what is Islam and Who are Muslims

Barely a day goes by without hearing the words ‘Muslim’, ‘Islam’
or ‘Jihaad’ from the media. In fact one would guess that the vast
majority of people have heard such terms from the media or from
friends or family. However, have you ever asked yourself what these
terms really mean? Have you gone out and spent some time to research
about these Muslims and what they believe in?Perhaps you may think that these
people are all foreigners and therefore have no bearing on your
life. Well, you may be surprised then if I were to tell you that there
are up to 3 million Muslims living on your doorstep in the United
Kingdom; from the furthest south of Lands End to remote areas in
northern Scotland. You may not feel this a strong enough reason to go
out and read about Islam; however,do you not feel at least a little
ignorant when you hear it mAQentioned on the television or on
the radio?
It is for this purpose that we have provided you with this short
pamphlet about Islam, Muslims and all that you may wish to know about
them. We hope that you find the information beneficial and useful
and encourage you to make contact with the authors if you wish to
further your understanding of Islam or correct any misconceptions you
may have about it.
Islam

Islam is the world’s fastest growing divine way of life with around 1.3
billion adherents worldwide. From countries ranging far a field as
America to Zimbabwe, Muslims can be found on all continents of the
globe. A Muslim is someone who believes in and adheres to a way of
life known as Islam.

Islam is an Arabic word which literally means ‘submission’. The
Islamic faith was revealed to the last and final Messenger Muhammad
(saw) from Allaah (lit. God) in the deserts of Arabia some 1400 years
ago; and was a continuation of the Judaeo-Christian religions that
preceded it. In fact Islam came as a rectification for both the Jewish and
Christians scriptures since over time they had undergone numerous
changes and additions from their original revealed form. The editors
of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible 1971 comment in their
introduction to the RSV Bible, “The King James Version has with
good reason been termed, ‘the noblest monument of English
prose’. Its revisers in 1881 expressed admiration for its
simplicity, its dignity, its power, its happy turns of expression.’ It
entered, as no other book has, into the making of the personal
character and the public institutions of the English-speaking
peoples. We owe to it an incalculable debt. Yet the King
James Version has grave defects. By the middle of the 19th
Century, the development of Biblical studies and the discovery
of many manuscripts more ancient than those upon which the King
James Version was based, made it manifest that these defects are
so many and so serious as to call for revision of the English
translation.” The Islamic way of life is centred
around the belief in a single Creator known as Allaah; this is often
translated as God in English. Some may think that in this day and age
of science, technology and development, it is old-fashioned to
believe in a God or a Creator, Others seem to think that the theory
of evolution and genetic engineering have made the need for
God redundant. In fact the evidence of a Creator is all around us and we need only take one look at ourselves to come to this conclusion. The Myth of ‘Science Has
Answers to All Things’ It seems that if one speaks about
God or a Creator in today’s society, one would get strange looks from friends of work colleagues or would be accused of becoming ‘brainwashed.’ In fact the majority of people in British society are atheist (i.e. do not believe in any God or Creator); most of whom would claim that the theories that science have forwarded have refuted such an historical concept . Before we explore whether there exists a creator or not, one must first mention that science is merely
a tool by which one looks upon reality. Those great oft-repeated
laws such as Newton’s three laws of motion, or the law of gravity etc.
were merely observations and documentations of certain laws that
existed before, during and after such scientists. Is it not true that
gravity existed before Newton noticed it? Or the laws of motion
were allowing things to move and for friction to work before those
scientists decided to compile worksabout them? So the first point regarding science is that it is simply a comment by
certain scientists upon a reality they envisage. Now the way they
envisage the reality, and the tools they use allow them to understand
more about what is going on around them. When one looks back to thecomments of scientists living in the 12th century, without microscopes, without their telescopes, they believed that the earth was flat, motionless and the centre of the universe.Now if you were alive during that time, would you too say that the world was flat and the centre of universe? Let us say that you did and that you backed your claim by saying, ‘because the great scientists say so.’ Well, in the 20th century you would be considered backward and ignorant since those such observations have been nullified as we have more advanced tools proving otherwise. So by following the scientists in the 12th century you would have arrived at a completely incorrect understanding about the world. Who is to say that following the
comments and statements of the scientists of the 20th and 21st
century so too would not be proved wrong at a later date? Who then
would be held to account for believing in such misconceptions
obviously one can only blame yourself if you did not truly go out
to seek the truth. There are manifest examples of such
contradictions in more recent times as well, topics ranging from
whether the universe is expanding, or whether the cause of asthma is as a result of pollution or not. In fact such contradictions will remain and continue so long as technology develops. However, development
does not necessarily mean one will arrive at the correct answer as we
have explained.Mankind’s Greatest Question Despite the great advancement in technology in recent times, there still remain fundamental questions which science has been unable to
answer. Where did I come from, where am I going? What is the
relationship between man, life and the universe? What is the link
between life and what was before life, and what is after life? Such
questions have been asked of oneself by each and every human
being at some stage of their life Without having any answer to such
questions we are simply continuing in a life which has no meaning and no purpose. And as a result it is no wonder why suicide rates and the prevalence of self-harm are rocketing. If you were to be drugged
unconscious, transported to an unknown location and then left to
find yourself awake in a darkened room, you will naturally ask; Who
put me here? Why am I here? And what will happen next? These
questions would be foremost in your mind such that you probably
would not be able to do anything without answering these questions
first. Are you and I not in exactly the same situation upon this earth?
Who put us here? Why did they put us here? What will happen once we die? Questions of what happens after death evoke in many an uneasy feeling, a feeling that many shy away from if they do not have a convincing answer. The truth of the matter is that the only certainty in this life is that we are all going to die. We all know people who were
once alive and have since died. Where have they gone? What will
happen to them? These are all questions that have passed through
our minds but are we really content with the excuses and answers we
have provided ourselves with? The Proof of the Existence
of a Creator If we were to ask Joe public how we came about on this earth, you would probably hear a plethora of
different answers from Evolution, Big-Bang to a Supreme Creator.
However, as intelligent individuals, you and I do not go on or believe
what other people simply say, rather we want to be convinced by
the greatest faculty we have been blessed with, the faculty of thinking
and intellect. As a human being, we have been given the gift of thought and of comprehension such that one is able to judge and weigh up different arguments according to one’s level of understanding. It is an insult for anyone to forego this faculty and to follow any concept, whether that may be the theory of evolution, the existence of a God, the Big-Bang theory blindly without asking for any evidence. To do so, renders one on a level lower than a farm animal and affords the chance to be exploited by others. Returning to the issue as to whether there exists a Creator or not, to answer such questions we firstly need to draw upon the understanding we have about ourselves and all those things that surround us. Looking to oneself as a human what do we notice? We find that we are all born i.e. we have a starting point and that we grow to a certain height, achieve a maximal weight, and expire once we attain a certain age – some more prematurely than others. Hence we are limited. We have a limited lifespan, limited dimensions, and limited intelligence. Therefore from observing oneself, we can make a blanket statement about human beings in general, all humans are limited. What we mean by this statement is that we are not unlimited or infinite i.e. we don’t live for ever or continue to grow without end. The second oncept we can notice is that human beings are dependentand needy i.e. they require nutrition to live and grow, oxygen to breathe
and dwellings for protection from the environment. Humans are not
self-subsistent and consequently without food, water, warmth and
oxygen they would not be able survive. Therefore human beings
are limited, needy and dependent. If one were to gather 100 persons in a single hall they still would have the same attributes of being needy, limited and dependent. This is because the totality of limited
beings is limited. If one were to gather 1,000, 1 million nay even 1
billion people into a single space, they all still would have the
attribute of being weak, limited and needy, since they still require food, shelter, and will each live for a fixed period of time.
Now if we turn our attention to other things around us such as
animals and plants, we observe exactly the same findings. Animals
and plants are dependent upon water, oxygen and carbon dioxide,
warmth and sun light; without such things they will wither away and
die. Animals and plants are also limited in that they grow only so tall
and live so long. Similarly if we look to the stars and
the planets, even though they seem so huge and great, they are still
limited in size and are dependent on many factors including
gravitational pulls, energy etc. to maintain their course and existence.
If we total the existence of all these things, the stars, planets, people
and things, we find that they too are limited, needy and dependent on
other things; since they are dependent on other factors to bring
them into being, to maintain their complex interactions and to sustain
their existence. Now we turn to the following possibilities,
i) either all these limited objects brought themselves into being and
consequently maintain themselves and are self subsistent or
ii) these limited things are dependent upon other limited
things for their existence which are in turn dependent upon otherlimited things which are in turn dependent ad infinitum or lastly;
iii) all these things are dependent upon a being that is independent,
eternal, unlimited and not needy. If we take the first possibility
(which is what the scientists would like you believe) that things came
about on their own existence and are self maintaining. We ask you to
simply look around you and bring a single example of a thing that is
unlimited, self sustaining and not dependent on other things or
factors. The fact of the matter is that there is not a single thing that
one can perceive that fits into this and consequently such a claim is
rejected as being false and misleading. If we take the second possibilitythat all the things you see around you are dependent upon other dependent things for their existence; we ask the following
tongue twister; what are these other dependent things dependent on
themselves? If they are dependent upon other things which they
themselves are dependent, then those others things consequently
must be dependent upon other dependent things which they
themselves are dependent upon until eternity. Since all these things
are dependent, which one was first? Naturally, there cannot be a first
dependent thing without an initiator as that is the nature of
being limited and dependent. So again, this argument is totally
baseless and flawed and is to be rejected by any sane person.
The last possibility is the only explanation that makes any sense.
All dependent things have complex interactions and relationships witho ther dependent objects, however each of these dependent objects, irrespective of how numerous they are, are still dependent and hence require a being that has the attributes of being independent, unlimited and eternal to bring them into creation. And that being which brought them into being is known by some as God, and by the Muslims as Allaah (swt).