Religion, page 6

Islam

The world’s second-largest religion, sorted honestly: what is wise, what is questionable or story, and what has caused harm.

A single person kneeling in prayer on a small rug in the desert as the sun rises over the dunes — Image to come: Breath-Images/dawn-prayer.png

Islam at a glance

Arabia, 7th century. About 2 billion followers, roughly one in four people on earth.

Islam began with Muhammad, a merchant of Mecca who, around the year 610, began to receive what he and his followers believed were revelations from God, delivered through the angel Gabriel. These were gathered into the Quran. Persecuted in Mecca, he and his followers moved to the city of Medina in 622, the year from which the Islamic calendar is counted.

The word Islam means “surrender,” the peace that comes from giving oneself to God. Muslims worship the same one God as Jews and Christians, called Allah, the Arabic word for God. They honor Abraham, Moses, and Jesus as prophets, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, is named in the Quran more often than in the entire New Testament.

Muslim life rests on five pillars: declaring faith in one God and in Muhammad as his messenger, praying five times a day, giving to the poor, fasting during the month of Ramadan, and making the pilgrimage to Mecca once in a lifetime if able.

Sunni

About 85 to 90 percent of Muslims. The name comes from the sunna, the example of the Prophet.

Shia

About 10 to 15 percent, mainly in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. The split began over who should lead the community after Muhammad’s death. Shia Muslims hold that leadership belonged to his cousin and son-in-law, Ali.

Sufi

Not a separate branch but the mystical heart of Islam, found among both Sunni and Shia Muslims. Described below.

What is wise

Teachings that hold up, and that anyone, of any faith or none, can test in their own life.

Five daily pauses

Five times a day, from dawn to night, Muslims stop whatever they are doing to wash, face Mecca, and pray. It builds into every day a rhythm of stillness and remembrance, much like the meditation breaks recommended by modern stress research.

Mercy first

All but one of the Quran’s 114 chapters open with the same words: “In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.” Mercy is the first thing a Muslim says about God, and the quality believers are asked to show one another.

Giving to the poor

Every Muslim who can afford it gives a set portion of their savings each year to the poor, about two and a half percent. Charity is not optional kindness but a basic duty, alongside generous voluntary giving.

The Ramadan fast

For a month each year, Muslims go without food and drink from dawn to sunset. It builds self-control, gratitude, and empathy for the hungry, and each evening families and strangers gather to break the fast together.

One human family

In prayer, rich and poor stand shoulder to shoulder. On pilgrimage, millions of every race wear the same simple white cloth. Malcolm X, writing from Mecca in 1964, described being deeply moved by pilgrims of every color treating one another as brothers.

The love of learning

During Europe's early Middle Ages, Muslim scholars preserved the works of Aristotle and advanced mathematics, medicine, and astronomy. The word “algebra” comes from Arabic, and the medical textbook of Ibn Sina was used in European universities for centuries.

“Whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.”

Quran 5:32, translated by Marmaduke Pickthall

The heart of it

Five daily pauses for stillness, mercy placed first, a duty to give to the poor, a yearly fast that builds empathy, one human family, and a great love of learning.

A whirling dervish in a white flowing robe and tall hat turning in prayer, one palm raised to the sky and one turned toward the earth — Image to come: Breath-Images/whirling-dervish.png

The mystical heart: Sufism

Wise, with some story around it.

From Islam’s first centuries, Sufis have sought a direct, loving experience of God rather than religion by rule alone. They cherish the Quran’s words that God is “nearer to him than his jugular vein,” and picture the heart as a mirror that, once polished clean of ego and craving, reflects the divine light.

Remembrance and breath. The central Sufi practice is dhikr, remembrance: repeating a name of God or a sacred phrase, often in rhythm with the breath, until the mind is filled with the Beloved and nothing else. One Sufi order teaches its students to keep awareness in every breath, so that no breath is taken in forgetfulness. For a site called My Deeper Breath, it is a teaching worth treasuring. The whirling dervishes of the Mevlevi order, founded by followers of the poet Rumi, turn slowly in a moving prayer, one palm raised to receive from heaven and the other turned down to give to the earth.

The path of love. Most traditions on this site approach the inner life through clear thinking and calm observation. The Sufis add love. For them God is the Beloved, and the spiritual path is a love story fueled by longing. Rumi’s great poem, the Masnavi, opens with the song of a reed flute cut from its reed bed: all its sweet and aching music is its longing to return home. Every human heart, Rumi suggests, is that reed. The Sufis show that the high emotions, love, longing, gratitude, and joy, are not obstacles on the path but its fuel.

What needs sorting. In some places, devotion to Sufi saints has grown into miracle stories, pilgrimages to tombs, charms, and a blind obedience to teachers that can be misused. Stricter Muslim groups, for their part, have sometimes persecuted Sufis and destroyed their shrines.

The heart of it

Sufism is Islam’s path of love: polishing the heart, remembering God with every breath, and letting longing carry the soul home.

What is questionable or story

Beliefs held on faith, and stories best enjoyed as stories.

The Quran as God’s literal words

Muslims believe the Quran is the exact speech of God, word for word, delivered through the angel Gabriel. This is a matter of faith. Its poetry, and its calls to mercy and justice, can be appreciated by anyone.

The sayings of the Prophet

Much Islamic law rests not on the Quran but on the hadith, reports of what Muhammad said and did, most written down two centuries or more after his death. Muslim scholars themselves grade them from reliable to weak or invented. An Adult asks which ones hold up.

The Night Journey

The Prophet is carried in one night from Mecca to Jerusalem on a winged steed and up through the heavens to meet the earlier prophets. A revered story of closeness to God.

Angels and jinn

Islam teaches of angels who record every deed, and of jinn, spirits made of smokeless fire, from whom the English word “genie” comes. Wonderful in story, and in the Thousand and One Nights.

Judgment, paradise, and hell

A Day of Judgment, gardens of paradise with flowing rivers, and the fires of hell. Taken literally, matters of faith. Read as pictures, powerful images of moral responsibility.

The heart of it

The Quran as God’s literal speech, the reliability of the sayings, the Night Journey, angels and jinn, and paradise and hell are matters of faith and story. Much of Islamic law rests on sayings its own scholars rate as uncertain.

What is harmful

Where Islamic teaching has been used to hurt people.

Women placed below men

Some of the Quran’s rules reflect the society of seventh-century Arabia. A daughter inherits half as much as a son, the testimony of two women equals that of one man, and one verse gives husbands authority over their wives, including permission to strike them. In Iran, the morality police enforce mandatory head covering, and in 2022 a young woman named Mahsa Amini died in their custody, setting off nationwide protests under the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom.” In Afghanistan, the Taliban have barred girls from school beyond the sixth grade.

Punishing doubt and dissent

In several countries, leaving Islam or insulting it can bring prison or even death. In 1989, Iran’s leader called for the death of the novelist Salman Rushdie over a book, and in 2022 Rushdie was stabbed on a stage in New York and lost the sight of one eye.

Violence in God’s name

Extremist groups such as al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State have carried out terrible attacks in the name of Islam, from September 11, 2001, onward. The great majority of their victims have been Muslims themselves.

Minorities as second-class

Historically, Jews and Christians under Muslim rule were protected but ranked below Muslims and made to pay a special tax. In some countries today, religious minorities still face discrimination and violence.

Double-speak

The Quran says plainly, “There is no compulsion in religion,” yet several countries punish leaving Islam with prison or death. The Quran teaches that killing one innocent person is like killing all mankind, yet terrorists kill innocents while shouting God’s name. And with Sunni and Shia, strict and liberal, each claiming to speak for Islam, “Islam teaches” can mean opposite things depending on who is speaking.

The other side of the ledger

It would be unfair to lay these harms on all Muslims. Many Muslims, including many Muslim women scholars, read the hard verses in light of their time and argue for full equality. Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Turkey have elected women as national leaders. In 2004, hundreds of leading Muslim scholars from dozens of countries joined in the Amman Message, condemning extremism. And Malala Yousafzai, a Muslim girl shot by the Taliban for going to school, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for her fight for girls’ education. The harm comes from ancient rules treated as eternal and enforced by those in power, a pattern found in every religion.

The heart of it

Where ancient laws are enforced by force, women are held back, doubt is punished, and violence is done in God’s name, often against the Quran’s own words. Many Muslims are working to heal these harms from within.

Being a friend of Islam

You do not need to share Muslim belief to be a friend of Islam. You can accept an invitation to break the Ramadan fast with Muslim neighbors, or visit a local mosque on an open house day. You can read Rumi, listen to the haunting beauty of the call to prayer, or marvel at Islamic art, where endless geometric patterns and flowing calligraphy point toward the infinite. You can borrow the rhythm of five daily pauses for your own practice. And you can greet a Muslim friend with the traditional words as-salamu alaykum, “peace be upon you,” and mean it.

The heart of it

Share a meal at Ramadan, visit a mosque, read Rumi, enjoy Islamic art, borrow the rhythm of daily prayer, and wish your neighbor peace, whatever you believe.

Continue

The next page turns to the world’s third-largest religion and one of its oldest, Hinduism, with its yoga and breathing practices, its teaching of the divine self within, and the long shadow of caste.