The Qur’an (Arabic. “According to tradition it is said that Muhammad could not read and write, that is why he memorized verses by heart and then recited them aloud to people from memory) – the Muslim holy book, dictated to Muhammad by archangel Jabrail during 23 years in Arabic. Originally transmitted orally, it was codified in the mid 7th century (under Caliph Othman). It consists of 114 chapters (surahs) comprising 6,500 verses (ayats). Surahs are divided by periods into Meccan (as a rule, short) and Medinan. The Qur’an in Islam is considered to be the created, 100% authentic true guidance of God to men. The practice of interpreting the Qur’an – Tafsir (Arabic for “to explain”) – in Islam is only allowed by specially trained people (mufassirs). Hafiz, that is, people who know the Quran by heart, are also held in high esteem among Muslims.

The Sunnah is set forth in the form of hadiths (sayings of Muhammad and his Companions) in several collections. In Sunnism, the most authoritative collections of hadith are those of Imam Bukhari, Imam Muslim, Imam Abu Dawud, Imam ibn Maji, Imam al-Tirmizi, and Imam Nasai. Hadiths are divided into a number of groups depending on their reliability (authority of the source). There is disagreement between the various currents in Islam regarding the acceptance of certain ayats (e.g., about Ali as the successor of Muhammad, about Mahdi as the coming Messiah, etc.).

Prayers in Islam are divided into obligatory, approved and additional. There are five obligatory daily prayers, each at a certain time of day.

Muslims who do not observe the Five Pillars of Islam are considered to be sinners, and those who deny their necessity are kafirs (non-Muslims).
Zakat (purification donation) is paid by a Muslim once a year as a percentage of various incomes (2.5% for money).

Every Muslim is obliged to fast once a year for 30 days (the month of Ramadan), which consists in abstaining from eating, drinking, sexual intimacy and anything that may violate the pious behavior of a person. The time of fasting lasts from sunrise to sunset.
Every believer who is able to make the pilgrimage must make it at least once in his life (to Mecca).

Islam is viewed by Muslims not simply as a sphere of sacred experience, but as a way of life. Law and politics, ethics, personal life, all relationships between people are conditioned by Islam for a Muslim. The most significant point here is the high role of law, the Sharia (“the straight path”), which regulates human life down to the smallest detail.

Islam is a religion of intention and sets a high ideal of the individual. The goal of man is salvation, and the goal is obedience to God. The way to achieve this goal is constant self-improvement in the physical, intellectual, spiritual and moral aspects.

The moral values of Islam are traditional: a special role is assigned to men, family, community, elders in age and status, and military ethos.

In classical Islam, patriotism did not play a special role, and Islam did not generally act as a source of national identity, being a universal religion supporting the theory of people’s equality before God. Nevertheless, to be moral, truly religious and to be a Muslim, according to Islam. Despite such exclusivism, Islam treats “people of the scriptures,” primarily Christians and Jews, with special reverence.

Islam is an independent, integral religious system. Being rather young world religion, Islam made significant contribution to human civilization and is actively developing in the modern world, carrying traditional universal values. The specificity of Islam is the determining role of Holy Scripture, absolute monotheism, strict ethics, and the priority of practice in the life of the believer (in this case Islam is a religion of intention, that is, the affirmation of the individual subject). The unity of Islam is ensured by a common creed, the foundations of doctrine. Differences in the currents of Islam relate to issues of inheritance of power, peculiarities of legal practice and certain aspects of ritual. Islam is a special type of worldview and way of life.

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1. After Muhammad’s death the struggle for succession in the Ummah began because the founder of Islam did not clearly and unequivocally designate his successor. Most Muslims saw the caliphs, that is, essentially elected secular rulers, as the head of the Islamic world. The first four (“righteous”) caliphs were Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman (Osman), and Ali. In 661 Caliph Ali was assassinated and the Umayyad dynasty came to power. This event was decisive in the debate about supreme power and led to a split of Muslims into a majority of Sunnis (“followers of the Sunna”) and a minority of Shiites (“adherents”, “party”). The Shiites asserted the Imamate (authority of the Imam) as the institution of supreme power.
   During the reign of Caliph Ali, another trend in Islam emerged – Kharijism (“the ones who came forward”, “the ones who left”). Kharijism is a religious and political movement of a predominantly radical nature. It emerged after the arbitration to resolve the issue of rendition of Osman’s killers. Many of Ali’s warriors left him and declared enemies of both Ali and Muawiya (the fifth caliph) and began active subversive and military actions against them. At the end of the seventh century, many currents formed among the Kharijites after the split. The number of Kharijites at the end of the XX century, according to various estimates, was from 1 to 3 million people. Kharijism predominantly prevails in Oman, where it is represented by a group of Ibadis who have lost their active intolerance for non-Harijis.
   Thus, the differences between the main currents in Islam are actually confined to questions of law enforcement rather than dogma. Islam is considered to be the single religion of all Muslims, but there are a number of disagreements between representatives of Islamic currents. There are also considerable discrepancies in the principles of legal decisions, the nature of holidays, and attitudes toward non-Muslims.

Sufism, which originated in the second half of the 8th century on the basis of the experience of mystics (al-Ghazali holds a special place among currents of Islam) (there are various etymological variants, for example, “safa” – purity, “ahl as-suffa” – people of the canopy, “sofia” – wisdom, “suf” – wool, etc.). Sufism represents a particular, largely mystical-ascetic practice of anthropological transformation in Islam. Sufism emphasizes the idea of a path (“tarikat”) to Allah. Sufism relies on the concept of individual attainment of human connection with God, but in practice it often implies the existence of organizations (tariqats, orders) whose leaders (murshids who directly teach murids, i.e. students) have spiritual succession from teachers of antiquity.

The features of Sufism are the preaching of poverty, the assertion of the ghosthood of the world around, hermitage, silent prayer, trust in the will of God, and an allegorical interpretation of the Koran. There were four main stages on the Sufi path: Shariah (rigorous adherence to Islam), Tariqat (obedience to the Sheikh), Mirafat (knowing God with the heart and not the mind) and Hakikat (full cognition of the truth).
In the 12th-13th centuries, numerous tariqats transformed Sufism into a significant element of Muslim society. In the modern world, the influence of Sufi tariqats has been considerably weakened. Nevertheless, Sufi sheikhs still wield authority, especially in North Africa, Central Asia, Pakistan, India and the North Caucasus.
In a number of countries Sufism forms a dominant part of the Islamic tradition, but in other countries or circles its attitude can be ambiguous. Sufi orders and traditions may differ markedly.

2. After Muhammad’s death, Islam spread beyond the Arabian Peninsula with the highest intensity. The result was the Arab Caliphate, an Islamic state that was a vast and powerful empire that lasted from 635 to 1258. The Caliphate period is considered a golden age in the history of Islam because it was associated with the flowering of science, philosophy, art and Islamic statehood itself. At its decline, the empire fell into decline, primarily because of internal strife. As a result, the caliphate disintegrated into many states. Subsequently, there were many attempts to create Islamic states. For example, in the post-Arab period (XIV-XVI centuries) the Islamization of the Golden Horde was carried out; in India, there was the Mughal Empire (1556-1858). At the present stage, there are also ideas and attempts to build Islamic states.

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Followers of Islam are called Muslims (“Mohammedans”, Arabic for “submissive to God”). A Muslim is a person who recognizes the revelation of Muhammad as sacred in Islam (the sacred things, primarily the Holy Koran), the doctrine based on it (the foundations of the doctrine are contained in the shahada, the pillars of faith and the pillars of Islam), and the form of realization of this doctrine (the community, called the umma).

Islam may be evaluated in various ideological systems as a false religion (e.g., Christianity) or a false ideology (e.g., scientific atheism), but even with the well-known problems with the definition of religion, no one doubts that Islam is a religion, that is, a phenomenon with the sacred at its core.
Islam as a strictly monotheistic religion

Monotheism is a form of theism that recognizes the existence of one and only God. Because of the controversy with Christians over the Trinity, Islam is known as a religion of strict monotheism. In Islam, deviation from strict monotheism is known as “shirk” (“polytheism”), that is, “giving God a comrade” (as if God is not unique in his actions, such as creation, but has companions) and is considered a grave sin.

Ancient Arab beliefs represented various manifestations of paganism, the most common of which was idolatry. It consisted of worshipping various gods, rocks, trees, animals, stars, and stones. Of particular importance was the Kaaba, a cubic temple in Mecca, near which each Arab tribe placed an image of its deity. Monotheistic beliefs were not widespread and were associated with the Hanifs, about whom little information has survived (Hanifism ceased to exist after the suppression of the revolt of some Arab tribes against the caliphs). It is known that in addition to monotheism (associated with the Israelite prophets), the Hanifs were notable for their asceticism.

Social life of the Arabs was based on the archaic tribal system. The leaders of the tribes (“banu”) were chiefs – sheikhs (“the elder,” the head of the family, then in Islam also the authoritative scholar; the teacher; the leader of the religious group; the person who lived at the holy place and helped pilgrims; the leader of the group of pilgrims). The Arab tribes waged constant wars among themselves; their economy was based on trade, robbery, partly on cattle-breeding and oasis farming. The basic principle was collectivism, the most terrible punishment was banishment from the clan. Men were the basis of the tribe, women had practically no rights: polygamy was unlimited, and in some tribes there was a custom of burying newborn girls in the ground.

The founder of Islam, Abu al-Qaisim Muhammad (note 570 – June 8, 632), is, according to the vast majority of scholars, a historical figure. However, one can only learn about his life from traditional legend (the Sunnah of the Prophet, the most important source of Islam after the Qur’an). Muhammad came from a family of Hashemites. His family was engaged in providing water for the pilgrims in Mecca. As a young man he also herded sheep and worked as a trader for a noble Arab woman, Khadija bint Huwaydil, who later became his wife. Muhammad was of high moral character and authority. At the age of forty he sought solitude. He often went to a cave on Mount Hira near Mecca, meditated, and eventually had a religious experience (a revelation) from which the Qur’an appeared, and Muhammad began publicly preaching a new religion to the Arabs (613).

Muhammad’s preaching was persecuted by the Arabs, and in 622, the Muslims were forced to move to Medina. This migration (“Hijra”) is the beginning of the Islamic calendar and marks the boundary of two periods in the life of Muhammad and the creation of the Qur’an. Muhammad and the early Muslims fought battles with their adversaries that resulted in the conversion of Medina and Mecca to Islam and the destruction of the idols around the Kaaba. According to traditional Muslim beliefs, Muhammad conducted all armed campaigns solely as part of a defensive war.

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