almost every hotel or motel you go to because when you pull open the little drawer by the bed, you will notice that there is a book in there the bible, you turn a few pages and you see examples of the translations of bible into different languages. And the second language is Arabic and the phrase is taken from john 3:16 “For God so loved the world …”
and the word for God there is used is ALLAH. Now what about the belief in Mohammad ,is that something that is similar to Christianity or Judaism? Well for Christians who believe in Abraham as Jews believe in Abraham as being the first or the progenitor of this monotheistic belief, the belief in one God then the answer would be yes, because this is what Mohammad taught, in fact many people don’t know this but Mohammad he is a direct descendent from Abraham, yes by the way of his son Ismail. So Ismail is well known to be the father of the many Arabs today and it is from him through Abraham Ismail that we find others who come all the way down to Mohammad. What about the other prophets that came by way of Isaac, from the other branch of Abraham? Well we know Moses, don’t we? And David and Solomon and of course Jesus and we say peace be upon them all, this is very important for Muslims to always say that peace be upon them. What was it that Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Jesus has in common with Mohammad is the message that they brought to their people, Abraham taught the people to worship God directly and not be involved in false worship or pagan worship. 10 commandments we find immediately the very first commandment is that you shall not have any other worship except for the one God. Thou shall not have any other Gods beside me is the way God ordered to Moses to write it down, isn’t it? And David with his psalms and Solomon of course they were on the exact same thinking, their belief were just not similar they were identical. And then Jesus peace be upon him, many people would tell you that Jesus said this or he said that but when we look to the bible you know what we find, we find that it wasn’t the quotes from Jesus in the Gospel are so identical to prophets before, you can’t help but notice it. For instance in Mathew 5:17, when Jesus says, “Think not that I came to destroy the law, or the prophets, I came not to destroy but to fulfill.” And not until all things are accomplished shall a single dot or jot or iota being any wise lessoned. So we see right away that he was saying I am holding up there Torah, the law from before. Then when we look further into the book of Mark we see what is the greatest of all commandments. That is in 12:29. The book of Mark and look what it says when somebody is asking him what is the greatest commandment? According to English translation I have it says that Jesus responded it is know “O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And you have to love him with all your heart and your mind and your strength. So, obviously we know now that this message was very important. Worshipping God alone without any partners. And that is exactly what Mohammad was trying to do with his people at his time in Mecca. Because they had strayed far away from their great ancestor Abraham. They still performed some of the rituals, but without the proper belief. They still made a circumambulation around the very place that Abraham had build along with his son Ismail. Or Ishmael in English. And do you know and this is amazing thing, think about it, these people were actually thinking they were doing exactly the same as their ancestors, but their ancestors had strayed so far away that all they had was the physical representation without any of the proper beliefs not in their worship and certainly not the way they treated each other. These people had become alcoholics,  they had become womanizers, they had become very bad in their business. They were bad we will leave it at that, because we want to come to something next, you know our subject what’s Islam? What about this book called the Quran? What is that all about? In the very beginning of the Quran itself it demands that the believers who believe in the Quran must also believe in the Quran must also believe in the previous revelations, to believe what is sent to Mohammad and what was sent before and then the Quran goes on to tell us about the Torah , the Zaboor and the Injeel, Torah is the law or the Old testament, the Zaboor is this is the psalms you know about the psalms and the Injeel, this means the Gospel, the new testament. So whoever would not believe that God was the originator of those and that God is the one who sent those down, if they wouldn’t believe that their belief in the Quran by itself is not enough, because the Quran says that to believe in what was sent down before, and what does Quran exactly mean? In simple English. Well it doesn’t mean book, the word bible literally means book “biblios” from Greek but the word Quran is Arabic and it means recitation that which is being recited and that is how the Quran comes to us today, because did you know the prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him), He used to recite it just as he heard it, he heard it from the angel Gabriel (peace be upon him), the way that it was to be recited to him and that he used to pass it on, now I am going to take a little break here and we are going to come right back and pick up where we left off talking about these books, stay right there we will be right back.
What’s Islam? Again we come back to the very same question. What does all of this have to do with Islam? Well we talked about what the word meant and then we talked about what the word Muslim meant, We talked about the word Allah, we found that Allah meant the name of the only God to worship, we talked about the prophets of almighty God and we even talked about their messages. Teaching people to worship only one God. We got into the subjects of the book; we mentioned Torah,  Zaboor, Injil and Quran. All of these came from the same God Allah. And all of these carried the same message that your worship is more than just your belief, you have to put it into practice. But why is all of this together? What are we talking about here? Well this is to help us solve a bigger problem. The Purpose Of Life. A human being regardless of who they are or where they are or what they do, will have this curiosity that want to know why am I here? How did I get here? And do I have a purpose if so then what is it? The only one who would really be able to answer that question would be the creator himself, if there is a creator it would be up to him to tell us why we were created? And what expects from us? And what this life is really about? Allah has shown the people from the time of Adam (peace be upon him) until right now has shown the people what he wants from them and it is a very simple thing. And that is that worship be for him alone without any partners.
 In fact we know this life to be a test from almighty God. That is why we are born and that is why we die, because there has to be a beginning and an end for us to be tested ever die again. A bad person or a good person both are brought back and they continue to live in the next life either in good shape or in not so good shape depending on how they did on the test. So we are going to be talking about test based on worship. The worship of the God of Abraham that was what was taught by these prophets and that the person who is doing this is a servant, it mean? Surrender, submission, obedience, sincerity, peace, that is definitely a servant, one who really worships. Now along the way we find that they are going to be some test based on what is called rights and limits. There are rights. God has the first right of all. The right to be worshipped alone without any partners. The rights of the prophets to be obeyed by their followers. But then there are limits that none should trans-agrees just as you have rights, I have rights, women have rights, children have rights, but nobodies rights would exceed the rights of other to the extent that it would infringe or oppress others. And a very important part of Islam is to know that no one can go beyond their limits, their limits they must stay within otherwise they are an oppressor and look at what Allah had said about that, he tells us that he forbids himself to ever oppress and he forbids us to oppress. So whoever is an oppressor is a bad guy a very bad word in Arabic language, he is one who does “dhulm” or oppression. Now let us think for a minute, we are talking about the one God, The creator. This is the same creator the one that we know of from the bible that in six days he created all the heavens and the earth and this is recorded and the old the new testament very well known to Jews and Christians. Similar for the Muslims except there is an exception he says that he is the one who created the heavens and earth “fi sittati ayyam” which means in six days, but he didn’t rest on the seventh day, in fact there is no mention of a seventh day he just said he rose above his throne and there he positioned himself until this very day and will remain there. Now what about Adam and Eve? Is there some body named Adam in the bible? Yes, did you know that it is the exact pronunciation of the very first person according to Arabic language, his name is also Adam, his wife “Hawa” or Eve as we call her in English language and they were both in paradise and they had one simple test, their test was enjoy whatever you like in the paradise, enjoy as you like, drink what you like, eat what you like except one don’t eat from this tree, one particular tree, don’t eat from this tree. So now that became their test. Now as we know from the bible the old and new testament and of course in the Quran the same, Adam and Eve were in the paradise and they were told don’t eat from this tree then who came along? Maybe you call him the devil or Lucifer, shaitan, satan a demon or in Arabic a jinn, there is difference here through for the Muslims, because this guy is not a fallen angel, no because angel are made from light and they always obey. In this case he was from the people that were made before humans, they were made from something called a smokeless fire, you don’t see them but they see you and they exist today. They are called jinn. Our word “genie” like the genie in the bottle is coming from this Arabic word. You don’t really see them but they are there. Now the angels always obey but the jinn had the very first of all to do as they chose, because they have free choice. Jinn have free choice, but angels don’t. now when God created Adam, God said this is my best creation I ordered the angels to bow down, the angels bowed down but the jinn didn’t because he didn’t have to bow, he didn’t want to, he could choose to disobey and that is exactly what he did. He disobeyed God and that is what put him in the bad way because of his pride and arrogance, he refused to bow down and that became his problem. And he then wants to challenge all human beings and try to tempt them to go his way to disobey God. If they come to that, if they go for that, then they wound up in hell with him because that is his last and final destination. So now we have a little bit idea behind the temptation of the devil and what he is all about? So goes to Adam and Eve and tempts them to eat from the tree, they both ate according to the bible, according to the Quran, they both ate. But in the Quran it is a little different, because we know that they both repented and nobody is blaming one or the other. There is no guilt being thrown on the woman extra than the man. Adam did what he did, Eve did what she did. But the man does not blame her nor does she have a curse on her or her descendants so the women are not guilty by the fact that Eve did anything, nor are the children born in guilt, that means babies are not born in an original sin, they are born innocent. Innocent as a newborn baby. So what is the purpose of life? If again it is a test. What is the worldly life? According to Islam the devil tempts us. Let’s take a look at the oldest of the books in the bible according to some of the scholars, it is the book of “Job”? we find Job is also in the Quran in Arabic, his name is Ayyub, whether you are a Jew, Christian or a Muslim, if you speak Arabic you will call Job Ayyub, now he lost his wealth, he lost his family, he had very serious trials and tribulations, now I want you to think about it. What did he do? He was tempted, he was tempted very much just curse God and die that is what the bible says. Somebody told him just curse God and die, you give up, but he was patient and he preserved. In fact we use the impression today the patience of Ayyub and so he had that patience, we find that in Islam as well. It is a lesson to teach us he is a great prophet and he was so patient, and what did he do? Preserved and as a result he came out much better in this life and the next life, the same is for you and I. if we will be patient , very good, example, let’s take another example from the prophets, you have a book of Jonah in the bible in the Old testament. Jonah is also in the Quran, his name in Arabic is Yunus. Now what about blaming, this is a good example about blaming other people, of course we had the example of Adam an Eve. They could have blamed each other , they could have blamed the devil, but they didn’t, they accepted they were wrong and they repented but what about Jonah “Yunus” ? he left his position in Nineveh in Iraq, he went out to the sea in a boat. The storm came up, they threw him over board , he went into a whale and he went into the bottom of the sea. Now according to the bible he stayed there for a period of time three days and three nights and he came out but it doesn’t tell us the lesson, the real lesson comes when we read the Quran, we find that he would have stayed in that well until the day of judgment, had he not repented and blamed himself instead of anyone else. Because he had been blaming people where he lived because they wouldn’t accept the message of worshipping one God. So that is why he left. But now he realized that it was his own mistake and look what he said in the Arabic language. “ La illaha illa ant subhaanaka ini kuntu min adhalimin.” There is no God worthy of worship except you Allah. The glory and majesty is to you and for sure I did the “dhulm” wrongdoing oppression to myself, I went beyond the limits and I am wrong and I repent to that I am sorry in other words. So look at that another good lesson. Let’s come to some of the other prophets in fact I want to go immediately to Jesus right now. Jesus as according to the Quran, he is the messih or the mwssiah, he is the chosen, he is the Christ or Christos , if we know the greek he was Christos, which become Christ. He is the “logos” the word, he is the virgin birth , the immaculate conception. He curved sick healed the lame even gave sight to the blind. And even brought a dead man back to life. This is in the Quran. And it tells us he did all of this by the permission of Allah to show the people that he was in fact the very one that they have been looking for, he was the messiah and he was the chosen, he was the Christ to them. Why didn’t they accept him? And many of them rejected him. And only a few really followed him, but he was according to the Quran the very person they should have been watching for. Now where is Jesus now according to Islam he is with God, God pulled him up and he is with God now. And he is coming back in the last day, how? Alive. He left the earth alive. He is with God alive and he will return alive. Similar to the way that Jonah went in to the whale alive stayed in the whale for a while alive and came out alive. That is one of the signs that we know by . now let’s come to the next prophet, prophet Mohammad. We know that Jesus is coming back in the last day, but let’s talk about the last messenger after Jesus, there is another final messenger who came from the other branch of the Abrahamic faith the last of the ones from the Isaac is Jesus and the last from Ismael is Mohammad. And what did he teach us? He was first of all a normal man with a normal birth, lived and died. He had excellent character, no bad habits. He was not drinker and he wasn’t a “stinker” and you know what I mean. And the time when those people all had these horrible habits. He did not have any of that so much,  so they called him things like The truthful one, the honest one, the one the kept a trust, he had many beautiful nicknames that they give him because he was so “Odd ball” to them what we say square, he was so odd to them because he didn’t pre-take of their mischief and madness. So the worship of the God of Abraham is exactly what we were being told to do by mohammad , the sam message that came with the other prophets. Worship the God of Abraham one God with no partners, and to believe in all of these messengers and believe in the books which they were sent and especially you have to believe that Jesus is virgin birth did the miracles of God and carried the same message. The message of there is no God to worship except the God of Abraham and Jesus will return to the earth and he will bring peace when he comes. He also warned us about Gog and Magog and mentioned they be in the very last days in the world watch out for that also that the antichrist in fact several imposters would come claiming to be jesus or the Christ back on the earth, but don’t buy it to the very end of life. That devil is not going to give up. He thinks he is goddess and he will keep trying so we have to keep working and doing what believing in one God , doing righteous deeds,  and repenting when we make mistakes. That is it, there is a couple other little things I could mention and that is since those days 1400 years ago till now , we have been surprised to find out how many scientific proofs there are. By taking what is being taught in the Quran and the teachings of Mohammad , many of the things that could not be explained at that time are clearly now. Science proves that the Quran could only have been from the creator of heavens and earth, the proofs about the universe itself and how it works and how the earth is turning and how it is round, proofs about the human beings how they are conceived inside of the mother and how they 50 to 60 years are mentioned in Quran . And I would like to also mention there are 6 beliefs, which Muslims have to have, belief in God , his angels , his books , his prophets , the day of resurrection and the destiny of almighty God. And five actions must be there ar it is not complete. To bear witness to your belief in the God and the prophet Mohammad, to perform the worship or salah five times a day, fast the month of Ramadan, Pay the charite or poor due and to perform the pilgrimage or Hajj. That sums up what’s Isalm .. for more visit our website:  www.whatsislam.com