The Encyclopedia of World Religions

220 S Islam

Islam expanded rapidly. Within a century of the prophet’s death, it extended from Spain and Morocco in the west through the Near East and Iran to central Asia in the east. In 750 the Abbasid dynasty succeeded the Umayyads and, ruling from Baghdad, presided over a magnificent civilization. During this period Islam developed sophisticated traditions of philosophy and profound schools of MYSTICISM , known as S UFISM . After the fall of the Abbasids in 1258, the Islamic world was divided among regional powers. The powerful Turks overthrew Constantinople in 1453 and lay siege to Vienna, Austria, in the 1520s and again in 1683. The Mughals produced great monuments of South Asian civilization, including the famed Taj Mahal, a mausoleum in Agra, India. From South Asia, Islam spread east to Indonesia, the most populous Islamic country today. In Africa south of the Sahara, Muslims also developed sev eral long-lasting societies. In the 18th and 19th centuries, European colonizers overran much of the Islamic world and ruled it until after World War II (1939–45). Some Muslims, including Turkish reformers, reacted by rejecting Islamic traditions as outmoded. They adopted a secular worldview informed by mod ern science. Others, like the South Asian poet Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), maintained that Islam provided a spiritual grounding for science. From the 1930s on in North America some African Americans found meaning in the teachings of Eli jah Muhammad, who led an organization known as the Nation of Islam ( see I SLAM , N ATION OF ); many Muslims in other parts of the world question whether Elijah Muhammad was actually teaching Islam. Islam in the World Today At the beginning of the 21st century, Islam finds itself second only to C HRISTIANITY in its number of active adherents among the religions of the world. The sharp decline in the practice of B UD DHISM and the other traditional religions of China after the communist triumph in 1949 contributed to Islam’s status as the world’s second-largest religion.

one of the most famous of the MYSTERY RELIGIONS . Candidates underwent an impressive initiation that simulated participation in the death of Osiris and his resuscitation by Isis. In general, Isis was seen as the Great Mother, identified with all other great goddesses, and addressed as “O Thou of countless Names.” Some have suggested that her worship influenced Christian devotion to M ARY , the mother of J ESUS . Islam Arabic for “submission,” specifically, submission to the will of God; a religion that took final form in Arabia after revelations to the prophet M UHAMMAD (570–632 C . E .). People who practice the religion are called Muslims (earlier spelled Moslems). HISTORY Muslims call the time before the prophet Muham mad al-Jahiliya, “the times of ignorance.” At that time seminomadic herders, caravaners, and towns people lived in Arabia. Their primary loyalty was to their clans, and their religions were polytheis tic and local. The revelations to Muhammad pro claimed that human beings owed primary loyalty to the one true God, whom alone they should obey ( see A LLAH ). As a result a new community, the Ummah of Islam, was created, based not on blood relationship but on shared FAITH . Muslims date its existence from the hijra (also spelled hegira ), the flight of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622. After the prophet’s death, the revelations he had received were collected and compiled into a book known as the Q UR ’ AN . Over the next 300 years, scholars collected stories of the prophet’s deeds and sayings, the H ADITH . At the same time, several schools of thought arose. The most important dis agreement divided a minority of Muslims, known as Shi’ites, from most other Muslims, known as Sunnis ( see S HI ’ ITE I SLAM and S UNNI I SLAM ). Sunnis accepted the Umayyad dynasty, which ruled in Damascus, while Shi’ites claimed that the proph et’s male descendants should lead the community of Islam.