Religion: Islam Topic Pages

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
City (1987 pop. 309,010), S central Iraq, on a lake near the Euphrates River. The city is also called Mashad Ali, after the tomb (in a mosque) of Ali, son-in-law of Muhammad the Prophet.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
The Blue Mosque, also known as the Mosque of Sultan Ahmed I, in Istanbul, Turkey. Renowned for its distinctively coloured tilework and six fluted minarets, the Blue Mosque was built in the early 17th century by the architect Sedefkar Mehmed Agha.

Caliphate: the rulership of Islam. Caliph: the spiritual head and temporal ruler of the Islamic state.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Dominating the city's skyline with its golden dome and lustrous blue walls, the Dome of the Rock was built in 687 BC.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Islamic shrine in Jerusalem dating from the 7th century AD that surrounds a great rock altar (an outcrop of rock) that was part of Solomon's Temple of Jerusalem. The place from which, in Muslim tradition, Muhammad ascended to heaven on his Night Journey.

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Complex of buildings, chiefly of the Seljūq period (see Seljūq dynasty), in Eṣfahān, Iran. The mosque (completed c. 1130) has a central courtyard framed by four huge eyvāns, or vaulted niches.

[Gr.,=Holy Wisdom] or Santa Sophia, Turkish Aya Sofia, originally a Christian church at Constantinople (now Istanbul), later a mosque, and now converted into a museum.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Holy site in Jerusalem where the Muslim shrine, the Dome of the Rock, and the al-Aqsa mosque are situated.

The capital of Israel, Jerusalem is an administrative, religious, educational, cultural, and market center.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
The central, cubic, stone structure, covered by a black cloth, within the Great Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The sacred nature of the site predates Islam: tradition says that the Kaaba was built by Adam and rebuilt by Abraham and the descendants of Noah.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Holy city of the Shiite Muslims and administrative centre of the governorate of the same name, in Iraq, 96 km/60 mi southwest of Baghdad; population (2007 est) 449,000.

City in Saudi Arabia and, as birthplace of Muhammad, the holiest city of the Islamic world and a place of annual pilgrimage.

Saudi Arabian city, about 355 km/220 mi north of Mecca; population (2004) 918,900. It is the second holiest city in the Islamic world after Mecca, and contains the tomb of Muhammad, a focus for Muslim pilgrims during the hajj (annual pilgrimage).

A Muslim place of worship, usually having one or more minarets and often decorated with elaborate tracery and texts from the Koran.

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
House of worship built on the site of Muhammad's house in Medina, considered one of the three holiest places of Islam.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia The Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque and Kampong Ayer (Water Village), Brunei. The mosque was built in 1958 at the edge of an artificial lagoon, and has a gold-plated dome.

It is considered one of the most beautiful buildings in the world and the finest example of the late style of Indian Islamic architecture.

In the Qur'an, ancestor of the Arabs through his son Ishmael. Abraham is further regarded as an ancestor of Muhammad.

As the founder of Judaism, he is said to have instituted the rite of circumcision as a sign of the covenant between God and the Jews, who are descended from Isaac, son of Abraham's old age.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
1st caliph, friend, father-in-law, and successor of Muhammad. He was probably Muhammad's first convert outside the Prophet's family and alone accompanied Muhammad on the Hegira.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Husband of Fatima (daughter of Muhammad) and 4th caliph (656-61). The debate over his right to the caliphate caused a major split in Islam into Sunni and Shiite branches.

From The Dictionary of World Philosophy
A proper Arabic name of God through which humans call God personally. This name was used before the appearance of the Quran – for example, the name of Mohammed’s father was ‘Abd Allāh; that is, “servant of God” – and is not used merely by Muslims. Arabic speaking Christians of the Oriental churches call God by saying Allāh.

In Islam, usually an initiate in a Sufi order.

In Islam, a recognized leader or a religious teacher.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Son of Abraham and Hagar; ancestor of 12 tribes in N Arabia. Through Sara's jealousy he and his mother were sent into the desert, where the angel of the Lord encountered them at a spring.

Hebrew lawgiver, probably b. Egypt. The prototype of the prophets, he led his people in the 13th cent. B.C. out of bondage in Egypt.

c.570-632 Arab prophet and religious leader who founded Islam . He was born in Mecca. At the age of 25 he began working as a trading agent.

System of doctrines proclaimed in Persia in 1844 by Ali Muhammad of Shiraz. Influenced by the Shaykhi Shiite theology that viewed the Twelve Imams as incarnations of the Divine, Ali Muhammad proclaimed himself the Bab, the living door to the twelth Imam and the knowledge of God.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
The Baha'i faith holds that God can be made known to humankind through manifestations that have come at various stages of human progress; prophets include Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, the Bab, and Baha Ullah.

Religion founded in the 19th century from a Muslim splinter group, Babism, by the Persian Baha'u'llah. His message in essence was that all great religious leaders are manifestations of the unknowable God and all scriptures are sacred.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
African-American religious movement in the United States, split since 1976 into the American Muslim Mission and the Nation of Islam.

Islam, one of the world’s great monotheistic religions, was founded (or restored) by the Prophet Muhammad (570-632 CE), who lived in Mecca and Medina on the Arabian Peninsula. MORE

Muslim Shiite sect that holds Ismail, the son of Jafar as-Sadiq, as its imam.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Islamic scholastic theology. Kalam was founded by al-Ashari (873-935), whose Ashariyya School was the dominant school of scholastic theology.

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
In Islam, one of two early religious groups. The term applies primarily to members of a theological school that flourished in Al-Baṣrah and Baghdad in the 8th-10th century.

From Africa and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History
The Nation of Islam (NOI) is an Islamic movement founded in 1930s America by Wallace Fard, a white man. The original name of the movement is the Lost Found Nation of Islam in the Wilderness.

Member of a sect of Islam that believes that Ali, a cousin of the prophet Muhammad, was his first true successor.

An umbrella term for the ascetic and mystical movements within Islam. While Sufism is said to have incorporated elements of Christian monasticism, gnosticism, and Indian mysticism, its origins are traced to forms of devotion and groups of penitents (zuhhad) in the formative period of Islam.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
The largest division of Islam. Sunni Islam is the heir to the early central Islamic state, in its acknowledgement of the legitimacy of the order of succession of the first four caliphs.

From Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought
A form of radical Islamism known after its founder, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792), from the Najd area of Arabia, ruled by local sheikhs of the house of Saud.

From Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary
On the 10th of Muharram in the year 680, Muhammad’s grandson Hussein was killed in a skirmish between Sunnis and the small group of Shi’ite supporters with whom he was travelling to Iraq.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Muslim ceremony to mark the beginning of a child's learning about Islam. It takes place at the age of four to five, the same age at which the angel Jibra'il (Gabriel) visited Muhammad.

From Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary
This most important feast of the Muslim calendar is the concluding rite of those performing the Hajj or Pilgrimage to Mecca. It is also known as Id al-Kabir, the Great Feast.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Muslim festival that takes place during the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, and commemorates the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son Ishmael at the command of Allah.

Also known as the Feast of Fast-Breaking, or the Lesser Feast, Id al-Fitr marks the end of the month-long fast of Ramadan and the beginning of a three-day feast.

The pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, one of the five basic requirements (arkan or "pillars") of Islam.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
The departure of the prophet Muhammad from Mecca in 622. The year of the Hegira marks the beginning of the Muslim era.

From Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary
The Islamic New Year occurs on the first day of Muharram, the first month in the Islamic calendar. Muharram is one of four especially holy months for Muslims, along with Dhu al-Qadah, Dhu al-Hijjah (when the Pilgrimage to Mecca takes place), and Rajab (when Laylat al-Miraj is celebrated). The name of the month means “sacred.”

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
In Islam, the commemoration of the birth of the prophet Muhammad, who was born on 12 Rabiulawal. The annual event takes place on the 12th day of the third month in the Muslim calendar.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
In the Muslim calendar, the ninth month of the year. Ramadan follows a lunar year and occurs 11 days earlier each solar year. Throughout Ramadan a strict fast (sawm) is observed during the hours of daylight.