ISLAM: RELIGION OF THE STRAIGHT PATH

Every great religious leader has demonstrated genius in the clear perception of a fundamental human problem and in the persuasive statement of solution of that problem, including a method of achieving the ideal form of human life, known in religious language as “salvation.”

Each accomplishes the task of all great leaders, a task which Erik Erikson described as their ability “out of the deepest personal conflicts to derive the energy which meets their period’s specific need for a resynthesis of the prevalent world image” (Identity: Youth and Crisis, p. 224). That is, each of them offers a new way of seeing or of imagining the world which in turn allows for a new and more fulfilling way to live in the world. Muhammad’s way follows the “straight path” of divinely-revealed guidance.

v Role of Muhammad as Prophet and Perfect Man. Muhammad was born in a time and place of widespread confusion. Arabia in the sixth century of the common era (c.e.) was in upheaval on all fronts: political, social, and religious. There were many tribal chiefs, who claimed supreme authority over their land and people. Conflict, unrest, and disorder marked both individual and social life. The nomadic tribes made constant raids on each other’s flocks, water-holes, and grazing lands. There was no central authority to adjudicate disputes or establish laws. Family groups conducted feuds, following the age-old law of revenge.

The religious situation was likewise confused. Within a complex polytheism, a few major gods were worshipped in sacrificial rituals. In addition, each tribe claimed its own “spirit” or jiin, as its patron deity. Among these gods was one known as Allah (an Arabic term related to the Hebrew word for God, El). The religious center of Arabia was Mecca, where statues (idols) of all the tribal deities were housed in a large stone cube, called the Ka’bah.

At the time of Muhammad, the importance of Mecca as a caravan center was already declining because of new water routes through the Red Sea which had been developed by the Egyptians. Thus, the trade brought into Mecca by religious pilgrimages to the shrine at the Ka’bah was an important part of the economy, and there was competition to determine which family would have the honor of maintaining the sacred shrine.

Besides worshipers of various jiin, the religious community in Mecca also included Jews and Christians. Jewish influence in the peninsula was reflected in a monotheistic cult in South Arabia who worshipped Rahmanan, the Merciful, also called the “Lord of heaven and earth.” The Christians were members of the Nestorian and Monophysite sects, regarded as heretics by the Western Church. It may have been Muhammad’s acquaintance with Monophysite Christians, who insisted that Jesus had only a divine nature, that shaped his understanding of Christianity as a form of idolatry.

Muslims call this time of confusion “the age of ignorance.” What Muhammad claimed to bring was the divine message which would direct human life out of these conflicts into the perfect peace known only to those who submit to the will of God. Thus, what Muhammad proclaimed is called “the guidance.” He recited the words which God, through an angel, revealed to him for the people. His followers memorized Muhammad’s “recitations” and later they were written down and collected in one book, called al-Qur’an, “the Reading.” For Muslims Muhammad is the messenger (rasul) of God, who both teaches and embodies the way of life which brings peace (salaam). Thus, the religion is called Islam and its followers are known as Muslims. (All three terms are built on the same Arabic root, s-l-m.)

Muhammad’s words express the message of Islam and his actions demonstrate the message. So Muhammad is honored as the living embodiment of “the guidance.” As Muhammad’s practice (sunnah) came to be valued as a source of guidance second only to the Qur’an, the doctrine of Muhammad’s sinlessness developed. As the exemplar of perfect devotion to God he became honored as the “perfect man,” the archetypal Muslim. The belief is rooted in such verses of the Qur’an as the following:

Stories about the life of Muhammad are known as hadith. The authenticity of an authoritative hadith is determined by tracing its chain of transmission (isnad) to its origin in the words of one of the companions of the Prophet. Through this process believers can be assured that they have exact information about Muhammad’s conduct to guide them. Thus hadith serve the same function as myths: to provide “paradigmatic models” for human behavior.

In the Qur’an Muhammad is called “the messenger of Allah and the Seal of the Prophets” (33.40). The latter phrase means not only that Muhammad is the last in the line of divinely-inspired prophets, but that he is also the one who delivers for the final time the message of God to humanity. Muhammad is not regarded by Muslims as divine nor as angelic: he is the human instrument through whom God’s will is revealed, and his life provides the chief example of obedience to that will.

The traditional aversion to the worship of Muhammad is clearly illustrated in the story of Abu Bakr’s response to the Prophet’s death. While the people of the small community grieved and lamented the loss of their leader, Abu Bakr declared to them: “O ye people, if anyone worships Muhammad, Muhammad is dead, but if anyone worships God, He is alive and dies not.”

Muhammad also consistently pointed away from himself to Allah; he drew his authority from what God had revealed to him rather than from his own person. In fact, W. C. Smith has observed that the relationship between the Prophet and the Qur’an is exactly opposite of that between Jesus and the New Testament. For Christians Jesus is the revelation of God, the living Word, and the New Testament writings are the medium through which the believer comes to know the truth in Jesus. For Muslims, however, the Qur’an itself is the Word of God, while Muhammad is the human instrument through whom it is revealed. The different relationship might be set out in an analogy:

Birth legends. Muhammad was born in Mecca. Orphaned at six, he stayed briefly with his grandfather, who was a leader of a powerful clan, the Quraish. After his grandfather’s death, the young Muhammad was adopted by an uncle, Abu Talib, who protected him throughout his career, even though he never converted to Islam.

As in the case of other religious leaders, the story of Muhammad’s birth was elaborated by many legends. In one account his grandfather dreamed that a spreading tree was growing out of his own back, a symbol of the mighty influence of his grandson. According to another story, at Muhammad’s birth a light appeared in the heavens seven times brighter than the sun; at the same time he was worshipped by both Persians and Arabs. This legend is interpreted as a prediction that the child would become both a world ruler and a religious leader. [1] In yet another birth legend, Muhammad’s mother heard a voice predicting the destiny of her unborn son. She was told to wear iron rings around her neck and arms; the rings were then broken after a few days to indicate that Muhammad would finally triumph after enduring difficult trials. The heavenly voice also instructed his mother to name her son Ahmad, or Muhammad, meaning “Illustrious One.” [2]

It is said in other stories that, when Muhammad was born, the infant fell to the ground, picked up a handful of earth and gazed into the sky. By these actions the child prefigured his role as a prophet, connecting earth and heaven. According to yet other legends, the newborn Muhammad carried no birth marks, the navel cord was cut miraculously, and he emerged from the womb already circumcised. These details symbolize Muhammad’s special status as one called by Allah to restore the truth of God’s covenant with humanity. These stories function as myths, expressing the Muslim belief that Muhammad was born by divine election and that his destiny was to proclaim and to embody the will of God for human life.

v Childhood stories. Again, as is true of religious founders such as Jesus and the Buddha, so there are many traditional stories about Muhammad’s exploits as a child. In one tale, Muhammad was tending sheep with his foster brothers when two angels appeared. The angels laid him on the ground, took a drop of black blood from his heart, and washed him with melted snow from a golden cup. Another angel weighed the boy on a scales, first with ten people in the opposite balance. But when Muhammad proved heavier than the ten, the angel weighed him against 100 people, then against 1,000. In each case Muhammad carried greater weight. Finally, the angel declared that Muhammad would weigh more than the entire nation.

In another legend, the young Muhammad accompanied his uncle’s caravan to Syria. On the way they passed the cave of a Christian hermit who was said to possess esoteric knowledge. Contrary to his custom of ignoring caravans, the hermit, with uncharacteristic extravagance, invited the entire party to a feast. He explained that he had watched the caravan approach and noted that a cloud followed Muhammad as he rode, shading him from the sun. Taking Muhammad aside, the hermit questioned him about secret knowledge the hermit kept in a book; and Muhammad confirmed what was written there. When the hermit asked Muhammad to answer questions in the name of Muhammad’s gods, the boy replied that he would speak only in the name of the one true God. The hermit then warned Muhammad’s uncle to protect the young man. [3]

v Career as Prophet and Ruler. This last story confirms the Islamic belief that Muhammad fulfills the deepest wisdom of Christianity, even as Christians believe that the teachings of Jesus fulfilled the word of God to the Jewish people. In the Qur’an Jesus himself is quoted as predicting the final revelation to Muhammad:

Muhammad’s first work was in his uncle’s caravans. Muslim tradition maintains that he was illiterate, even though his later employment as a caravan leader would seem to require rudimentary skills in reading and writing. Nevertheless, what is called the “standing miracle” of Islam is that God revealed the Qur’an to “an ignorant camel driver,” as Muhammad referred to himself. Other than that revelation, Muhammad recognized no miracle but the creation itself.

Muhammad married the widowed owner of a caravan he was working on. Khadijah was forty years old at the time; Muhammad was twenty-five. He took no other wives until after her death. Eventually Muhammad had nine wives. Most were widows who required care after their husbands had fallen in battle. He married one captive woman, and then emancipated her whole tribe. Another of his wives was the daughter of a rival chief, so the marriage was a means of making peace and allying forces.

Polygamy is not generally practiced today in Muslim cultures, but it is allowable in certain circumstances. For example, a man may take additional wives as a gesture of charity for widows and orphans, particularly after a battle. Later Islamic law insisted that a woman’s desire must be honored, so there should be no forced marriages. In fact, a marriage the Prophet himself arranged foundered because the woman was not consulted! But perhaps the greatest deterrence to polygamy is the Prophet’s declaration that a man must love all his wives equally—a standard of equity many believe impossible to meet.

Khadijah was a great source of encouragement to Muhammad in the early years of his preaching in Mecca. He is reported to have said, “When I was poor she enriched me; when they called me a liar, she alone remained true.” For her loyalty, Khadijah is often recommended to Muslim women as the model of proper behavior.

Muhammad prepared for religious insight by regularly isolating himself in a cave outside Mecca for long periods of prayer. After fifteen years of spiritual discipline, his quest was fulfilled. Late in the evening known as “The Night of Power and Excellence,” he heard the divine voice, commanding him, “Recite!” Muhammad protested that he was illiterate. Thus, “The Sacred Book is known as Al-Qur’an, ‘The Reading,’ The Reading of the man who knew not how to read” (M. Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran, p. xi). The first words given to Muhammad are recorded in chapter (surah) 96 of the Qur’an:

As with all surahs, so this one (called “The Clot”) begins with the phrase, “In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful” (or “Mercy-giving,” in the translation by T. B. Irving).

Muhammad now realizes that the desert jinn are false deities, and that Allah, who was already known to his contemporaries as an impressive god, is the only deity. He is without associates—not even the three goddesses the Arabians worshipped as “the daughters of Allah,” who are named in the so-called “satanic verses” which Muhammad expunged from the Qur’an (see Frederick Denny’s discussion of religion in pre-Islamic Arabia in An Introduction to Islam). Thus the revelation began with the Arabic phrase, La ilaha illa ‘llah, meaning “There is no god but God!” For the next twenty-three years Allah continued to reveal his will to Muhammad and instructed Muhammad to “cry,” or recite, the message to the people. That recitation contained divine guidance for both individual life and social order, so Muslims insist that the Qur’an is the word of God for both piety and politics.

Muhammad’s first preaching in Mecca was done in the center of the city, near a great stone enclosure, called the Ka’bah, which housed the idols of the deities worshipped in Mecca and those honored by people of other lands who visited Mecca on caravan business. According to one hadith, Muhammad preached on the hill across from the Ka’bah and asked the people:

Muhammad was not an overnight success, but after a decade of preaching he had won enough converts to alarm the nobility in Mecca. Their opposition to Muhammad’s message seems to have been threefold:

Muhammad’s slowly growing influence was sufficiently threatening to the nobility in Mecca that they began to plot against his life. Muhammad escaped to the city of Yathrib, later called Medina (a contraction of the Arabic for “City of the Prophet”). His escape or flight from Mecca, known as the Hijrah, took place in 622 c.e. Because this date marks the beginning of Muhammad’s organizing the first Islamic government it is the point at which the Muslim calendar begins. Thus Muslim dates are designated as a.h. (After Hijrah).

In Medina Muhammad united many tribes into a commonwealth. But not without tragic cost: of the three Jewish tribes brought under the constitution of Medina, two were exiled and one massacred. Malise Ruthven notes that the elimination of “ideological opponents” seemed necessary to Muhammad because “the new allegiance to Islam must be seen to triumph over ancient loyalties” (Islam in the Modern World, pp. 75–79).

’Azzam comments that Muhammad’s “first concern in Yathrib was to build his simple place of worship where the faithful could also meet to discuss the affairs of their world.”

Eight years after Hijrah, Muhammad made a triumphant return to Mecca with ten thousand armed men. He received the conversion of the city to Islam at the ancient religious center, the Ka’bah. The idols in the sacred stone house were destroyed. The Ka’bah to this day is kept virtually empty and is entered, even during the month of pilgrimage, only on special occasions (such as the visit of the king of Saudi Arabia). Muhammad returned to Medina, from which base he led the Muslims in other battles, maintaining administrative responsibility for the growing Muslim community. On his last pilgrimage to Mecca he exhorted his followers to remain unified in their loyalty to Islam: “This day I have perfected your religion for you and completed My favor to you” (5:3). He died in the arms of ‘A’isha, his favorite wife, in 632 c.e. (10 a.h.).

v After Muhammad’s death, the Islamic community was led by four caliphs, known as Rashidun, or “rightly guided.” The first was Abu Bakr, a close associate and father-in-law of Muhammad, who in the two years of his rule countered early defections from the growing empire. His successor, ‘Umar, was a highly successful military leader, the first of the caliphs to be given the title, “commander of the faithful.” The third caliph was ‘Uthman whose distinguish-ing achievement was to establish the official text of the Qur’an. Last to be appointed was Ali, husband of Muhammad’s daughter Fatima, whose supporters formed the Shi’a party of Islam. After the death of Ali’s son, Husayn, at the hand of the Umayyad leader, the center of power in the Muslim world moved from the Hijaz in Arabia to Damascus in Syria.

Within a century Muslims had extended their rule westward to Spain and over the Pyrenees to France. Their progress was stopped at the Battle of Tours by Charles Martel in 732. The expansion of Islam continued eastward, establishing major empires in Persia (Iran) and India. Today the largest concentration of Muslims in the world is in Indonesia. Islam is the predominant religion in fifty-seven countries, although the largest number of Muslims is concentrated in the region extending across North Africa, through the Middle East, into Iran and Afghanistan, Pakistan and the southern regions of the former Soviet Union and China, finally extending into Malaysia and Indonesia. It is difficult to calculate the rapidly growing populations in the Islamic world, but most estimates place the number of Muslims in the world today at one billion. Islam is second only to Christianity as the largest religious community on the globe.

v Establishment of the Text. The official recension of the text of the Qur’an was established within twenty years of Muhammad’s death by Uthman, the third caliph. Scholars generally agree that “we are as certain that the Qur’an is the historical word of Muhammad as the Muslim is certain it is the word of God” (Isma’il Faruqi, Islam, p. 20). Western critics claim that there were many influences on the composition of the Qur’an, including Arabic folklore, as well as Jewish and Christian theology. But Muslims reply that, since revelation is cumulative, the Qur’an necessarily includes the truth in all previous traditions.

v Qur’an compared to Torah and New Testament. According to Islam, the revelation to Muhammad clarifies and corrects the teachings in earlier revelations to Jews and Christians. Some key points of comparison between the Jewish and Christian scriptures and the Qur’an are the following:

While Muslims accept the authority of the Torah, they teach that the Jews distorted the divine message by claiming to be the chosen people of God. Islam claims to be universal, embracing all races, and does not recognize any people as having a special covenant with God.

Revelation to Jesus: one God, compassionate, who commands believers to love their neighbors

Jesus was sent by Allah as “a pattern for the children of Israel” (43.59). Further, the Qur’an teaches that Jesus denied any claim to deity for himself (5.116–117), but affirms that he was born of the virgin Mary through a direct creative act of God (19.16–36).

The problem is that Christians have committed the sin of Shirk (“association”) by elevating Jesus to the status of deity and making him, as well as the Holy Spirit, equal to God:

Muslims teach that Christians are led astray by the mistaken report, which the Qur’an attributes to the Jews, that Jesus was crucified:

Muslims teach that Judas was crucified instead and some believe that Jesus was taken bodily into heaven. At the end of history Jesus will be present to judge those who failed to accept the prophetic message he taught during his lifetime:

The significance of Jesus’ death, then, is not that it is an atoning sacrifice for human sins, but that it was a tragic curtailment of Jesus’ prophetic mission. Jesus did not have time to develop a clear set of guidelines for social order. He announced the ideals of loving one’s neighbor and of building the kingdom of God on earth, but he did not explain how those ideals were to be achieved. From the Muslim viewpoint, the “glory of Islam consists in having embodied the beautiful sentiment of Jesus in definite laws” (Huston Smith, The World’s Religions, p. 243).

Revelation to Muhammad: guidance from the one God in the ways to love one’s neighbor within a just social order

According to the Qur’an, the revelation given to Muhammad fulfills all previous Scriptures (5.18, 13.37–40). As the ultimate revelation, the Qur’an teaches faith in one God, the universality of his rule, and the duty of all people to follow his law (29.46), not only in their personal lives, but also in their political, social, and economic activities.

v Nature of God in the Qur’an. The understanding of the nature of God in Islam is based on unconditional monotheism, like that in Judaism and Christianity. Allah is the Supreme Ruler of nature and history. As such, he is both omnipotent (all-powerful) and omniscient (all-knowing). Allah not only directs the order of the universe, but he also ordains both faith and unbelief. Nevertheless, the individual is held responsible for failing to keep the true faith (2.158–159).

The dilemma between predestination (by which God foreknows and determines the course of future events) and free will (by which humans determine their own future) is not resolved in Islamic theology. Muslims rather accept the teaching of the Qur’an that God wisely superintends all things and that, at the same time, each individual is held accountable for exercising whatever power of goodness he or she possesses.

v Human Nature in the Qur’an. The Qur’an places high value upon humankind. According to the first revelation Muhammad received, God created the first human from a “clot” of blood (96.2). A later surah describes the process in more detail:

The original human, Adam, was created as the “viceroy” of God and even the angels were required to bow down before him. Only the rebellious angel Iblis refused to do so, thus falling away from God as a disbeliever and becoming Satan (2.34, 15.36–44, 18.50, 38.71–85). The man and his wife also, despite the perfect environment of the Garden, failed to maintain obedience to God. They were deceived by Satan who tempted them with the knowledge of immortality and led them into sexual awareness (7.11–26). Adam and Eve thus fell under God’s judgment, but God is compassionate and “relenting.” Allah supplied the guilty pair with clothing as a sign that they should be covered with “heedfulness” to the right path in the future.

The significance of the “fall” of Adam and Eve is to demonstrate that God is merciful to forgive those who disobey his will. Islam does not accept the traditional Christian doctrine of original sin. Rather, each individual will be held solely responsible for his or her own deeds on the Day of Judgment. The only hope for deliverance from eternal punishment is strict adherence to the guidance which God has graciously provided through his messengers throughout the ages. God’s words to the prophets constitute the “straight path” through the “desert” of unbelief and rebellion to the “oasis” of peace and justice (5.10–17). It is this imagery which lies behind the term Shari‘ah to describe the whole body of Islamic law, derived from four sources of guidance.

v The Four Sources of Guidance. The foremost source of religious and moral direction is the Qur’an, the supreme authority in Islam. Second, stories about the conduct and teachings of Muhammad, called Hadith, carry the authority of the Prophet’s personal example (Sunnah).

But, as with all religious traditions, the founding documents cannot address all the issues which arise in subsequent generations; thus, as Faruqi argued, “the divine plan relegated lawmaking to humankind, as long as the principles and values that the prescriptive laws embody are those which God has revealed” (Islam, p. 37). Therefore, later Muslim teachers identified two further sources of guidance to direct the faithful in new situations which could not have been anticipated at the time of Muhammad.

The third source is Consensus, the agreement of authorized teachers on a point of law. The Muslim trust in Consensus rests in the following verse from the Qur’an:

There are also sayings of Muhammad which confirm the principle of Consensus, such as, “my people cannot agree on an error.” Underlying such a statement, of course, is the assumption that the Muslim community as a whole, the Ummah (“House of Islam”), seeks to uphold the five aims of Shari‘ah: human life, human dignity, property, sober mind, and faith. It is supposed that a true consensus will protect one or more of these values. Thus, if the majority of teachers (ulema) agree on a given application of Quranic principles, the new requirement becomes authoritative.

In order to determine the relation between the established law and a new case, Islamic jurists turned to a fourth source of guidance: Analogy. Here legal scholars took the initiative to infer from some earlier case the principle of law which justified the decision, then to apply that principle to the case at hand. The best known example is the inference that distilled whiskey and narcotics are forbidden, as well as wine (which is explicitly proscribed in the Qur’an), because they also cause intoxication, thus defeating the aim of a “sober mind.”

In order to contain the proliferation of legal rulings with the authority of divine guidance, the ulema declared that the way of reasoning by analogy was discontinued in the early modern period. The official formulation was that “the gates of ijtihad are closed.” Despite calls by several twentieth-century reformist leaders to reopen the gates, in order to adapt Islamic jurisprudence to contemporary conditions, the established majority view among Sunni Muslims is that there is no divinely-authorized source of new guidance operative today. This view is not shared, however, by Shi’i who regard their imams as authorized to issue fatwa or unquestioned legal judgments and by some “Islamicists” who promote new applications of Muslim law to contemporary societies.

v The Five Pillars. Together, the four traditional sources of guidance produce the Shari‘ah, “the straight path.” The entire Shari‘ah covers every aspect of personal and social conduct, but its principal requirements are laid out in what are popularly known as

v The “Sixth Pillar.” In addition to the Five Pillars Muslims also recognize the obligation of jihad, or “strenuous effort.” Originally, the term denoted “holy war” against those who resisted the growth and advance of Islam. It is still used in Shi’a Islam to stir martial passions, as in the war between Iran and Iraq throughout the 1980s. Most Muslims today, however, understand jihad in the spiritual sense of warfare against sin within oneself, the fervent striving for religious and moral perfection. [5]

v Articles of Faith. Faithful Muslims also subscribe to six beliefs called iman, or faith:

v Sunni Islam is the “orthodox” faith of the majority of Muslims in the world today. The Sunnis believe that the proper successor to Muhammad was not a member of the Prophet’s family, but one of his companions who shared his understanding and practice, or sunnah. Sunnis follow the Shari’ah as interpreted by authorized teachers and leaders through the process of deliberation and reasoned debate. Some countries, including Egypt, seek to govern civil, as well as religious, conduct by Islamic law. Sunnis believe that authority resides in those who possess the competence and piety to lead the community along the “straight path.” In most Muslim countries today the Sunni majority are in the process of adapting the traditions of Islam to growing demands for freer societies and more equitable distribution of wealth and resources. On the other hand, a minority of “fundamentalists” resent the influence of Western ideas and values and work to restore a way of life governed by traditional laws.

v Shi’a Islam is the “charismatic” party of Ali, the son-in-law of Muhammad, whom his followers claim should have been appointed immediately as the successor to the Prophet. Shi’ites honor the line of divinely-appointed teachers (imams) who they believe are infallible in their interpretations of the law and sinless in their personal lives. These chosen leaders inspire unconditional loyalty, even when obeying their commands leads to martyrdom. Shi’a Islam is also sustained by a strong hope of messianic deliverance by a figure who will appear at the end of history. Each sect of Shi’ites identifies one of the early successors to Ali as the “hidden Imam” who will be revealed as the coming messiah, or mahdi.

v Sufi Islam is practiced by the mystics of the tradition. Sufis live within both Sunni and Shi’ite communities, pursuing their passionate search for unity with God. Sufis worship in small gatherings, around a revered spiritual master, called the shaykh; they search the Qur’an for hidden mysteries and engage in intense rituals of prayer and dance, called dhikr, the practice of “remembering” God. They often describe their discipline as the quest to know the one-hundredth name of Allah and thus to merge their consciousness with the divine reality.

v Dispute over Authority. It is important to note that the divisions within Islam are not based on disagreements about the authority of the divine words revealed to Muhammad, but—as was also the case within Christianity—over who has the right to interpret the sacred text.

The Christian Church early declared the official list of books included in the Bible, called the canon, to be closed. The process took several centuries, but even now not all Christians agree on which books are most authoritative, and which teachings of the Bible should be followed literally and which should be interpreted symbolically or even disregarded altogether. Further, debate continues among the branches of Christianity about who has the authority to determine the meaning of the sacred writings. Within the Roman Catholic tradition, the office of the teaching magesterium in the Vatican holds the authority to decide what is in accord with true doctrine. The Orthodox Church appeals to the statements of the first seven ecumenical councils held in the early centuries of the Christian era as the final measure of theological truth. In principle, Protestants appeal to individual spiritual insight to interpret the Bible, although in practice their tradition relies on the teaching of educated pastors and denominational leaders.

In Islam there is no disagreement about the identity or content of the revealed text: all Muslims accept the Qur’an as the final and complete Word of God, without error in its original language. The exact words of the Qur’an were established within twenty years of Muhammad’s death and have not varied since. What those words mean, however, is open to ongoing dispute.

The three major divisions of Islam, like the three main branches of Christianity, each identifies a different center of authority of proper interpretation. The Sunnis rely on the consensus of those trained in Islamic law and tradition, a body of men known as the Ulema.

The Shi’ites look to charismatic leaders, called Imams, to interpret the Qur’an on the basis of their individual spiritual authority. The most respected and influential of these leaders are given the title, Ayatollah. In matters of religious truth, the Sufis follow the guidance of their Shaykhs, masters of rituals of meditation and devotion.

[1] It is important to note that these roles are not regarded as alternatives, as in the case of the prediction made about Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, as a child. The story is parallel to the birth story of Jesus, in which the Christ child is worshipped by foreign “wise men,” the Magi from Persia (Matthew 2:1–12).

[2] Compare the legends about the birth of Jesus in which angels reveal that his name shall be Emmanuel, meaning “God with us,” and Jesus or “Savior” (Matthew 1:21–23). The teacher of the Tao was also given symbolic names at his birth: Lao Tzu, meaning “Ancient Child,” and the enigmatic title, “Plum Ear.”

[3] Compare the story of Jesus at age twelve, astounding the teachers in the Temple (Luke 2:42–47).

[4] Parallel language can be found in the Gospel of John 14:16 and 16:7–11, 13. But Christians traditionally interpret Jesus’ words as foretelling the coming of the Holy Spirit. Muslims, however, believe that this passage proves that Jesus recognized his own prophetic mission was incomplete and that more truth would be disclosed after his death. For Muslims the completed revelation was given directly by God to Muhammad and is written down in the Qur’an.

[5] Compare the use of the word crusade in the Christian tradition.

THE FIVE PILLARS OF ISLAM