Introduction to Islam

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Zahid Aziz. Introduction to Islam

Preface

1. Introduction

1. What is the name of our religion?

2. What do these words mean?

3. Who gave these names to this religion?

4. What is the basic teaching of Islam?

5. How did Islam come into the world?

6. Why is this religion not named after Muhammad, the Holy Prophet?

7. Are there any special reasons why our religion is called Islam?

8. If previous prophets had also taught the same basic ‘Islam’, what was new about the teachings of the Holy Prophet Muhammad?

9. What does one have to do in order to become a Muslim?

2. Basic beliefs and practices

10. Is there a list of basic Muslim beliefs?

11. What is the most important point Islam teaches about belief?

12. How does this apply to the five beliefs of Islam?

13. What are the basic practices a Muslim has to perform?

14. What is the main point to remember about these practical duties?

3. Allah

15. What is the basic teaching of Islam about God?

16. Is there any name for God that Muslims use specially?

17. Does Islam give any arguments to prove the existence of God?

18. Other religions also teach the existence of God. Is there any difference between their teaching and the Islamic concept of God?

19. What are the practical consequences of these three differences?

20. Is there any other important distinctive feature of the Islamic concept of God?

21. How does man stand in relation to God, according to Islam?

22. What are the other things the Holy Quran tells us about God?

23. What is the purpose of believing that God possesses these attributes?

4. Angels

24. What are angels?

25. What do angels look like?

26. What functions do angels perform?

27. Why are angels necessary to bring God’s messages to man?

28. Is there any other important point Islam tells us about angels?

29. Is there a key significance of belief in angels?

5. Prophets and Messengers

30. What is a ‘prophet’ or ‘messenger’ of God?

31. In which countries of the world did Prophets arise?

32. In which of these Prophets of God do Muslims have to believe?

33. Please name some of these Prophets

34. Did any Prophets appear other than those mentioned in the Holy Quran?

35. It is well-known that Muslims believe in the Israelite Prophets, including Jesus. How do they regard the great figures of other religions, such as Krishna, Buddha, and Confucius?

36. But religions such as Christianity and Hinduism revere their great religious figures as ‘gods’ or incarnations of God. What does Islam say?

37. Why were the Prophets humans, and not ‘gods on earth’?

38. What did the Prophets teach?

39. Since Muslims believe in all the Prophets equally, what is the special position of the Holy Prophet Muhammad?

40. Can you give any arguments to support this belief?

41. Could there be any Prophet or Messenger of God after the Holy Prophet Muhammad?

42. Does this mean that no human being can now reach the stage of a close contact with God, and be spoken to by God?

6. Books of God

43. What is a Book of God?

44. Please name some of the Books of God which exist today?

45. Do Muslims have to believe in Divine scriptures other than their own?

46. In what relation does the Holy Quran stand to other Divine Scriptures?

47. Please explain the four points above a little further

7. Life after death

48. What does Islam teach about life after death?

49. How is the spirit shaped during our life here?

50. Is man rewarded after death for his good deeds and punished for the bad ones?

51. What are heaven and hell?

52. The Holy Quran mentions many blessings and comforts in paradise and many painful punishments in hell. What is the nature of these?

53. What is the Day of Judgment according to Islam?

54. Is there any other significant point about paradise and hell disclosed by Islam?

55. Do Muslims believe in re-incarnation, that is, after death a person may be re-born in this world for another life here, and in this way have several lives on earth?

56. What is the significance of the Muslim belief in life after death?

8. Prayer

57. What is prayer?

58. Is prayer necessary?

59. What are the most important points Islam teaches about prayer?

60. How does one pray in Islam?

61. What is the significance of the various postures during Salaat?

62. What prayers does one say during the Salaat?

63. Please explain briefly the meanings of the Fatiha?

64. What are the important points to be noted about this prayer?

65. Why are parts of the prayer said in Arabic?

66. Does this mean that a purpose of Salaat is to bring people closer together?

9. Fasting

67. What is fasting as prescribed by Islam?

68. How is fasting done in Islam?

69. Does every Muslim have to fast in Ramadaan?

70. How does fasting enable us to give up the bad desires which lead to wrong-doing?

71. Are there any other moral benefits of fasting?

72. And what does fasting teach us about how to treat other people?

10. Hajj or Pilgrimage to Makka

73. What is Hajj?

74. Please outline the chief features of Hajj?

75. What is the significance of these acts?

76. Do Muslims worship the Ka‘ba, or believe that God lives there?

11. Charity

77. What is meant by charity in Islam?

78. Please give some examples of what are acts of charity in Islam

79. Charity is usually thought to be giving money or alms to the begging poor, and is said to degrade them and make them feel inferior. This is not so in Islam, then?

80. How important is charity?

81. To whom can a Muslim give in charity?

82. What kind of things should be given in charity?

83. Please explain what is Zakaat?

84. Is Zakaat just like a tax?

85. Why is general charity and Zakaat a basic duty in Islam?

12. Jihad. 86. What is Jihad?

87. What kind of striving does the Holy Quran talk about?

88. Can you quote passages from the Holy Quran to illustrate this?

89. So Jihad then doesn’t mean war waged by Muslims against non-Muslims?

90. Why is the word jihad applied to the battles of the early Muslims?

91. Does this mean that Islam only allows Muslims to fight wars for certain justified reasons?

92. If jihad does not mean fighting a war, can every Muslim take part in some kind of jihad at all times?

13. The Holy Quran. 93. Please tell us a little more about the Holy Quran which you have mentioned and quoted throughout this booklet while explaining the teachings of Islam

94. How did God communicate His messages and words to the Holy Prophet?

95. How did the Holy Quran come down to us?

96. Do all Muslims have the same Quran, then?

97. Please mention some features of the Holy Quran which give it a unique place among the scriptures of the world

98. Is there any other notable distinction of the Holy Quran?

99. How is the Holy Quran divided?

100. Is the Holy Quran arranged in order of the sequence in which its various passages were revealed to the Holy Prophet?

101. It is said that the Holy Quran is not arranged in an orderly form, but deals with various subjects in a dis organized manner. Please comment on this

102. Is there an arrangement of topics in the Quran?

103. What sort of subjects does the Holy Quran deal with?

104. Does the Holy Quran give any evidence to back up its claim that it is the word of God, and not the thoughts of a man?

105. What position does the Holy Quran hold for Muslims?

14. The Hadith. 106. What is the Hadith?

107. What does the word Hadith mean?

108. Please name some books of Hadith

109. How did these books come to be compiled?

110. So the compilers of Hadith did not just record everything which they heard people calling a Saying or action of the Holy Prophet?

111. What are the subjects covered in Hadith literature?

112. Are all the recorded reports in Hadith true and genuine?

113. Is it necessary for a Muslim to believe in and follow Hadith?

15. Muslim code of behaviour. 114. According to Islamic teachings, apart from having the right belief how important is it for a person to do good deeds?

115. Please give a list of some of the good qualities a Muslim must try to acquire

116. How does Islam require a Muslim to treat the people around him?

Appendix

1. What are jinn?

2. So the jinn (of the second kind) and the angels pull a person’s mind in opposite directions?

3. It is said that the devil was an angel who disobeyed God by refusing to submit to Adam. Is this true?

4. What does the Quran mean when it says that God created jinn from fire?

5. So the jinn mentioned in the Quran are quite different from how they are generally imagined to be?

Отрывок из книги

There has been a great demand for a booklet to introduce younger people to the teachings of Islam in fairly simple language. The Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha‘at Islam Lahore has, over the past decades, produced a range of excellent works dealing with all aspects of Islam, which particularly aim at correcting common misconceptions about Islam as well as answering the doubts and questions that arise in the modern mind regarding this faith. This literature has been widely appreciated and acclaimed as meeting the needs of the present times, both for teaching Muslims and for presenting Islam to the world generally. It has been felt for sometime that the wonderful knowledge contained in these comprehensive works must be made more readily accessible to younger people by presenting it at an introductory level in simpler language. This booklet has therefore been prepared to satisfy these requirements.

All the basic doctrines and practices of Islam have been covered, supplemented by information about the Holy Quran, Hadith, and the moral teachings of Islam. No prior knowledge is assumed. The question-answer format used, it is hoped, will make the booklet more interesting than would be the case with a descriptive approach. I have attempted to keep the language and the wording simple, but how far this aim has been achieved can only be decided by the younger readers. I have also typeset and designed the booklet for maximum clarity and ease of reading.

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Because, properly speaking, the Holy Prophet Muhammad was not the Founder of Islam, but was himself a Muslim — a follower of Islam. Prophets before him too are called Muslims in the Holy Quran. Our religion was not named after the Holy Prophet Muhammad in order to stress that it teaches the same basic principles that were originally taught by all the prophets who appeared before him in various parts of the world.

Yes. Because it teaches that, just as the universe around us obeys the laws God has established for it, man too should submit to the guidance the Almighty has revealed through His Prophet. It teaches that Islam or ‘submission to God’ is a hallmark of the physical world and of human nature. Every human child at birth is a ‘Muslim’ in the sense that he (or she) behaves according to true human nature.

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