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What Is Islam?
When we think about Islam—or any religion that has lasted for a long
time—we should remember that it has evolved through history and will
continue to do so. It has varied from time to time, from place to place, and
maybe even from one person to another. As personal belief systems, reli¬
gions are hard to describe: How do you write about someone else's deepest
thoughts? Let us try anyway.
BASIC BELIEFSIslam is the act of submission to the will of God {Allah in Arabic). In the
broadest sense, every object in the universe has its own "islam." It must
conform to God's rules, or to what atheists might call nature's laws. Rocks
and trees, birds and beasts all submit to God's will because they were cre¬
ated to do so. Human beings, creatures capable of reason, have been made
free to choose whether and how to submit to God's will. Many refuse out
of ignorance or because they have forgotten the divine commandments
they once knew. Some Christians and Jews may have been misled by their
scriptures or by the way they have interpreted them. But anyone who sub¬
mits to God's will, worships him, and expects his reward or punishment in
the next world is, broadly speaking, a "muslim."
God
In common usage, though, a Muslim is one who believes that God's will
for all humanity was last revealed through the Quran to Muhammad.
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