Welcome to our A-Z of Faith Series: articles written by Peter Mansfield, an insurance litigator and member of our church leadership team. We hope you find these reflections on faith and religion insightful!
The essence of Islam is contained within the shahada, the Islamic profession of faith. This has two elements.
The first is that there is no god but God (Allah). The concept of the unity of God, known in Arabic as tawhid, is central to Islam. "He is God - One and indivisible" (chapter 112 of the Quran). As Dr Musharraf Hussain expresses it: "[Islam] is all about one God... and really that is it." Everything flows from that belief.
The second element of the shahada is that Muhammad is God's messenger. Muhammad (c.570 to 632) was the last and the greatest in a long line of prophets that included Abraham (Ibrahim) and Jesus (Isa). Muhammad received revelations from God, which were memorised and transcribed by Muhammad's companions into the Quran (also spelt Qur'an).
'Islam' means submission to God and has the same root as other words such as salaam that embrace concepts of wholeness, safety and peace. 'Muslim' is the active participle of 'Islam' and means 'one who surrenders to God'.
This act of surrender is total, but is evidenced through five core practices:
1. Profession. A single honest recitation of the shahada is all that is required to become a Muslim.
2. Prayer. The five daily ritual prayers are called salah. Prayer is a method of expressing gratitude and praise to God. As Rose Aslan says: "Many Muslims organise their day around the call to prayer".
3. Charity. This is characterised as the giving of 2.5% annually of accumulated wealth by those who can afford it to help the poor and needy.
4. Fasting. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims will fast from dawn to sunset. Fasting is a way to be conscious of God and to feel what it is like to be poor.
5. Pilgrimage. Every healthy and financially-able Muslim should attend the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, at least once during their lifetime.
There are two main denominations within Islam. 85% to 90% of all Muslims are Sunni. The remaining 10% to 15% are almost entirely Shia Muslims. There are around 2 billion Muslims and the largest Muslim countries by population are Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
Islam does not have any clergy, or priests who mediate between God and man. Imams are not clergy; in Sunni Islam, they are worship leaders in a mosque, who may also act as community leaders.
There is a simplicity about Islam. Simplicity, in this context, does not mean simple; it is the opposite of duplicity. There is a single-heartedness about Islam. Jacob Williams, a UK convert to Islam, describes it as, "a simpler and more compelling story: one God, one final message".
It is this simplicity, this singleness, this surrender that many find attractive about Islam. There is also an obvious link in Islam between belief and behaviour, which contrasts with many other faiths. As another convert, Diana Masooma Beatty, says: "My Muslim friends seemed so much more pious and sincere in devotion to God than most Christians are."
Of course, there is a danger that this singularity of belief may result in rigidity and conformity. As Fiyaz Mughal says: "The Islam practised by many Muslims in the UK is not one of reflection, but of ritual without understanding." But that criticism can be made of other forms of believer and perhaps even more so of many non-believers. Very few people reflect; most just react.
Above all, perhaps, Islam is an antidote to the secularist desire to excise all spirituality from modern life. Again I am going to quote Jacob Williams: "I am still moved by the landscapes of Constable and I still feel that Shakespeare offers among the deepest insights of any writer into the vicissitudes of the human soul. Above all, the vapid global consumer monoculture dissipates when I undergo submission to the One True God. I appreciate the best of the West, not despite being Muslim, but because of it."
Written by Pete Mansfield
