Malcolm Clark - Islam For Dummies

Islam For Dummies

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Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2019945046

ISBN 978-1-119-64297-8 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-64303-6 (ebk), ISBN 978-1-119-64304-3 (ebk)

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 6
3. Chapter 9
4. Appendix A

1. Chapter 2
2. Chapter 6
3. Chapter 9
4. Chapter 14
5. Chapter 16

Welcome to Islam For Dummies, the book that keeps you from mixing up Muhammad, Mecca, and Medina. These pages divulge what you want to know about the beliefs, practices, and origins of Islam, as well as current developments in the Islamic world.

Shocked and grieved by the events of September 11, 2001, people around the world are coming to understand that they have questions, misconceptions, and perhaps even fear about Islam, and this book is here to help. From giving information about the 1,000-year-old wound left on Islam by the Christian Crusades to understanding the Five Pillars of Faith, this book helps you put todays conflicts into perspective.

In addition, if you live or work among Muslims or have seen a new mosque near your church or synagogue, this book can help you understand and relate to the Muslims in your midst. Muslims are poised to become the second largest religious group in the United States. With this book, you can understand the appeal of this faith without ever having to step foot in a mosque or pray toward Mecca.

Im not Muslim, so this book isnt written to either defend or attack Islam. Without getting hung up on points of tension between Muslims and non-Muslims, I dont pretend that valid reasons for such differences dont exist. This book is also not a textbook. You find some references to other works but no footnotes detailing the support for each point thats made in the text. A number of good, short introductions to Islam exist, but their brevity means that their treatment of issues is highly selective. Islam For Dummies is longer than the typical 100- to 150-page introduction and, thus, more comprehensive.

Keep the following conventions in mind as you read this book:

• Muslim refers to the people who practice Islam; islam is Arabic for submission to God; Islam refers to the name of the Muslim religion and to all the areas of the world that practice that religion; an Islamist is someone who supports Islamic political rule.
• Normal dating of years in the West uses B.c. (before Christ) and A.d. (after the birth of Christliterally in the year of our Lord) dates. A.d. and B.c. are Christian terms because the very abbreviations affirm Jesus as Christ or as Lord. Today many certainly not all books aimed at a general audience that includes non-Christians use the designations B.c.e. and C.e. , where B.c.e. stands for before common era and C.e. for common era. In terms of actual year, a B.c.e. date is the same as a B.c. date, and a C.e. date is the same as an A.d. date. Thats why many books, especially those talking about religion and aimed at a general audience, today use the equivalent, more neutral abbreviations of B.c.e. and C.e. , as I do in this book. And often, if the context of a sentence makes clear that Im talking about the common era, I list only the year and not C.e.

• I refer to the Quran in this manner: Sura 93:610. The Quran isnt a collection of books like the Bible, so Sura doesnt refer to different books of the Quran. Instead, sura is similar to the chapter designation of many books. Scholars have hypotheses but dont even agree on the origin and original meaning of the word sura.

  The most helpful comparison I have seen is to the Biblical book of Psalms: You dont refer to Chapter 1 of the book of Psalms but to Psalm 1. Similarly, you refer not to Chapter 1 of the Quran but to Sura 1. The numbers after the colon are the verses in each sura. Just as Genesis 12:13 is a way of referring to the first three verses of Chapter 12 of the book of Genesis, Sura 12:13 refers to the first three verses of Sura 12 of the Quran. (Islam uses the term