Islamic/ Middle Eastern

Islam (Arabic: الإسلام; al-'islām (help·info)) is a monotheistic religion based upon the teachings of Muhammad. more...

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It is the second-largest religion in the world today, with an estimated 1.4 billion adherents, known as Muslims.

Muslims believe that God (Arabic: Allāh) revealed the Qur'an to Muhammad and that Muhammad is God's final prophet (see: Prophets of Islam). Muslims consider the Qur'an and the traditions of Muhammad in the Sunnah to be the basic sources of Islam. Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam is an Abrahamic religion.

Today, Muslims may be found throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. About 20 percent of Muslims originate from Arab countries. Islam is the second largest religion in many European countries, such as France, which has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe, and the United Kingdom. and in many other European countries.

Beliefs

Muslims believe that God revealed a message to humanity through Muhammad (c. 570–July 6, 632) via the angel Gabriel. Muhammad is considered to have been God's final prophet, the "Seal of the Prophets". The revelations made to Muhammad constitute the holy book of Islam, the Qur'an. The Qur'an is believed to be the flawless final revelation of God to humanity, valid until the day of the Resurrection.

Muslims hold that the message of Islam ... submission to the will of the one God ... is the same as the message preached by all the messengers sent by God to humanity since Adam. From a Muslim point of view, Islam is the oldest of the monotheistic religions because it represents both the original and the final revelation of God to Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. Members of all sects of the Muslim faith believe that the Qur'an codifies the direct words of God.

Islamic texts depict Judaism and Christianity as prophetic successor traditions to the teachings of Abraham. The Qur'an calls Jews and Christians "people of the Book," and distinguishes them from "polytheists". In order to reconcile discrepancies between the earlier prophets and the Qur'an, Muslims contend that Jews and Christians forgot or distorted the word of God after it was revealed to them. The majority of early, and some modern, Muslim scholars believe it was just distortion in the interpretation shown in the Bible. However, others believe that there was also textual distortion, that Jews changed the Tawrat (Torah), and Christians the Injil (Gospels) by altering the meaning, form and placement of words in their respective holy texts.

Read more at Wikipedia.org