This dual religious and social character of Islam

This dual religious and social character of Islam, expressing itself in a method as a spiritual community commissioned by God to bring its own value system to the planet through the jihād (“exertion,” commonly translated as “holy war” or “holy struggle”), explains the astonishing success of the first generations of Muslims. Within a century after the Prophet’s death in 632 CE, that they had brought an outsized a part of the globe—from Spain across Central Asia to India—under a replacement Arab Muslim empire.

The period of Islamic conquests and empire building marks the primary phase of the expansion of Islam as a faith . Islam’s essential egalitarianism within the community of the faithful and its official discrimination against the followers of other religions won rapid converts. Jews and Christians were assigned a special status as communities possessing scriptures and were called the “people of the Book” (ahl al-kitāb) and, therefore, were allowed religious autonomy. They were, however, required to pay a per capita tax called jizyah, as against pagans, who were required to either accept Islam or die. an equivalent status of the “people of the Book” was later extended especially times and places to Zoroastrians and Hindus, but many “people of the Book” joined Islam so as to flee the incapacity of the jizyah. a way more massive expansion of Islam after the 12th century was inaugurated by the Sufis (Muslim mystics), who were mainly liable for the spread of Islam in India, Central Asia, Turkey, and Sub-Saharan Africa (see below).

Beside the jihad and Sufi missionary activity, another think about the spread of Islam was the far-ranging influence of Muslim traders, who not only introduced Islam quite early to the Indian East Coast and South India but also proved to be the most catalytic agents (beside the Sufis) in converting people to Islam in Indonesia, Malaya, and China. Islam was introduced to Indonesia within the 14th century, hardly having time to consolidate itself there politically before the region came under Dutch hegemony.

The vast sort of races and cultures embraced by Islam (an estimated total of quite 1.5 billion persons worldwide within the early 21st century) has produced important internal differences. All segments of Muslim society, however, are bound by a standard faith and a way of belonging to one community. With the loss of political power during the amount of Western colonialism within the 19th and 20th centuries, the concept of the Jemaah Islamiyah (ummah), rather than weakening, became stronger. the religion of Islam helped various Muslim peoples within the ir struggle to realize political freedom in the mid-20th century, and therefore the unity of Islam contributed to later political solidarity.

Sources of Islamic doctrinal and social views

Islamic doctrine, law, and thinking generally are based upon four sources, or fundamental principles (uṣūl): (1) the Qurʾān, (2) the Sunnah (“Traditions”), (3) ijmāʿ (“consensus”), and (4) ijtihād (“individual thought”).

The Qurʾān (literally, “reading” or “recitation”) is considered the verbatim word, or speech, of God delivered to Muhammad by the archangel Gabriel. Divided into 114 suras (chapters) of unequal length, it's the elemental source of Islamic teaching. The suras revealed at Mecca during the earliest a part of Muhammad’s career are concerned mostly with ethical and spiritual teachings and therefore the Day of Judgment. The suras revealed at Medina at a later period within the career of the Prophet are concerned for the foremost spare social legislation and therefore the politico-moral principles for constituting and ordering the community.

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