Basic Islamic Beliefs

The basic principle beliefs of Islam are commonly found in the main world religions. There is a God, there is Satan, there are Prophets, there is a life after death and you are judged for the actions you did on earth and you will be rewarded with heaven or punished in hell based on these actions. Islam has very similar beliefs
to the Christians and the Jews but there are a few small differences.

God in Islam

Islam is a monotheistic religion, meaning that we worship one God without joining any partners in worship to Him, so the idea of the Christian trinity is absolutely rejected. Islam also rejects the idea of idol-worship, where the main belief is that the spirit of God is within/represented by the idol. Islam is very strict in the belief that there is one God and Muslims call God 'Allah'. We believe that God is perfect, that He is not a man, that He is void of limits so He has no distinct figure or appearance - we cannot comprehend what He is really like. He is a loving, forgiving and fair God who is merciful and keeps His promises. He was neither born nor created by another creator, and He does not create other Gods or has sons and daughters. He doesn't require food and drink and He has no need for anything. He was the first thing in the universe and He will be the last. He is the creator of everything we see and everything that exists or has existed. he sees, hears and knows everything.

Angels in Islam

Angels are very important in Islamic beliefs. We believe that they were created from light and are the supreme servants of Allah because they know fully well that He is their creator and Angels are sinless and do what ever Allah wishes without mistake because that is how Allah created them. Angels are usually invisible to humans but sometimes they take the shape of a men. Angels are not female, but nor are they male and they don't look like what you see on top of a Christmas tree. Angels do tasks like take the soul into the afterlife, write down your good and bad deeds, greet people into heaven or punish them in hell and they convey messages from the Lord to people - like the Angel Gabriel did when he told the virgin Mary (RA) that she would give birth to Prophet Jesus (PBUH), and they also convey messages to the other Prophets.

The Devil in Islam

The Devil (named 'Iblees' in the Quran) is the name of a Jinn who was once a very respected and loved figure by Allah and his status was much like that of an Angel. He is not an Angel but infact a Jinn. He is made of smokeless fire as are all Jinn. He became detestable to Allah when he refused to do the command of Allah which was to bow down to his latest creation - man (Adam (PBUH)). Iblees was headstrong and arrogant and refused to bow down to a creation that he thought was less superior to himself since man is created from clay and he was created from fire. When Allah saw that he refused to carry out His command, He barred Iblees from heaven. Iblees promised that he would try to make mankind fail in entering heaven and following the righteous path and he tricked Adam and Eve (Adam & Hawaa in Arabic) to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree so they were put on earth and to this day Iblees and his servants -the Devils or Satans- continue to lead the children of Adam and Hawaa off the straight path. Iblees will be punished in hell on judgment day. Shaitan is not a guardian or punisher of people in hell as some believe.

Man & life after death

Allah created man from clay for a purpose and that purpose is to worship Allah and that is the reason for life. Do not think of worship as praying only! Praying is only a part of worship. Worship is made up of many parts like being kind to your neighbor, giving charity, teaching, treating the ill and many other things. Muslims believe children are born pure (unlike in Christianity where a child is born a sinner) but with worship we gain 'thawab' which you can think of as being like 'plus points' and worship also benefits our soul. When man does bad things he gains 'ithim' which you can think of as 'minus points'. If you think of life as a test, where if we do good deeds we gain thawab and if we do bad deeds we get ithim, then after we die we are taken into an afterlife world where the ithim & thawab we have received and Allah's fair judgment (on Judgment day ('Yawm al Qiyamah' in Arabic)) determines what happens to us - if we enter hell or heaven (called 'Jahanam' & 'Jannah' in Arabic). It is important to state here that a person who has no belief in God will not enter Jannah. Jannah is the bounty that we receive for passing the test of life and Jannah is split into many levels depending on how well we did in the test, and so hell is split into levels depending on how bad we did. Jannah (also referred-to as Paradise in English Islamic literature) can be likened to an ever-flourishing garden where you are given what you wish for and there is no death, pain and unhappiness and there are the best foods and most lovely drinks. Hell is much like the opposite where you are burnt in fire & tortured and you are kept hungry and thirsty and you have no food and drink except filth and horrible fruits and fluids.

Messengers, Prophets & Imams

A Prophet ('Nabi' in Arabic) is a man chosen by God who speaks the will of God when he receives messages from God through Angels or directly from God. We believe that 124 000 Nabis were sent to this world. Nabis guide and tell people to follow the will of Allah only (and not their own wills) and to acknowledge His existence and also to stop the people from doing evil. Muslims believe in almost all the Prophets of the Jews and the Christians and we also have two extra. One of these Prophets is Jesus (known as 'Isa' in Arabic (PBUH)) who the Jews reject and the Christians believe to be the son of god. Muslims reject the idea that God would have a son, but Muslims believe Isa was a very great Prophet. The second Prophet whom the Jews and the Christians reject is Nabi Muhammed (SAW) who is the founder of the religion of Islam and we believe he was the final Prophet to be sent by Allah to convey His universal message - the same message that the previous Prophets were sent to convey to mankind as well. We believe that the message preached by the Prophets was the same as that taught by Prophet Muhammed (SAW) and therefore Islam is a continuation of the religion preached to the people since the dawn of time by their Prophets but it corrects the mistakes that the previous religions had established by dogma through time.

Messengers (know as 'Apostles' in English) are Prophets, but not all Prophets are Messengers. The difference between a Prophet and a Messenger is that the Messengers like Prophet Muhammed, Moses (know as 'Musa' in Arabic), Isa and Abraham (PBUH) had a mission of propagating a message that was aimed at every living person on this earth and for all time or until the next apostle came, while a Prophet had to convey a message to his tribe, or to his city, or certain communities. We believe that 323 of the Prophets are apostles who were sent to this world. Another difference is that the Messengers were given Holy books (or scriptures) so that they would help in the guidance of the people during and after their deaths. Muslims use Acronyms like (AS or PBUH; or SAW specifically for Prophet Muhammed) after the name of a Prophet to show respect.

An Imam is a person who has been given authority to guide the people by a Prophet (and therefore by Allah). Imams are the successors and points of authority after the death of a Prophet. The word Imam is commonly used as a general term by Muslims as the word for someone who leads the people in things like the prayer, or even a scholar, but the true essence of the word is in reference to rightly appointed men and not just anybody. Muslims use Acronyms like (AS) after the name of an Imam to show respect.

The Koran

The Koran (also referred to as the Quran) is the Holy Book of the Muslims much like the Bible is the holy book to the Christians and Jews. The difference is that the Koran is perfect in the sense that it is the unaltered and pure word of Allah. The Bible is said to be the actual word of God but evidence suggests otherwise. The bible has been edited by many many writers over a great length of time and they made additions and deletions so they wrote their own words. There are even Jewish, Protestant and Catholic versions of the bible with different gospels and variations and differences between them. More Info. There are many versions of the Bible but there is only one version of the Koran and it is the same as that which was revealed to Prophet Muhammed (SAW) about 1400 years ago. The Koran is also different from the bible in the sense that it is the actual words of God as revealed to the Prophet Muhammed (SAW) by the Angel Gabriel, and the Prophet learned these verses by heart and narrated them to many scribes who wrote them down since Prophet Muhammed was illiterate. The Prophet checked the writing of these scribes himself for mistakes and this made the Koran mistake-proof. The Koran is a beautiful text that is written in Arabic and the Koran talks about many issues like jurisprudence, the nature of God, stories of the Prophets and much more and many Muslims see it as a guide for life. Today the Koran comes in all languages but these don't convey the complete beauty and sometimes multiple or root meanings of the Arabic words. The Koran is very much a Miracle. Here is a link to a website that allows you to listen to the Arabic and the English translation of some Surats of the Koran.

The Sunnah, Hadiths and Sharia law

'Hadith' is the speech or utterances of the Prophet.

The 'Sunnah' means conducts or acts done by the Prophet or at least approved by him.

Often the words 'hadith' and 'sunnah' are used interchangeably when referrring to an act, word or approval by the Prophet.

The Sunnah was written in many many hadith books written by many different writers a while after the death of the Prophet Muhammed (SAW). These authors collected narrations from from eye-witnesses, or most-often secondary sources who claimed they heard narrations from those who accompanied Prophet Muhammed (SAW) during the 23 years he recieved the Koran. We use books that contain these hadiths to understand the laws of the religion better since the Koran doesn't go into very much detail on some issues,
and it also aids in our understanding of the history and situations at the time. These hadiths go along hand in hand with quran to form the laws which are known as Sharia laws which are derived from the texts.

The Shariah law is the law of God and is followed by the faithful. What the Prophet did and approved-of was what God approved-of and God guided His messenger and this Prophet brought guidance to mankind. The Shariah laws are found by reading the Quran and the Hadiths together to form a sound understanding on how Prophet Muhammed (SAW) would have dealt with a matter. Any undetermined things or differences in opinion are left to scholars to argue over, and Muslims have a choice of which scholar to follow.

Some Muslims believe that some Hadiths are untrustworthy to follow, while most Muslims are more adamant in their belief that these books are too reputable to contain mistakes. However, all Muslims believe in hadiths as long as they are sound and correct, and the laws they both follow and believe in are almost exactly the same. There will be more information about this in a future article.