Islam Sentence Examples

Islam is paramount in Turkey, Persia, Arabia and Afghanistan.

Two of the greatest religions of the world, Christianity and Islam, are Semitic in origin, as well as Judaism.

Even more than Buddhism Islam has carried with it a special style of art and civilization.

Islam, on the other hand, had no theoretic place in its scheme for tolerated religions; its principle was fundamentally intolerant.

In the neighbourhood of the Moslem capitals, Islam spread rapidly, but in such districts as Rajputana and specially Vijayanagar (Mysore) Hindu civilization and religion maintained themselves.

Of late years, however, there has been a gradual assimilation of broader views by the leaders of Islam in Turkey, at any rate at Constantinople, and the revolution of 1908, and its affirmation in the spring of 1909, took place not only with their approval, but with their active assistance.

But by the 10th century Judaism had received from Islam something more than persecution.

And as the Bagdad caliphate tended to become more and more supreme in Islam, so the gaonate too shared in this increased influence.

The Caliphate, though Arabian, was always geographically outside Arabia, and on its fall Arabia remained as it was before Islam, isolated and inaccessible.

Islam has twice obtained a footing in Europe, under the Arabs in Spain and under the Turks at Constantinople.

Thus they are mainly responsible for the introduction of Islam with its Arabic or Persian civilization into India and Europe, and in earlier times their movements facilitated the infiltration of Graeco-Bactrian civilization into India, besides maintaining communication between China and the West.

Looking at eastern Europe and western Asia only, one must say that Asiatic influences have on the whole prevailed hitherto (though perhaps the tide is turning), for Islam is paramount in this region and European culture at a low ebb.

Of the old fort erected by Islam Khan, who in 1608 was appointed nawab of Bengal, and removed his capital from Rajmahal to Dacca, no vestige remains; but the jail is built on a portion of its site.

There is no doubt that the disintegration caused by monophysitism largely facilitated the rapid and easy victory of Islam in Syria and Egypt.

Polygamy is almost unknown, possibly because many of the "Turks" are descended from the austere Bogomils, who were, in most cases, converted to Islam, but more probably because the "Turks" are as a rule too poor to provide for more than one wife on the scale required by Islamic law.

Notwithstanding the abandonment of Christianity by a large section of the population after the Turkish conquest, the authority of the sultans was never effectively established, and succeeding centuries present a record of interminable conflicts between the tribesmen and the Turks, between the Christians and the converts to Islam, or between all combined and the traditional Montenegrin enemy.

The Aristotelian school in Islam did not speak with one voice upon the question; Avicenna declared the soul immortal, but Averroes assumes only the eternity of the universal intellect.

Two years later came a most formidable outbreak; the sultan was denounced as false to Islam, and the Bosnian nobles gathered at Banjaluka, determined to march on Constantinople, and reconquer the Ottoman empire for the true faith.

The sultan also acquired from him the sacred banner and other relics of the founder of Islam, which have since been preserved in the Seraglio at Constantinople.

Abd-ul-Hamid had always resisted the pressure of the European Powers to the last moment, in order to seem to yield only to overwhelming force, while posing as the champion of Islam against aggressive Christendom.

But it made no progress in Indo-China or Japan; and though there is a large Moslem population in China the Chinese influence has been stronger, for alone of all Asiatics the Chinese have succeeded in forcing Islam to accept the ordinary limitations of a religion and to take its place as a creed parallel to Buddhism or any other.

It has entirely escaped Islam, and though it is a nominal vassal of China, direct Chinese influence has not been strong.

When they first appeared in Europe they were idolaters or Shamanists, and as such they had naturally no religious fanaticism; but even when they adopted Islam they remained as tolerant as before, and the khan of the Golden Horde (Berkai) who first became a Mussulman allowed the Russians to found a Christian bishopric in his capital.

A recollection of the manifold forms which religious life and thought have taken in Christendom or in Islam, and the passions which are so easily engendered among opposing sects, will prevent a one-sided estimate of the religious standpoints which the writings betray; and to the recognition that they represent lofty ideals it must be added that the great prophets, like all great thinkers, were in advance of their age.

For five centuries the Nestorians were a recognized institution within the territory of Islam, though their treatment varied from kindly to harsh.

Islam made a supreme effort in Algeria.

A word must be said of the historical romances, the beginnings of which go back to the first centuries of Islam.

A fresh field for romantic legend was found in the history of the victories of Islam, the exploits of the first heroes of the faith, the fortunes of 'All and his house.

In the fourth century of Islam the two schools of Kufa and Basra declined in importance before the increasing power of Bagdad, where Ibn Qutaiba, Ibn Jinni (941-1002) and others carried on the work, but without the former rivalry of the older schools.

The khakan and his chieftains were captured and compelled to embrace Islam (737), and till the decay of the Mahommedan empire Khazaria with all the other countries of the Caucasus paid an annual tribute of children and of corn (737861).

The Hafsites (so called from Abu IIafs, the ancestor of Abu Zakariya, a Berber chieftain who had been one of the intimate disciples of the Almohade mandi) assumed the title of Prince of the Faithful, a dignity which was acknowledged even at Mecca, when in the days of Mostansir, the second Hafsite, the fall of Bagdad left Islam without a titular head.

They are said to be descendants of Persian tribes; but the fact is very doubtful, and they may be at least as aboriginal as the Maronites, and a remnant of an old Incarnationist population which did not accept Christianity, and kept its heretical Islam free from those influences which modified Druse creed.

Though they themselves trace their origin to seven Mahommedan tribes, Hindus appear to have been associated with them at an early period; at any rate, their religious creed and practices as stanch worshippers of Kali (Devi, Durga), the Hindu goddess of destruction, had certainly no flavour of Islam in them.

As a combatant in the forefront of the war with the Christians he became a great hero in Islam, and dreaded by its enemies under his name of Barbarossa.

Outside the Church the breakup of old civilizations, the confused beginnings of medieval kingdoms, with the attendant war and rapine, the inroads of the Saracens and the rise of Islam, were all effective silencers of the pulpit.

A little later (January 1657) he suppressed with ruthless severity a rising of the spahis; a certain Sheik Salim, leader of the fanatical mob of the capital, was drowned in the Bosporus; and the Greek Patriarch, who had written to the voivode of Wallachia to announce the approaching downfall of Islam, was hanged.

Many, if not most, of them were in reality of the same race as the Christians, and were descended from converts to Islam.

After the fall of Saragossa (1119) he went to Seville, then to Xativa, where he is said to have returned to Islam to save his life.

Thus Joachim of Floris in his Expositio magni abbatis I oachimi in Apoc. teaches that Babylon is Rome, the Beast from the Sea Islam, the False Prophet the heretical sects of the day, and that on the close of the present age which was at hand the millennium would ensue.

His book has attained a quasi-canonicity in Islam, being treated almost like the Koran, and to his grave solemn pilgrimages are made, and prayers are believed to be heard there.

In 1882 Islam gained an ascendancy, and s the French withdrew for a time.

The claims to superiority over New Guinea on the part of the rulers of some of the small neighbouring islands date at least from the spread of Islam to the Moluccas at the beginning of the 15th century, and were maintained by the Malay rulers both of Bachian and of Gebeh and afterwards by the sultan of Tidore.

Some 200,000 pilgrims from the Shiite portions of Islam are said to journey annually to Kerbela, many of them carrying the bones of their relatives to be buried in its sacred soil, or bringing their sick and aged to die there in the odour of sanctity.

Taking a detached view of Turkish civilization, even of the faith of Islam itself, for the two are inseparable - the Committee saw much wanting, much existing that was cumbersome and useless, much that provided a fatal handicap to the progress of the Ottoman State.

The Mahommedan Union was formed to oppose the Committee and its dangerous projects, and declaring that Islam was in danger, the Union became active early in April 1909.

The war policy of the Government was declared to be primarily the protection of Islam, particularly Turkish Islam, against the hostile and dangerously subversive policy of Great Britain.

Much had been hoped for from Arabia by Turko-German leaders, both as giving opportunities for offensive operations against the British line of communications passing along the Red Sea, and as the seat of a great spiritual influence in Islam to be exerted against the Allied Powers.

The greater part of Nestorian Christendom was now swallowed up by Islam, so that only remnants of this once extensive church have survived until modern times.

Among higher religions orthodox Islam has never had real priests, doing religious acts on behalf of others, though it has, like Protestant churches, leaders of public devotion (imams) and an important class of privileged religious teachers (`ulema).

This Mahommedan soldier-adventurer, who, followed by his son Tippoo, became the most formidable Asiatic rival the British ever encountered in India, was the great-grandson of a fakir or wandering ascetic of Islam, who had found his way from the Punjab to Gulburga in the Deccan, and the second son of a naik or chief constable at Budikota, near Kolar in Mysore.

Coming forward as the champion of Islam against the infidels, Abd-el-Kader was proclaimed amir at Mascara in 1832.

His fervent faith in the doctrines of Islam was unquestioned, and his ultimate failure was due in considerable measure to the refusal of the Kabyles, Berber mountain tribes whose Mahommedanism is somewhat loosely held, to make common cause with the Arabs against the French.

In 1896 he adopted the title of Zia-ul-Millat-ud Din (Light of the nation and religion); and his zeal for the cause of Islam induced him to publish treatises on Jehad.

Islam was introduced shortly after the Arab conquest of Persia (640-642) and speedily became the dominant faith.

It may be so to worldly eyes, but in the time of danger to Islam the Moslem turns away from the things of this world and thirsts only for the service of his Faith, even though he looks in the face of death To establish confidence in the minds of the Egyptian public that the authorities could maintain order and tranquillity, it was determined to increase permanently the strength of the British garrison.

The Sunnites, who accept the orthodox tradition (Sunna) as well as the Koran as a source of theologico-juristic doctrines, predominate in Arabia, the Turkish Empire, the north of Africa, Turkestan, Afghanistan and the Mahommedan parts of India and the east of Asia; the Shi`ites have their main seat in Persia, where their confession is the state religion, but are also scattered over the whole sphere of Islam, especially in India and the regions bordering on Persia, except among the nomad Tatars, who are all nominally Sunnite.

Thus the later movements of thought in Islam never touch on the great questions that exercised Mahommedanism in its first centuries, e.g.

But we are guides on the path of righteousness, lights in the darkness, and bulwarks of Islam; we decide what is just or unjust and declare the right; through us the precepts of religion are maintained.

The dogmas of Islam are not copious, and the attributes of God are the chief 1 Von Kremer, Gesch.

From these two sources are derived all religious and civil laws, for Islam is a political as well as a religious institution.

The five main points of religious law, "the pillars of Islam," have been enumerated in the article Mahommedan Religion; the civil law, on the development of which Roman law had some influence, is treated under heads similar to those of Western jurisprudence.

Mahomet himself made a concession to heathen traditions when he recognized the Ka`ba and the black stone; and the worship of saints, which is now spread throughout Islam and supported by obviously forged traditions, is an example of the same thing.

Owing to the numerous conversions to Islam which followed the Turkish conquest, the Mahommedan population of the Peninsula is largely in excess of the purely Turkish element.

The Bulgarian Mahommedans, or Pomaks, who inhabit the valleys of Rhodope and certain districts in northern Bulgaria, are numerically insignificant; the Greek followers of Islam are almost confined to Crete.

But when the Sassanian empire was overthrown by the Arabs, the conquerors immediately advanced eastwards, and in a few years Bactria and the whole Iran to the banks of the Jaxartes had submitted to the rule of the caliph and of Islam.

The pilgrimage, however, attained its zenith under Islam.

At the beginning of the Mahommedan period, then, we meet with the most influential and the most curious .of these prophetic books, the Pseudo-Methodius, 1 which prophesied of the emperor who would awake from his sleep and conquer Islam.

The spread of Islam introduced a very considerable Neo-Arabian infusion.

Thus, in Jerusalem, much of the local influence is in the hands of the families of El-Khalidi, El-Husseini and one or two others, who derive their descent from the heroes of the early days of Islam.

They subdued the Fula and Arabs already settled in the district, and after being converted to Islam under Abdullah, their fourth king (about 1600), they extended their authority over a large number of tribes living to the south and east.

We find him at different periods in Seville, Cordova and Morocco, probably as physician to Yusef al-Mansur, who took pleasure in engaging him in discussions on the theories of philosophy and their bearings on the faith of Islam.

But science and free thought then, as now, in Islam, depended almost solely on the tastes of the wealthy and the favour of the monarch.

No trace of Christianity is now found in the island, all the inhabitants professing Islam.

The Arabizing of the Berbers is indeed limited to little beyond the conversion of the latter to Islam.

Islam is the religion of peace, love and brotherhood.

Ranking during the early centuries of its existence as one of the greatest cities of Islam, Marrakesh has long been in a state of grievous decay, but it is rendered attractive by the exceptional beauty of its situation, the luxuriant groves and gardens by which it is encompassed and interspersed, and the magnificent outlook which it enjoys towards the mountains.

The new honours received from the caliph gave fresh impulse to Mahmud's zeal on behalf of Islam, and he resolved on an annual expedition against the idolaters of India.

The apostles who completed the conversion of the Pathans to Islam were called Sayads if they came from the west, and Sheikhs if they came from the east; hence doubtless many false claims to Sayad origin.

Since then the governor of the town and adjoining district has been a sheikh of the K'ab or Chaab Arabs, a powerful tribe of the Shi'ah branch of Islam.

Even after the conquests of Islam the Manichaean Church continued to maintain itself, indeed it seems to have become still more widely diffused by the victorious campaigns of the Mahommedans, and it frequently gained secret adherents among the latter themselves.

Not more than five or six of the 126 poems appear to have been composed by poets who I l iad been born in Islam.

Other kinds of repetition are Shelley's Witch of Atlas, 6 i i seq., "Like one asleep in a green hermitage, I With gentle sleep about its eyelids playing" (sleep for smiles has come from the previous line); Revolt of Islam, 4749, "Where" for "When" appears to have come from "Where" in 4750 or 4751.

It is their merit from a Mahommedan point of view to have re-established the power of orthodox Islam and delivered the Moslem world from the subversive influence of the ultra-Shiite tenets, which constituted a serious danger to the duration of Islam itself.

He is said to have become a convert to Islam; this report was probably a mistake for the undisputed fact that he embraced Roman Catholicism.

Their stricter leaders, however, objected to a custom which so easily led to the worship of relics and the continuance of pagan observances; and with the advent of Islam embalming fell into disuse.

A correct understanding of the doctrines of the early Babis (now represented by the Ezelis) is hardly possible save to one who is conversant with the theology of Islam and its developments, and especially the tenets of the Shi`a.

The whole have now become blended by the adoption of a common language, but remain tribally distinct; all alike have accepted Islam, and have invented traditions of common descent which express their present association.

This dissidence Islam was to complete, and by actually suppressing the patriarchate of Jerusalem to reduce Byzantine Christendom to the two patriarchates of Rome and Constantinople.

The papacy of that time believed in the political unity of Islam, in a solidarity - which did not exist - among the Mussulmans of Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt and the Barbary coasts; and if it waited until the year 1095 to carry out this project, it was because the conflict with the Germanic Empire prevented the earlier realization of its dream.

To-day Islam is supreme, though the North Africa Mission, working largely on medical lines, has penetrated into many cities.

The all-decisive conflict is that between Christianity and Islam, and the Christian agencies must show much more co-operation if they are to be successful.

A new Islam is also a factor of the situation.

The chief difficulties have been (1) the antagonism of the officials of the Oriental churches, (2) the suspicion and hostility of Islam, (3) the jealousies, religious and political, connected with the Eastern Question.

Native chronicles derive the Menangkabo princes from Alexander the Great; and the Achinese dynasty boasts its origin from a missionary of Islam.

In the later stage of the strife it has been the battle-field of Christendom and Islam.

In religion again both Islam and the Eastern form of Christianity have given way to its Italian form.

The older religious differences were small compared with the strife for life and death between Christendom and Islam.

But it would seem that, just as under the Moslem rule, conversions from Christianity to Islam were forbidden.

On the other hand, conversions from Islam to Christianity were not always encouraged; Saracen troops were employed from the beginning, and Count Roger seems to have thought them more trustworthy when unconverted.

They had been converted to Mahommedanism in the early times of the Arab conquest, but their knowledge of Islam did not go much beyond the formula of the creed - "there is no god but God, and Mahomet is the apostle of God," - and they were ignorant of the law.

By the good offices of the theologians of Kairawan, one of whom was from Fez, Yahya was provided with a missionary, `Abd-Allah ibn Yazin, a zealous partisan of the Malekis, one of the four orthodox sects of Islam.

Ultimately the Greek East was absorbed by Islam; the popular mistake lies in supposing that the Hellenistic tradition thereby came to an end.

It was not that the Hellenistic element failed, whilst the native elements in the civilization prospered; the culture of Islam has, as a whole (from whatever causes), sunk ever lower during the centuries that have witnessed the marvellous expansion of Europe.

The Koran (Kor'an) is the sacred Book of Islam.

To the sceptical the truth of Islam is held forth; and a certain, not very cogent, method of demonstration predominates.

It is actually used of the religion of the Jews and Christians (once), of the heathen (5 times), but mostly (8 times) of the religion of Abraham, which Mahomet in the Medina period places on the same level with Islam.

That impression, however, is not correct, for in reality the demonstrations of these longer Meccan suras appear to have been peculiarly influential for the propagation of Islam.

Southwest of the Mameluke tombs is the much-venerated tomb-mosque of the Imam esh-Shafih or Shari, founder of one of the four orthodox sects of Islam.

They are also well grounded in the leading doctrines of Islam.

Later, however, the history of Hellenism, the provincial history of the Roman empire, the rise of Christianity and the triumph of Islam successively receive brilliant illustration in Egypt.

For a brief period at the end of the XVIIIth Dynasty a real monotheism, as exclusive as that of Judaism or of Islam, was adopted as the state religion of Egypt.

Since Alexandria could neither have been stormed nor starved out by the Arabs, his motives for surrendering it, and with it the whole of Egypt, have been variously interpreted, some supposing him to have been secretly a convert to Islam.

Conversions of Copts to Islam were at first rare, and the old system of taxation was maintained for the greater part of the first Islamic century.

The development of the poll-tax imposed on members of tolerated cults seems to be due to various causes, chief of them the acquisition of land by Moslems, who were not at first allowed to possess any, the conversion of Coptic landowners to Islam, and the enforcement (towards the end of the 1st century of Islam) of the poll-tax on monks.

At times, however, he ordered the destruction of all Christian churches in Egypt, and the banishment of all who did not adopt Islam.

But, f or the action of European powers the intervention of Mehemet Ali would have I The work was carried out under the supervision of the Frenchman, Colonel Sbve, who had turned Mahommedan and was known in Islam as Suleiman Pasha.

At that moment it was in a state of - open rebellion, stirred up by a religious fanatic who proclaimed himself a mahdi of Islam.

Those contiguous Afghan tribes, who have not so long ago been converted to the faith of Islam, are naturally the most fanatical and the most virulent upholders of the faith around them.

There are government departments for the administration of revenue, customs, post-office, military affairs, &c. The general law administered in all the courts of Afghanistan is that of Islam and of the customs of the country, with developments introduced by the Amir Abdur Rahman.

In the Punjab, besides the Pathan immigrants from across the frontier, Islam has taken a strong hold of the native population.

In proportion to the total population Islam is most strongly represented in the NorthWest Frontier Province, where it is the religion of 92% of the inhabitants; then follow Kashmir and Sind with about 75 each, Eastern Bengal and Assam with 58%, the Punjab with 49%, Bengal with 18%, and the United Provinces with 14%.

The Malabar coast has always enjoyed a direct commerce with Arabia, and at an early date gave many converts to Islam.

At this day it forms one of the three great religions of the world, and is more numerously followed than either Christianity or Islam.

Ala-ud-din died in 1316, having subjected to Islam the Deccan and Gujarat.

The empire of Vijayanagar repre sents the last stand made by the national faith in India against conquering Islam.

During the whole of the 16th century the Portuguese disputed with the Mahommedans the supremacy of the Indian seas, and the antagonism between Christianity and Islam became gradually more intense, until the Portuguese power assumed a purely religious aspect.

With the spread of the Pan-Islamic movement, moreover, the undefined authority of the sultan as caliph of Islam received a fresh importance even in countries beyond the borders of the Ottoman empire, while in countries formerly, or nominally still, subject to it, it caused, and promised to cause, incalculable trouble.

Islam suddenly found itself once more limited to the community of Medina; only Mecca and Taff (Tayef) remained true.

A peculiar compliment to Mahomet was involved in the fact that the leaders of the rebellion in the various districts did not pose as princes and kings, but as prophets; in this appeared to lie the secret of Islam's success.

The holy spirit of Islam kept the men of Medina together, and inspired in them an all-absorbing zeal for the faith; the Arabs as a whole had no other bond of union and no better source of inspiration than individual interest.

The internal consolidation of Islam in Arabia was, strange to say, brought about by its diffusion abroad.

The movement was organized by Islam, but the masses were induced to join it by quite other than religious motives.

The capital of Islam continued indeed for a while to be Medina, but soon the Hejaz (Hijaz) and the whole of Arabia proper lay quite on the outskirt of affairs.

Their religious sympathy with the West was seriously impaired by dogmatic controversies; from Islam they might at any rate hope for toleration, even though their views were not in accordance with the theology of the emperor of the day.

The lapse of the masses from Christianity to Islam, however, which took place during the first century after the conquest, is to be accounted for only by the fact that in reality they had no inward relation to the gospel at all.

Their subjection was only external, nor did Islam ever succeed in assimilating them as the Syrian Christians were assimilated.

His political insight is shown by the fact that he endeavoured to limit the indefinite extension of Moslem conquest, to maintain and strengthen the national Arabian character of the commonwealth of Islam, 4 and especially to promote law and order in its internal affairs.

Under this weak sovereign the government of Islam fell entirely into the hands of the Koreish nobility.

Nor was it unreasonable that from the secularization of Islam the chief advantage should be reaped by those who best knew the world.

It was led by what may be called the spiritual noblesse of Islam, which, as distinguished from the hereditary nobility of Mecca, might also be designated as the nobility of merit, consisting of the "Defenders" (Ansar), and especially of the Emigrants who had lent themselves to the elevation of the Koreish, but by no means with the intention of allowing themselves thereby to be effaced.

To it belonged the men of real piety, who saw with displeasure the promotion to the first places in the commonwealth of the great lords who had actually done nothing for Islam, and had joined themselves to it only at the last moment.

The kernel of his subjects consisted of genuine Arabs, not only recent immigrants along with Islam, but also old settlers who, through contact with the Roman empire and the Christian church, had become to some extent civilized.

Islam had its headquarters here; Kufa and Basra were the home of the pious and of the adventurer, the centres of religious and political movement.

But in yielding to the will of the majority he excited the displeasure of the minority, the genuine zealots, who in Moawiya were opposing the enemy of Islam, and regarded Ali's entering into negotiations with him as a denial of the faith.

There is in reality no room for suspecting Moawiya of not having been in earnest when making this appeal; he might well regret that internecine strife should drain the forces which were so much wanted for the spread of Islam.

As the austere champion of the precepts of Islam, he soon restored order in the whole district.

The hereditary principle had not been recognized by Islam in the cases of Abu Bekr, Omar and Othman; it had had some influence upon the choice of Ali, the husband of Fatima and the cousin of the Prophet.

Moawiya was, in fact, a religious man and a strict disciple of the precepts of Islam.

With Ibn Zobair perished the influence which the early companions of Mahomet had exercised over Islam.

Henceforward we shall find temporal interests, represented by Damascus, predominating over those of religion, and the centre of Islam, now permanently removed beyond the limits of Arabia, more susceptible to foreign influence, and assimilating more readily their civilizing elements.

In the east the realm of Islam had been very much extended under the reign of Moawiya, when Ziyad was governor of Irak and Khorasan.

Moslim, who was destined in a later period to extend the sway of Islam in the east as far as China.

Abdalmalik was born and educated in Islam, and distinguished himself in his youth by piety and continence.

He regarded himself as the champion of Islam and of the communion of the believers, and had among his intimates men of acknowledged devoutness such as Raja b.

But the glorification of Jerusalem, holy alike for Moslems, Christians and Jews, could not but exalt the glory of Islam and its rulers within and without.

His reign was one of the most stormy in the annals of Islam, but also one of the most glorious.

He was well versed in old Arabic tradition and in the doctrine of Islam, and was passionately fond of poetry.

If one of these adopted Islam, Omar permitted him to leave his place, which had been strictly forbidden by I.Iajjaj in Irak and the eastern provinces, because by it many hands were withdrawn from the tilling of the ground, and those who remained were unable to pay the allotted amount.

In North Africa particularly, and in Khorasan the effect of Omar's proclamation was that a great multitude embraced Islam.

Conversion to Islam was promoted by the severe regulations which Omar introduced for the non-believers, such as Christians and Jews.

He now proclaimed a Holy War against the Syrians, whom he declared to be worse enemies of Islam than even the Turks and the Dailam.

Hobaira, to supply the deficiency, ordered the prefect of Khorasan, Sa`id-al-Harashi, to take tribute from the Sogdians in Transoxiana, who had embraced Islam on the promise of Omar II.

Abi Moslim, who had been at the head of the financial department in Irak under IIajjaj, and had been made governor of Africa by Yazid II., issued orders that the villagers who, having adopted Islam, were freed from tribute according to the promise of Omar II., and had left their villages for the towns, should return to their domiciles and pay the same tribute as before their conversion.

In India several provinces which had been converted to Islam.

The Berbers, though they had pledged themselves to Islam and had furnished the latest contingents for the Holy War, were treated as tributary serfs, notwithstanding the promises given by Omar II.

As soon as the time was ripe - and that time could not be far off - He would send a saviour out of the house of the Prophet, the Mandi, who would restore Islam to its original purity.

C. - THE Abbasids We now enter upon the history of the new dynasty, under which the power of Islam reached its highest point.

From that time forward the Abbasid caliphs became the maintainers of orthodox Islam, just as the Omayyads had been.

Irene took alarm, sued for peace, and obtained a truce for three years, but only on the humiliating terms of paying an annual 2 The first citizens of Medina who embraced Islam were called Ansar ("helpers").

Meanwhile Harun did not forget the hereditary enemy of Islam.

Sahl, a Zoroastrian of great influence, who in 806 had adopted Islam, reanimated his courage, and pointed out to him that certain death awaited him at Bagdad.

In spite of these manifold activities Mamun did not forget the hereditary enemy of Islam.

The guard was composed of an undisciplined body of soldiers, who, moreover, held in open contempt the religious precepts of Islam.

In the course of ages race distinction has been almost obliterated by fusion of blood; by the complete Hellenization of the country, which followed the introduction of Christianity; by the later acceptance of Islam; and by migrations due to the occupation of cultivated lands by the nomads.

Wherever the people accepted Islam they called themselves Turks, and a majority of the so-called "Turks" belong by blood to the races that occupied Asia Minor before the Seljuk invasion.

From these disasters the country never recovered, and the last traces of Western civilization disappeared with the enforced use of the Turkish language and the wholesale conversions to Islam under the earliest Osmanli sultans.

Astonished by the sight of their long hair and extraordinary costume, he inquired what religion they professed, and getting no satisfactory answer threatened to exterminate them, unless by the time of his return from the war they should have embraced either Islam or one of the creeds tolerated in the Koran.

It is said that 'Amr persuaded Abu Musa that it would be for the advantage of Islam that neither candidate should reign, and asked him to give his decision first.

In September Sabbatai was brought before the Sultan, and he had not the courage to refuse to accept Islam.

The Sla y s, driven perhaps to the west, had only the Volkhov and the Dnieper, while the (Mahommedan) Bulgarian empire, at the confluence of the Volga with the Kama, was so powerful that for some time it was an open question whether Islam or Christianity would gain the upper hand among the Slav idolaters.

For this reason anonymous writings were attributed to famous names, and traditions were judged (as in Islam), not so much upon their merits, as by the chain of authorities which traced them back to their sources.

This had the obvious advantage of lifting two great families into prominence, the Semitic and the IndoGermanic. The Semitic peoples were closely bound together by common types of thought and civilization, and produced three of the leading religions of the world, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Further, there are elements of Islam, like the usages of the hajj (or pilgrimage to the sacred places at Mecca), the dryness of its official doctrine and the limitations of its real character as indicated in the Wahhabi revival, which so impair its apparent universalism that Kuenen found himself obliged to withdraw it from the highest rank of religions.

ReligionAbout 9,000,000 of the population are Mahommedans of the Shiah faith, and 800,000 or 900,000, principally Kurds in north-western Persia, are said to belong to the other great branch of Islam, the Sunni, which differs from the former in religious doctrine and historical belief, and is the state religion of the Turkish Empire and other Mahommedan countries.

These legends have lived and flourished in Iran at every period of its history; and neither the religion of Zoroaster, nor yet Islam, has availed to suppress them.

In the interval between these two struggles (570) he despatched assistance to the Arabs of Yemen, who had been assailed and subdued by the Abyssinian Christians; after which period Yemen remained nominally under Persian suzerainty till it.s fate was sealed by the conquests of Mabomet and Islam.

So it was that room was given to a new enemy who now arose between either state and either religionthe Arabs and Islam.

Omar II., however, extended to non-Arabic Moslems immunity from all taxes except the zakat (poor-rate), with the result that a large number of Persians, who still smarted under their defeat, under Mokhtar, embraced Islam and drifted into the towns to form a nucleus of sedition under the Shiite preachers.

This prince was converted to Islam, an event of great moment both to the internal peace and to the external relations of Persia.

His persecution of the Christians led them into alliance with the Mongols, who detested Islam; the combined forces were too strong for Nikudar, who was murdered in 1284.

Ghazan is historically important, however, mainly as the first Mongol ruler who definitely adopted Islam with a large number of his subjects.

The outcome of his teaching was a division of Mahommedanism vitally momentous to the world of Islam.

Similarly the Jewish synagogues have each their eternal lamp; while in the religion of Islam lighted lamps mark things and places specially holy; thus the Ka`ba at Mecca is illuminated by thousands of lamps hanging from the gold and silver rods that connect the columns of the surrounding colonnade.

Owing partly to the tribal system, and partly to the levelling effect of Islam, nothing similar to the Brahmanical system of social precedent is to be found in Baluchistan.

Under the tolerant rule of Islam the Portuguese Jews rose to a height of wealth and culture unparalleled in Europe; they intermarried with the Christians both at this period and after their forced conversion by King Emanuel I.

To make war upon Islam seemed to the Portuguese their natural destiny and their duty as Christians.

In theory, the objects of querque King Emanuel's policy were the establishment of friendly commercial relations with the Hindus (who were at first mistaken for Christians " not yet confirmed in the faith," as the king wrote to Alexander VI.) and the prosecution of a crusade against Islam.

In addition to the ancient churches which have separated themselves from the Orthodox faith, many have ceased to have an independent existence, owing either to the conquests of Islam or to their absorption by other churches.

In Islam the orthodox theology teaches an absolute predestination, and yet some teachers hold men responsible for the moral character of their acts.

Finally it may be mentioned that a small number of Englishmen, chiefly resident in Liverpool and London, have embraced Islam; they have a mosque at Liverpool.

In the north-west corner of the mosque is the tomb of Sidi Okba, the leader of the Arabs who in the 1st century of the Hegira conquered Africa for Islam from Egypt to Tangier.

In the 8th century it was conquered, after a struggle of 25 years, by the Arab chieftain Kotaiba ibn Moslim, from West Turkestan, who imposed Islam upon the people.

The sanctuary and feast of Mecca received, however, a new prestige from the victory of Islam.

The unspeakable vices of Mecca are a scandal to all Islam, and a constant source of wonder to pious pilgrims.8 The slave trade has connexions with the pilgrimage which are not thoroughly clear; but under cover of the pilgrimage a great deal of importation and exportation of slaves goes on.

In the splendid times of the caliphs immense sums were lavished upon the pilgrimage and the holy city; and conversely the decay of the central authority of Islam brought with it a long period of faction, wars and misery, in which the most notable episode was the sack of Mecca by the Carmathians at the pilgrimage season of A.D.

When the great Mahommedan sultanates had become too much occupied in internecine wars to maintain order in the distant Hejaz, those branches of the Hassanids which from the beginning of Islam had retained rural property in Arabia usurped power in the holy cities and the adjacent Bedouin territories.

The Ka`ba has been rebuilt more than once since Mahomet purged it of idols and adopted it as the chief sanctuary of Islam, but the old form has been preserved, except in secondary details;2 so that the "Ancient House," as it is titled, is still essentially a heathen temple, adapted to the worship of Islam by the clumsy fiction that it was built by Abraham and Ishmael by divine revelation as a temple of pure monotheism, and that it was only temporarily perverted to idol worship from the time when `Amr ibn Lohai introduced the statue of Hobal from Syria' till the victory of Islam.

The multiplication of pilgrims after Islam soon made it necessary to clear away the nearest dwellings and enlarge the place of prayer around the Ancient House.

Sacred wells are familiar features of Semitic sanctuaries, and Islam, retaining the well, made a quasi-biblical story for it, and endowed its tepid waters with miraculous curative virtues.

The pilgrimage was so intimately connected with the wellbeing of Mecca, and had already such a hold on the Arabs round about, that Mahomet could not afford to sacrifice it to an abstract purity of religion, and thus the old usages were transplanted into Islam in the double form of the omra or vow of pilgrimage to Mecca, which can be discharged at any time, and the hajj or pilgrimage at the great annual feast.

The triviality of these rites is ill concealed by the legends of the sa'y of Hagar and of the tawaf being first performed by Adam in imitation of the circuit of the angels about the throne of God; the meaning of their ceremonies seems to have been almost a blank to the Arabs before Islam, whose religion had become a mere formal tradition.

Rajab was one of the ancient sacred months, and the feast, which extended through the whole month and was a joyful season of hospitality and thanksgiving, no doubt represents the ancient feasts of Mecca more exactly than the ceremonies of the bajj, in which old usage has been overlaid by traditions and glosses of Islam.

This is, however, a custom older than Islam, and a tradition in Azraqi, p. 412, represents it as an act of worship to idols at Mina.

It is not so easy to get at the nature of the original rites, which Islam was careful to suppress.

The Arabic historians are largely occupied with fabulous matter as to Mecca before Islam; for these legends the reader may refer to C. de Perceval's Essai.

The census of 1901 gave a total of 25,468,209, out of which the chief religions furnished the following In Sind Islam has been the predominant religion from the earliest Arab conquest in the 8th century.

As such it became the centre of that strife between Europe and Africa, between Aryan and Semitic man, in its later stages between Christendom and Islam, which forms the great interest of Sicilian history.

It is doubtful whether any opposition between crescent and cross, as symbols of Islam and Christianity, was ever intended by the Turks; and it is an historical error to attribute the crescent -to the Saracens of crusading times or the Moors in Spain.

It contains the most popular place of pilgrimage in Oudh, the tomb of Masaud, a champion of Islam, slain in battle by the confederate Rajputs in 1033, which is resorted to by Mahommedans and Hindus alike.

This period was during the first centuries after its conversion to Islam.

The followers of Islam, whose common law and religion know only of a temporary possession of the land, which belongs wholly to the Prophet, cannot accept the principles of unlimited property in land which European civilization has borrowed from Roman law; to do so would put an end to all public irrigation works and to the system by which water is used according to each family's needs, and so would be fatal to agriculture.

In fact, Kashgaria flourished under them, and the fanaticism of Islam was considerably abated.

This state of affairs lasted until the 14th century, when Tughlak Timur, who extended his dominions to the Kuen-lun, accepted Islam.

The reintroduction of Islam was of no benefit to the Tarim region.

Hereupon the dissentient khojas fled to Khokand in West Turkestan, and there gathered armies of malcontents and fanatic followers of Islam.

It is the see of an Orthodox metropolitan, and the inhabitants, of whom two-thirds are Albanian and the remainder principally Greek, are equally divided in religion between Christianity and Islam.

That system of thought, after passing through the minds of those who saw it in the hazy light of an orientalized Platonism, and finding many laborious but narrow-purposed cultivators in the monastic schools of heretical Syria, was then brought into contact with the ideas and mental habits of Islam.

Thus, alike at Bagdad and at Cordova, Arabian philosophy represents the temporary victory of exotic ideas and of subject races over the theological one-sidedness of Islam, and the illiterate simplicity of the early Saracens.

Islam had, it is true, a philosophy of its own among its theologians (see Mahommedan Religion).

Then was inaugurated the period of Persian supremacy, during which Islam was laid open to the full current of alien ideas and culture.

Thus, while the Latin church showed a marvellous receptivity for ethnic philosophy, and assimilated doctrines which it had at an earlier date declared impious, in Islam the theological system entrenched itself towards the end of the 12th century in the narrow orthodoxy of the Asharites, and reduced the votaries of Greek philosophy to silence.

By his interpreters it was transformed into a theory of one soul common to all mankind, and when thus corrupted conflicted not unreasonably with the doctrines of a future life, common to Islam and Christendom.

It was amongst them, especially in Maimonides, that Aristotelianism found refuge after the light of philosophy was extinguished in Islam; and the Jewish family of the Ben-Tibbon were mainly instrumental in making Averroes known to southern France.

In the north one great Visigoth family not only accepted Islam, but founded a dynasty, with its capital at Saragossa, which played a stirring part in the 8th and 9th centuries, the Beni-Casi, or Beni-Lope.

Add to this that a slave who professed Islam could secure his freedom, at least from slavery to a Christian master, that Arianism had not been quite rooted out, that the country districts were still largely pagan, and it will not appear wonderful that within a generation Mahommedan Spain was full of renegades who formed in all probability a majority of its polulation and a most important social and political element.

The treaties made with the Christians were soon violated, and it seemed as if Islam would destroy itself.

The fall of the city resounded throughout Islam, and shocked the Mahommedan princes of Andalusia into gravity and a sense of their position.

When the peril of appealing to Yusuf was put before him at durbar by his son, he acknowledged the danger, but added that he did not wish to be cursed throughout Islam as the cause of the loss of Spain and that, if choose he must, he thought it better to lead camels in Africa than to tend pigs in Castile.

The existence of native Christian states in Nubia hindered for some centuries the spread of Islam in the eastern Sudan, and throughout the country some tribes have remained pagan.

Many Armenians fled to the mountains, where they embraced Islam, and intermarried with the Kurds, or purchased security by paying blackmail to Kurdish chiefs.

The adoption of Islam by the latter, and by many Armenians, divided the people sharply into Christian and Moslem, and placed the Christian in a position of inferiority.

In some districts, especially in the Kharput vilayet, the cry of " Islam or death " was raised.

The number of those who perished, excluding Constantinople, was 20,000 to 25,000.1 Many were forced to embrace Islam, and numbers were reduced to poverty.

He also wrote Le Mandi depuis les origines de ?Islam jusqu'd nos fours (1885); Les Origines de la poesie persane (1888); Prophetes d'Israel (1892), and other books on topics connected with the east, and from 1883 onwards drew up the annual reports of the Societe Asiatique.

The first sultan of Brunei was Alak-berTata, who was probably of Bisaya stock, and governed the country before the introduction of Islam, in the 15th century.

He assumed the name of Mahommed on his conversion to Islam, which was brought about during a visit to the Malay peninsula.

In 635 Damascus was captured for Islam by Khalid ibn Walid, the great general of the new religion, being the first city to yield after the battle of the Yarmuk (Hieromax).

The prophet of Islam was now, however, building up his power in Arabia, and although Heraclius paid no heed to the letter demanding his adhesion which he received from Medina (628), and the deputation of fifteen Rahawiyin who paid homage in 630 were not Edessenes but South Arabians, a few years later (636 ?) Heraclius's attempts, from Edessa as a centre, to effect an organized opposition to the victorious Arabs were defeated by Sa`d, and he fell back on Samosata.

Syria and Egypt next fell before him; he became master of the holy cities of Islam; and, most important of all, he induced the last Caliph of the Abbasid dynasty formally to surrender the title of caliph (q.v.), as well as its outward emblems, viz.

The great majority of the Albanians, probably more than three-fifths, are Moslems. The conversion of the Christian population to Islam appears to have taken place during the 16th and 17th centuries.

At the time of the Arabian conquest Istakhr offered a desperate resistance, but the city was still a place of considerable importance in the 1st century of Islam (see Caeiphate), although its greatness was speedily eclipsed by the new metropolis Shiraz.

The closest modern analogy would be the orders of dervishes in Islam.

At the critical moment he embraced Islam .to escape death, and though he was still believed in by many - it was not Sabbatai himself but a phantom resemblance that had assumed the turban!

Not only the great religions of the world - Buddhism, Christianity, Islam - but those of secondary importance, such as Judaism, Parseeism, Taoism, are all Asiatic. No European race left to itself has developed anything more than an unsystematic paganism.

But in the 7th century they were defeated by Heraclius, and shortly afterwards were annihilated before the first impetus of the Mahommedan conquest, which established Islam in Persia and the neighbouring lands, sweeping away old civilizations and boundaries.

To complete her misfortunes, the European powers, the church and the small states of Italy, partly from jealous greed of her possessions, partly on the plea of her treason to Christendom in making terms with Islam, partly from fear of her expansion in north Italy, coalesced at Cambrai in 1508 for the partition of Venetian possessions.

Thus the desire for vengeance and the prospect of a brilliant military career impelled the Bogomil magnates to adopt the creed of Islam, which, in its austerity, presented some points of resemblance to their own doctrines.

Yet even now Sigismund, at the head of his Magyars, thrice (1422-1424, 1426-1427, and 1430-1431) encountered the Turks, not ingloriously, in the open field, till, recognizing that Hungary must thenceforth rely entirely on her own resources in any future struggle with Islam, he elaborately fortified the whole southern frontier, and converted the little fort of Nandorfehervar, later Belgrade, at the junction of the Danube and Save, into an enormous first-class fortress, which proved strong enough to repel all the attacks of the Turks for more than a century.

Mahmud, in spite of - or rather because of - his well-meant efforts at reform, was hated by his Mussulman subjects and stigmatized as an " infidel " and a traitor to Islam.

Of this hatred he was fully conscious; he knew that his subjects, even many of his own ministers, regarded Mehemet Ali as the champion of Islam against the " infidel sultan;" he suspected the pasha, already master of the sacred cities, of an intention to proclaim himself caliph in his stead.

Many have to be recovered from grammars, dictionaries, &c., where single lines or groups of lines are quoted to illustrate the proper use of words, phrases or idioms. Moreover, many a reciter was not content to declaim the genuine verses of ancient poets, but interpolated some of his own composition, and the change of religion introduced by Islam led to the mutilation of many verses to suit the doctrines of the new creed.1 The language of the poems, as of all the best Arabian literature, was that of the desert Arabs of central Arabia; and to use it aright was the ambition of poets and scholars even in the Abbasid period.

In Islam" according to an unconfirmed tradition Mahomet is said to have foretold that his community would split into seventy-three sects (see Mahommedan Religion, § Sects), of which only one would escape the flames of hell.

The mystical tendency in Islam, Sufism, is also regarded as heretical (see Kuenen's Hibbert Lecture, pp. 45-5 0).

Lebanon, are tending to emigrate or conform to Sunni Islam.

In support of the policy, and to emphasize the religious character of Ottoman war aims, a Jihad or Holy War was proclaimed by the Sultan as Caliph of Islam.

It came within a narrow margin of setting the Mahommedan world ablaze against Great Britain and France - on which Germany had counted - a catastrophe averted by the accident that the Sherif of Mecca opposed the Jihad and divided Islam.

It was not, however, till the Toth century that Islam was established at Kashgar, under the Uighur kingdom (see Turks).

Caussin de Perceval published (1828) a useful Grammaire arabe vulgaire, which passed through several editions (4th ed., 1858), and edited and enlarged Elie Bocthor's 1 Dictionnaire francais-arabe (2 vols., 1828; 3rd ed., 1864); but his great reputation rests almost entirely on one book, the Essai sur l'histoire des Arabes avant l'Islamisme, pendant l'epoque de Mahomet (3 vols., 1847-1849), in which the native traditions as to the early history of the Arabs, down to the death of Mahommed and the complete subjection of all the tribes to Islam, are brought together with wonderful industry and set forth with much learning and lucidity.

The ancient virtues - hospitality to the guest and the poor, profuse expenditure of wealth, valour in battle, faithfulness to the cause of the tribe - are the themes of praise; wine and the game of maisir, forbidden by Islam, are celebrated by poets who professed themselves converts; and if there is no mention of the old idolatry, there is also little spirituality in the outlook on life.

The fact, however, remains that there existed a certain animosity between the Ghuzz and their allies and the rest of the Turks, which increased as the former became converted to Islam (in the course of the 4th century of the Flight).

An inevitable effect of the reign of Islam had been that the kindred language of the Arabs gradually killed the vernacular Syriac of Mesopotamia (see Edessa) as the alien Greek and Persian had shown no tendency to do, and the classical period (4th to 8th centuries) of the only Mesopotamian literature we know, such as it is, useful but uninviting, came to an end (see Syriac Literature).

Orthodox Islam preserves unchanged the form of doctrine established in the 10th century by Abu `l-Masan al-Ash`ari (see As11 ` ARI).

Mystical tendencies in Mahommedanism arose mainly on Persian soil (see SuFiism), and Von Kremer has shown that these Eastern tendencies fell in with a disposition to asceticism and flight from the world which had arisen among the Arabs before Islam under Christian influence.

The Omayyads were accused by their numerous missionaries of every imaginable vice; in their hands Islam was not safe; it would be a godly work to extirpate them from the earth.

He desired to augment the splendours of Islam and its sovereign, as Abdalmalik had already done by building the dome of Jerusalem.

The principle of Islam was, that no Moslem, whatever might be his nationality, should pay any tax other than the zakat or poor-rate (see Mahommedan Institutions).

But Omar did all he could to prevent the degradation of the Holy War, which, instead of being the ultimate expedient for the propagation of Islam, if all other means had failed, had often degenerated into mere pillaging expeditions against peaceful nations.

He was conscious of his own intense unpopularity, the outcome of his efforts at reform; he knew that in popular opinion Mehemet Ali was the champion of Islam against the infidel caliph, and that the issue of a struggle with him was more than doubtful.

The success of this policy was, however, only apparent, especially in Iran, the inhabitants of which adopted Islam only in the most superficial manner, and it was from Persia that the blow fell which destroyed the Omayyad caliphate and set up the Abbasids in its place (see CALIPHATE).

In Islam proper they have no raison d'etre; the legends about Adam and Eve on Arafa, about Abraham's sacrifice of the ram at Thabii by Mina, imitated in the sacrifices of the pilgrimage, are clumsy afterthoughts, as appears from their variations and only partial acceptance.

The Omayya, who during the following centuries were reinforced by further immigrants from Arabia, intermarried with the negroid races, and gradually Arab influence became predominant and Islam the nominal faith of all the inhabitants of Sennar.

Venality and the extortion of the tax-gatherer flourished anew after the departure of Gordon, while the feebleness of his successors inspired in the Baggara a contempt for the authority which prohibited them pursuing their most lucrative traffic. When Mahommed Ahmed (q.v.), a Dongolese, proclaimed himself the long-looked-for Mandi (guide) of Islam, he found most of his original followers among the grossly superstitious villagers of Kordofan, to whom he preached universal equality and a community of goods, while denouncing the Turks 2 as unworthy Moslems on whom God would execute judgment.

The West moved forward, and Islam, where not actually regressing remained stationary, The old fears passed away, .

Only when Islam is seen as a civilization and its parameters rejuvenated in a contemporary form in their totality can Turkey really progress.

Educators who question or dissent from the official interpretation of Islam can face severe reprisals.

In Islam there is no rite of initiation, no sacrament of belief.

In building solidarity with the Muslim communities, socialists do not adapt their politics to the tenets of Islam.

What happened to the WTT Center is the result of a splinter faction of a splinter faction of Islam.

Media U-turn What has caused this mainstream media U-turn whereby quite strident criticism of Islam is now commonplace?

Islam allegedly is the best and final religion for all humankind, and the Muslim man may convert his submissive wife.

The threat was not from Islam, he said, but from the subversion of international law by powerful nations.

In fact, it violates the lofty tenets of Islam.

Islam Denounces Terrorism - a book which details exactly how un Islamic terrorism really is.

He seeks to defend a theism which is common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam but his main business is with Christianity.

The new Constitution is stated by a leading Moslem convert to be the greatest blow against the tottering walls of Islam.

He was the leading traditionist of his time (4th Century A.H.) and one of the most outstanding traditionists of Shi'ite Islam.

I am considered a traitor to Islam, deserving to be killed.

Islam was the cement he used to unite the Arab tribes; commerce was to be the only noble occupation.

To put this in human terms, the face of Islam wears a permanent grin, and its eyes twinkle.

Christianity and Islam, Kenya 's two main religions of the book, both make universalist claims on their adherents.

The as yet unmade new album will feature completed versions of songs that Islam started more than twenty years ago.

Her position was also independent from that of her husband, who was himself an unquestionable authority on Islam.

Through the Israelite prophets it passed to Jesus and to Christianity, to Islam and then more recently to Western historicism and political utopianism.

In this timely book, Dr. Badawi reminds us that Islam has a historically verifiable track record for healing social chaos and individual tragedy.

Like Christianity, Islam at the height of its power will not tolerate even the vestiges of a former religion.

All the grand viziers he served were them selves converts to Islam.

Here, however, the author of this book has overreached himself in his zeal for the cause of Islam.

In the teachings of Islam, names fulfill the ambitions of a true Muslim.

In the Islam tradition, many names are combined to form more complete meanings; such as Abu Barakat is "father of blessings."

The big deal is that Gulnara Karimov is the daughter of Uzbekistan's dictator, Islam Karimov.

This specific article of dress is significant because it was once believed that dress was introduced to sub-Saharan Africa by the spread of Islam.

However, this object predates the expansion of Islam and is made of local, not imported, materials.

Subsequently, he converted to the Muslim religion in 1977, changing his name to Yusuf Islam in 1978.

Years later, Yusuf Islam returned to the world of music with new songs, some of which were dedicated to teaching children about Islam.

Whether you knew him as Cat Stevens or have grown up in the years since he changed his name to Yusuf Islam, this artist's music continues to live on for each generation.

Categories include Islam, Nature, Sports, Autos and Bollywood.

Families who practice Judaism or Islam may select to have their sons circumcised as a religious practice.

The religious response to homosexuality varies, though in the three major Western religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) homosexuality and bisexuality are considered sins.

Other prominent religions there include Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity.