Merit-bound Alley

You may notice a new page above called AOPoI. I created this to make the An Outsiders Perspective on Islam essays more easily available. On this page, you will see a link to each part of the project, a short description, and at the bottom, what the next essay will be. Check it out!

I will try to use few conventions in this work. One that you will notice almost immediately is the addition of (pbuh) or (pbut) after the names of the Muslim Prophets. This is short for “peace be upon him/them” and is a common show of respect for the Prophets. As it is my hope to educate myself and to do this with the same respect I would show any religion, this honorific will be used throughout this work.

Also, there are a number of alternate spellings for many of the Arabic words. I will try to keep with one throughout this work.

Ablutions - cleansing of the face, arms, and feet before prayer
Adhan - the calling of the faithful to prayer
Al-Fitra - the state of pure submission to Islam in which a child is born
Allah - the one true God
‘Ashura - Muslim holiday honoring the martyrdom of Imam Husain and 70 other Muslims by the kaliphah
‘Asr - Afternoon Prayer, held between late afternoon and sunset
Ayat - verse within a Suwar (chapter) of the Qur’an
Fajr - Morning prayer, held between the break of dawn and before sunrise
First Revelation - the first time Jibril came to Muhammed (pbuh) to give him the word of God
Five Pillars of Islam - the five basic religious practises of Islam
Hadith - the collected sayings of the the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh)
Hajj (Haj) - Journey to Mecca. All able Muslims are expected to make this journey at least once.
Hegira (Hejira) - Journey of Muhammed (pbuh) from Mecca to Medina in 622CE
Hira - the cave outside of Mecca where Muhammed (pbuh) heard the First Revelation from Jibril
Ibada - service to God through service to Mankind
‘Id Al-Fitr - Muslim holiday, first day after Ramadan
‘Id Al-Adha - Muslim Holiday held during the 12th month, is the Day of Sacrifice and traditional time for Hajj
Imam - teacher, and the leader of the prayer
Isha - Night Prayer, held just before sleep
Islam - the religion of the Muslims, means “peaceful submission to God”
Jibril - Arabic name of the Angel Gabriel
Ka’ba - 48′ high roughly cubical structure built by Abraham and Ishmael as a place to worship God, and the endpoint of the Hajj
Khalifa - and elected successor to the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh)
Maghrib - Sunset Prayer, held between sunset and darkness
Mawlid Al-Nabi - Muslim Holiday, the birthday of Muhammed (pbuh)
Mecca - the birth town of Muhammed
Muadhin - chants or intones the Adhan
Muhammad (pbuh) - (570CE - 632CE) according to Islam, the last and most important of a long line of Prophets
Muslim - one who submits themselves to the will of God
pbuh - “peace be unto him”, phrased used to show repsect for the prophets
Qibia - the shorter of the two great circular routes to the Ka’ba in Mecca, Muslims face in this direction when they pray
Qu’ran - the word of God as revealed to Muhammed (pbuh) by the angel Jibril, means “recitation”
Rais Al-Sannah - also Al-Hijral Muharram, the Muslim new year
Ramadan - the 9th lunar month and holiest of Muslim holidays, honoring when Muhammed (pbuh) received the First Revelation from Jibril
Salat - prayer
Shahadah - the Muslim creed, “There is no God but God and Muhammed is his Prophet”
Shariah - Islamic Law
Shia - one of the schools od Islam, split from the Sunni over a matter of succession
Siyam - the fast of Ramadan
Sufi - a school of Islam developed in the late 10th century, focuses on personal union with the divine
Sunnah - the book of accounts of Muhammed’s (pbuh) deeds
Sunni - the largest of the schools of Islam, composing 90% of all Muslims
Suwar - a chapter of the Qur’an
Zakat - a 2.5% charity tax on the income and property of middle and upper class Muslims
Zuhr - Noon Prayer, held between midday and the afternoon

I’ve been thinking a lot about Islam for quite a while now. My main thought on it sticks tight to, “I don’t know anything about it.” It occurred to me that a lot of people don’t know much about it, and that fact shines brightly in Internet debate.

So, I decided to take on a project to learn everything I possibly could about it and post it here on a semi-regular basis. The reasons are twofold:

1) I want to learn as much as I can about the religion that is so affecting the world. I want to be able to separate fact from lies, and be able to compose intelligent thoughts on how it is affecting the lives of so many people.
2) I’ve long suspected that most people know little to nothing about the religion. It shows in the vitriolic opposition and vague defenses that you see on the net. It’s my hope that in teaching myself, I can also help others understand this quickly-growing faith.

I want to stress again that this is also a learning exercise for me, so I won’t claim to be an ultimate source about what I post. If people see obvious error, please let me know, and if possible, supply a reliable source. I’m entering into this with complete ambivalence about the faith itself, and I seriously doubt it’s any better or worse than any other, so I will also try my best to be unbiased when stating facts, and completely opinionated when in debate.

Look here either tonight or sometime tomorrow for a glossary of terms and a basic primer on the religion itself.