Islam

Islam

The word 'Islam' means recognition of and active submission to the will of Allah, the one and only 'God'. A Muslim is one who acknowledges and obediently submits to Allah - submission leads to salvation. 

Ideally, all areas of life - personal, social, and political should submit to the divine will, as set forth in Islam's sacred book the Qur'an. Islam came into being almost 600 years after the death of Jesus the Christ.

There are similarities between Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is so much as they are all monotheistic, they are people of the 'Book' (the Torah, the Bible, the Qur'an), and they will not tolerate worship of other gods or idolatry.

Salvation for the Christian is not just a matter of obedience to God, but one of faith in the work of Christ on the cross, belief in his deity, incarnation, death, resurrection and return at the end of the Christian era.

Christian's also differ from Judaism, and from Islam, in that they believe in the triune nature of the one God as expressed in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit - meaning that God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God. 

Judaism and Islam refute the belief in a God of coequal persons. 

Christians also believe that Jesus the Christ (God the Son) is both fully God and fully Human - two natures; but one person.

There are a growing number of Islamic expressions, those listed are from the period (1704-1971), many new expressions are variations too numerous to list:

  • The Halveti-Jerrahi Order of Dervishes
  • The Haqqani Naqshbandis
  • The Baháî Faith
  • The Shadhili-Akabari Sufi Order
  • The Sufi Movement (International Sufi Movement)
  • The Nation Islam
  • Subud
  • The Sufi Order of the West (Sufi Order International)
  • United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors
  • The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship

There are two basic groups within Islam: Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims - Sunni and Shia Muslims arose out of a historical division within Islam over a disagreement over who should succeed (the Prophet) Muhammad.