Islam

With an estimated 1.2 billion followers worldwide, the religion of Islam ranks second only to Christianity in number of believers. Islam was founded by the prophet Muhammad in Arabia during the early 7th century. The Arabic word Islam means “submission to Allah (God).” Followers of Islam are called Muslims, meaning “those who submit.” Most Muslims live in countries in North Africa, the Middle East, and South and Central Asia.

 

Beliefs

At the core of Islam is this creed: “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the prophet of Allah.” The content of the Koran, the holy book of Islam, is believed by Muslims to be the word of Allah as told to Muhammad. Muslims regard Muhammad as the last and most perfect of God's messengers, who also include Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and others. They believe that Allah inspired all that Muhammad said and did.

The Koran helps followers to understand Allah and guides them on what to believe and how to live. Muslims believe Allah created the universe. Humankind is thought of as the highest form of Allah's creation and is given the duty of looking after the world that Allah made. However, humans are also seen as weak and prone to too much pride. Because they do not realize their limitations, they believe they can take care of themselves and do not need Allah. This can lead to disbelief in Allah and disobedience of his will.

Like many religions, however, Islam offers the hope of salvation. Allah is always willing to pardon people who ask for forgiveness for their disbelief and disobedience. This act, called repentance, removes all sins and restores a person to the state of sinlessness in which he started his life. Muslims believe that on the Last Day, when the world will come to an end, the dead will be resurrected and judged according to their deeds. Each person is either rewarded with heaven or punished with hell.

 

Practices

Five duties are expected of every Muslim. These obligations are known as the five pillars of Islam.

The first duty is the profession of faith, and it is considered the most important. Only a person who accepts the belief that there is only one God and that Muhammad was Allah's prophet can be called a Muslim.

The second duty is prayer. Muslims offer prayers five times a day—at dawn, midday, midafternoon, sunset, and before going to bed. These prayers are either said alone or with others in an Islamic place of worship, called a mosque. Muslim communities gather together for special prayers on Friday and also hear a sermon based on the Koran.

The third duty is charity. In the past Muslims were required to pay a tax to the community once each year. This money was used mainly to help poor Muslims, but it also could go toward holy wars, ransoming Muslim war captives, and creating facilities for travelers. In modern times this duty has become a voluntary charitable contribution.

The fourth duty, fasting, takes place during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month during which Allah revealed the Koran. Muslims fast every day during this month from sunrise to sunset.

The fifth duty is a journey, or pilgrimage, to the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. All Muslims are expected to make a trip to this holy city at least once in their lifetime. In Mecca they visit the holy shrine of the Kabah in the Great Mosque. The trip brings together Muslims from various parts of the world, helping to create a sense of community among Muslims from different backgrounds.

 

Divisions

After the death of Muhammad in 632, differences arose over who should lead the Muslims. This situation eventually led to the breakup of Islam into two major branches: the Sunnah and the Shiʿah.

Most Muslims belong to the Sunnah branch. They are called Sunnites. The word Sunnah means “well-trodden path,” and Sunnites are known as traditional Muslims. They follow the sayings of Muhammad and emphasize community and tolerance of a wide range of views.

A smaller number of Muslims belong to the Shiʿah branch. They are known as Shiʿites. A main idea of this branch is that the truths of the Koran are revealed through the Shiʿite community leader, known as the imam. Interpretations by other people are seen as useless. For this reason Shiʿites are not as open to other views as Sunnites are. Most Shiʿites live in Iran or Iraq.

 

History

Muhammad

According to Muslims, in 610 Allah sent a message to Muhammad telling him that he was chosen to be a prophet. At various points from this time until the end of his life, Muhammad received verbal messages that he believed came directly from God.

Among the things Muhammad said he was told is that there is only one God. This idea was unusual for Arabs at the time, for most believed in many gods. Many people in Muhammad's hometown of Mecca disliked this new religion because of that belief. The hostility toward Islam led Muhammad to believe that he and others who practiced the religion might be in danger. Therefore he encouraged his followers to leave Mecca for the nearby city of Medina. Muhammad's personal journey to Medina, known as hijrah in Arabic, ended on September 24, 622. This date is considered the starting point of Islamic history.

 

Division and spread of Islam

Muhammad eventually persuaded many people to practice Islam, including citizens of Mecca. By the time of his death in 632, Muhammad had united most of Arabia under the religion. Nevertheless, Muslims soon divided over the issue of who should rightfully follow Muhammad as their leader. Some Muslims insisted that Muhammad had chosen his son-in-law ʿAli as his successor. Others disagreed. ʿAli became the Muslim leader, or caliph, in 656, but he was murdered in 661. After his death, his followers formed the Shiʿah branch of Islam. They maintained that Muslim leadership belonged to ʿAli's descendants alone. The Muslims who disputed this claim became the Sunnites. The differences in beliefs between the two groups developed over time.

Despite the leadership struggle, Muslims began to spread their religion far beyond Arabia in the years after Muhammad's death. During the 7th and 8th centuries lands from the western Mediterranean region to Central Asia were made part of a Muslim empire. Although the Koran forbids using force to convert people to Islam, holy wars called jihads were fought to gain political control over societies so that they could be run using Islamic principles.

In the 11th century the Turks began their rise as an Islamic power. Invading from Central Asia, the Seljuk Turks defeated the Christian Byzantine Empire in a major battle in what is now Turkey in 1071. In the same year they seized control of the holy city of Jerusalem from the Egyptians. The Seljuks angered Christians by refusing to allow them to visit holy sites in the land they controlled. Over the next two centuries, Muslim powers fought off Christian attempts to win back the Holy Land in a series of wars known as the Crusades. In the 13th century another group of Turks, the Ottomans, began a Muslim empire that delivered a final defeat to the Byzantines in 1453. The Ottoman Empire eventually ruled over North Africa, the Middle East, and southeastern Europe for hundreds of years.

 

Islam in modern times

During the 19th and 20th centuries the political power of Islamic leaders decreased as Western powers colonized Muslim nations for the purpose of trade. However, Muslims drew together more as a community in the face of colonization. In the 20th century this sense of unity helped many Muslim countries in their struggles to gain political independence.

In the early 20th century a unique version of Islam arose in the United States. It was known as the American Muslim Mission (also sometimes called Black Muslims or the Nation of Islam). Its main idea was that all nonwhite races should unite to form one nation. The religion drew many African American followers, especially in the 1960s. Its best-known leader was Malcolm X. By the mid-1980s many members had left the group to join the mainstream Muslim community.

In recent years Islam has been one of the fastest-growing world religions. Muslims in some parts of the world have resisted changes brought about by Western ways. Some see the influence of the West as leading to a loss of traditional Muslim values. In Iran a revolution brought Islamic religious leaders to power in 1979. Islam has had a strong influence on government as well as on the everyday lives of believers in other countries as well.

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system. That is, it is a system for dealing with money and wealth. In a capitalist country, citizens, not governments, own and run companies. These companies compete with other companies for business. They decide which goods and services to provide. They also decide how much to charge for the goods and services and where to sell them. Companies do all these things to make money for their owners. People who use their money to start or to run companies are called capitalists.

Many countries of the world—including the United States, Great Britain, Japan, and Germany—practice capitalism. Other names for capitalism are free-market economy and free enterprise.

 

Rise of Capitalism

Capitalism has existed since ancient times—for as long as people have bought and sold goods. However, it gained importance in the 1500s with the growth of trade, industry, and banking. During this time governments tried to encourage trade. To do this, countries behaved like merchants. They tried to sell more to foreign countries than they bought from those countries. This idea of profit (taking in more money than one pays out) helped modern capitalism to develop.

 

“Laissez-Faire” Capitalism

In the 1700s and 1800s, the Industrial Revolution brought great changes to the economies of many countries. Factories were invented, and soon manufacturing grew greatly. Manufacturers did not want governments to control trade anymore. They wanted to be left alone to run their companies. This idea became known as “laissez-faire,” which means “allow to do” in French.

 

Reactions to Capitalism

During the 1800s and early 1900s companies produced more and more goods, and many capitalists became rich. However, ordinary workers earned low wages while working long hours, sometimes in dangerous conditions. These problems led to the growth of labor movements. Many workers banded together to demand better treatment from companies.

The ideas of socialism also became popular. Under socialism, a government controls the economy by owning companies and property. It then tries to spread its country's wealth fairly among its citizens. Many countries followed some socialist ideas in the 1900s. Some countries, including the Soviet Union, adopted an extreme form of socialism called Communism.

 

Capitalism Today

Laissez-faire capitalism mostly ended during the 1930s. People throughout the world suffered economic problems during a period called the Great Depression. Many people—not just socialists—came to believe that governments had to help control the economy. Most governments now pass laws to make companies treat customers and workers fairly.

Capitalism remains the world's most popular economic system. Many countries today even mix capitalism with socialism. In these countries, the government owns some companies and provides many services, but individuals may own companies, too.

Communism

Under the economic and political system called Communism, all people are meant to enjoy an equal share of a country's property and wealth. In practice, however, most of the wealth and power in Communist countries has often ended up in the hands of the countries' leaders. Communism has been practiced in a number of countries around the world, including China and the former Soviet Union.

 

Origins

Some of the basic ideas of Communism go back as far as ancient Greece and the philosopher Plato. Modern Communism, however, developed as a reaction to the economic system called capitalism. Under capitalism, individuals owned a country's capital, or means of production—that is, the land, factories, machinery, and other things needed to run businesses. The people who started and ran businesses, known as capitalists, competed with each other for customers.

Some capitalists became very rich. As they strove to make money, however, they sometimes ignored the well-being of their workers. During the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, men, women, and even children were employed in miserable conditions for low wages. This hardship led to the rise of socialist and communist ideas. Communists wanted to create a society in which the workers, not the capitalists, owned the means of production.

 

The ideas of Marx

The leader of the Communists was the German philosopher Karl Marx. Marx published his ideas in 1848 in The Communist Manifesto, written with his friend Friedrich Engels, and later in Capital. In these works Marx wrote about the problems of the working people, whom he called the proletariat. He thought that people's ideas and lives were largely controlled by money. The capitalists, he said, were not concerned about workers' problems. Marx believed that private ownership of property and control of wealth caused this hardship. These problems could be solved only by replacing capitalism with Communism. Eventually, Marx thought, the workers would lead a revolution and overthrow the capitalists.

After taking control, the proletariat would become the new ruling class. At first there would be a “dictatorship of the people” to defeat all opposition. This would be followed by a true Communist society, with common ownership of property, one social class, and no government. People would work to produce wealth according to their abilities, and everyone would share in this wealth according to their needs.

 

Rise and fall of Communism

Marx thought Communist revolutions would happen first in industrial countries such as Great Britain. Instead, the first Communist government came to power in Russia, after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The leader of the revolution was a Communist named Vladimir Lenin. After his victory he established a dictatorship and put Marx's ideas into practice. Russia was reorganized and renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or Soviet Union. Upon Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power. Stalin's rule was harsher than Lenin's, providing little freedom to the Soviet people.

Stalin hoped to spread Communism throughout the world. For decades these efforts were largely unsuccessful, but this changed after World War II. By the end of the war Soviet armies controlled much of eastern Europe, and after the war Stalin forced these countries to become Communist. This began a long and tense rivalry between the Communist world and the United States and its supporters. This period came to be known as the Cold War.

In 1949 Communists gained control of China after a long civil war. Communism then spread to other parts of Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, North Korea), Africa (Ethiopia and Angola), and Central America (Cuba and Nicaragua).

By the late 20th century, however, the influence of Communism had been reduced. In the late 1980s a reform movement spread through eastern Europe. Between 1989 and 1991 the Communist system collapsed in most eastern European countries and in the Soviet Union itself. Even in some countries where Communism kept its leading political role, such as China, some moves were taken toward a capitalist system.