The religion of Islam was founded about a millennium and a half ago by Muhammad (c570-632), a man who was born and spent most of his life in or near the Arabic city of Mecca[86].
According to Muslim teachings, around the year 610, Muhammad was contacted by God through the Angel (he later found out to be) Gabriel[87], and given God’s revelations to mankind—revelations that continued throughout his life at a relatively steady rate over that twenty three year span. Early on, he identified these revelations as being based on those given to prophets of the Jewish and Christian religious traditions,
As a claimed prophet of God, Muhammad managed to gain a small circle o
was initially rejected by * most Meccans *, but did manage to gain a circle of followers that grew to significant numbers over __ years.
However, his teachings—including his assertion that “There is no God but God”—offended a great deal of local polytheistic Meccans, leading Muhammad to move his religion’s base to the nearby town of Yathrib—now known as Medina—in 622[88].
Muhammad and his religious movement fared much better in Medina, and managed to overtake Mecca and the rest of Arabia by Muhammad’s death in 632.
The religion’s basic root premise and theme is that “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger[89] of God.”
Muhammad’s religious teaching *referred to God as “Allah,” a generic Arabic term for God that predates Islam, and is still used by many non-Muslims in various Arab or Arab-influenced regions of the world.
Islam’s religious scriptures are referred to as the Qur’an, and contain what Muslims consider to be God’s direct and unaltered Arabic language revelations given to Muhammad between 610 and 632.
These revelations were preserved and circulated primarily through memorizations and recitation[90] during the religion’s early history, and scribed into an authoritative text within a few decades of Muhammad’s death[91].
The Qur’an is comprised of 114 sections known as surahs, and totals about 500 pages.
Unlike most of the Bible (particularly the Tanakh/Old Testament), the Qur’an employs an indirect and ambiguous style[92], contains few names and numbers, and *presents most events un-chronologically and in a scattered manner.[93] *
The text is based mainly on several primary themes: the authority and infallibility of the Qur’an, the importance of submitting[94] to God and believing[95] in God/Islam/the Qur’an, the reward God grants to believers who abide by His way, and the punishment God inflicts upon unbelievers who do not abide by His way.
[86] Mecca is located in the modern-day country of Saudi Arabia
[87] Gabriel is a figure in Judaism and Christianity
[88] At the time, Yathrib/Medina and surrounding areas were not entirely foreign to Abrahamic religious. There were many Arabic Jews there, as well as Christians in nearby regions such as Damascus, Hira, Najran, and Hijaz, and groups of followers of the Prophet Abraham, known as al-hanafiyyeen.
[89] Though most of the English-speaking world used to refer to the religion as “Mohammedanism,” Muhammad’s role in the religion is confined to that of a Prophet/Messenger—which is supported by Qur’an passages such as 18:110 (“Say [O Muhammad]: ‘I am just a mortal like you. Inspiration has come to me, that your God is one God.’”), 3:144 (“Muhammad is no more than a messenger; [other] messengers have passed away before him. If he dies or is killed, will you then turn back on your heels?”), and 17:90-95
[90] In fact, the word “Qur’an” literally means “recitation.”
[91] About two years after Muhammad’s death, his chosen caliph/successor Abu Bakr ordered a Qur’an to be collected into one written copy. He authorized certain people to transcribe it, and to have two witnesses verify they firsthand had heard Muhammad say a certain section exactly as it was being transcribed. Later, the third caliph Uthman bin Affan, concerned that variations were springing up, oversaw the final official written collection of the text, ordered copies to be made and sent to the centers of Muslim provinces, and had any variant Qur’an versions destroyed. And the Qur’an has remained the same ever since.
[92] Not only is the Qur’an itself written in an ambiguous style, it is also written an Arabic language of its era that is rather ambiguous (and contains no vowels or punctuation), and is not widely existent in written form in sources other than the Qur’an
[93] This being so, keep in mind that the Qur’an, even at its sizeable length comparable to the New Testament, offers far less “challengeable” material compared to the Tanakh and New Testament, which are loaded with specific and highly detailed events, names, dates, numbers, etc.
[94] In fact, the term “Islam” literally means submit/submission (to God)
[95] As evidenced by the fact that words such as “believe” and “believer” comprise a very large percentage of the text