Islām.

OpeningWhat it is.

Islam is the religion founded on the conviction that there is no god but God (lā ilāha illa'llāh) and that Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh, an Arab merchant of Mecca, is His final messenger.

Its scripture is the Qur'an, received in Arabic by Muhammad over twenty-three years (610–632 CE) and held to be the literal speech of God. Its practice rests on the five pillars. Its history runs from a small persecuted community in seventh-century Arabia to a religion of more than 1.9 billion people, the dominant faith of a band stretching from Morocco to Indonesia.

This deck takes the long view: Muhammad's biography, the Qur'an and Hadith, the rise of the caliphates, the Sunni-Shia split, the great theological and legal traditions, the Sufi inheritance, modern reform movements, and the religion's twenty-first-century shape.

Chapter IThe Prophet.

Born c. 570 CE in Mecca to the Banu Hashim clan of the Quraysh tribe. Orphaned young; raised by his uncle Abu Talib. Worked as a merchant; gained a reputation for honesty (al-amin, "the trustworthy"). Married Khadija, a wealthy widow fifteen years his senior, c. 595. They had four daughters; the youngest, Fātima, would mother the Shia Imams through ‘Alī.

The first revelation came around 610 CE in a cave on Mount Hirā outside Mecca. The angel Gabriel (Jibrīl) commanded him: "Recite!" (iqra'). Revelations continued for the rest of his life. After thirteen difficult years preaching in Mecca, with the small community persecuted by the Quraysh elite, Muhammad and his followers migrated north to Yathrib (later Medina) in 622 — the hijra, year zero of the Islamic calendar.

In Medina, Muhammad became statesman as well as prophet. The Constitution of Medina (c. 622) bound Muslims and Jewish tribes into a single political community. Eight years of intermittent war with Mecca followed; the city fell with little bloodshed in 630. Muhammad died in 632 in Medina, around age sixty-two.

Chapter IIThe Qur'an.

The Qur'an (al-qur'ān, "the recitation") is for Muslims the literal, uncreated speech of God in Arabic. 114 chapters (sūras), arranged not chronologically but roughly by length (longest to shortest, with the brief opening al-Fātiḥa first). Mecca-period sūras tend to be short, ecstatic, focused on God's oneness and the day of judgment; Medinan sūras are longer, more legal, addressed to a community.

The text was collected during the caliphate of Abū Bakr (632–634) and standardised under ‘Uthmān (644–656). The Birmingham Qur'an manuscript fragments, radiocarbon-dated to 568–645 CE, represent the oldest known portions. Variant readings (qirā'āt) are recognised within the tradition as authentic transmissions.

Read! In the name of thy Lord who created — created man from a clot. Read! And thy Lord is the most generous, who taught by the pen, taught man what he knew not.Q 96:1–5 (the first revelation)

The Qur'an is meant to be heard. Its recitation (tajwīd) is a major art form; its memorisation in full earns the title ḥāfiẓ.

Chapter IIIThe Hadith.

The reports of what the Prophet said, did, or tacitly approved — the sunna — transmitted through chains of narrators (isnād) and compiled in major collections during the ninth century. The most authoritative Sunni collections are the Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (compiled by Muhammad al-Bukhārī, d. 870, from a winnowing of perhaps 600,000 reports to about 7,000) and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (by Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj, d. 875). Together with four other "Sunan" collections they form the Sunni canon.

Twelver Shia Islam recognises a different set of hadith collections, centred on transmissions through the Prophet's family. The four major Shia compilations are al-Kāfī (by al-Kulaynī, d. 941), Man lā yaḥḍuruhu al-faqīh, and the two collections of al-Ṭūsī.

The science of isnād — assessing chains of transmitters — is one of medieval Islam's intellectual achievements. Hadith are graded as ṣaḥīḥ (sound), ḥasan (good), ḍa&#&299;f (weak), or mawḍū‘ (fabricated). The reliability of any given report has remained an active scholarly question across the tradition.

Chapter IVThe Five Pillars.

The basic framework of Islamic practice, derived from a famous hadith of Gabriel and shared by Sunni and most Shia traditions.

Chapter VThe Rāshidūn.

After Muhammad's death in 632 the community chose a successor — a khalīfa, "deputy" — from his close companions. The four Sunni-recognised "rightly-guided caliphs" (al-khulafā' al-rāshidūn):

Abū Bakr (632–634), Muhammad's father-in-law and the first male convert. Suppressed the ridda (apostasy) wars by which several Arab tribes tried to leave the new federation. Began the collection of the Qur'an.

‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (634–644), under whom the conquests began in earnest. Within a decade Arab Muslim armies took Damascus (635), Jerusalem (637), Ctesiphon (the Sasanian capital, 637), and Alexandria (642). One of the fastest territorial expansions in history. Assassinated by a Persian slave.

‘Uthmān ibn ‘Affān (644–656), under whom the standard text of the Qur'an was finalised. Accused of nepotism by his critics; assassinated by rebels.

‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib (656–661), Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law (married to Fātima). His caliphate was consumed by civil war (the First Fitna). Assassinated in 661 in the mosque of Kufa. The Shia trace the legitimate succession from him.

Chapter VIThe great division.

The split between Sunni and Shia originated in a question of succession. The Sunni view: Muhammad left no specific successor; the community chose. The Shia view: Muhammad designated ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib at Ghadīr Khumm (632), and the legitimate leadership of the umma must descend through his line.

The defining trauma of the split was Karbala, 10 Muharram 680 CE: Muhammad's grandson Husayn ibn ‘Alī, refusing to pledge loyalty to the Umayyad caliph Yazīd, was killed with most of his small band on the plains of Iraq. Husayn's martyrdom and the annual mourning of ‘Āshūrā' became central to Shia identity.

The Shia split further. Twelver (Ithnā ‘Asharī) Shia — about 85% of Shia, dominant in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain — recognise twelve imams ending with the Mahdi who entered occultation in 874 and will return at the end of time. Ismā‘īlīs recognise a different seventh imam; the Nizari branch follows the Aga Khan today. Zaydīs in Yemen take a more historical view of the imamate.

Sunnis are about 85–90% of Muslims worldwide; Shia about 10–13%. Both consider themselves the authentic continuation of the Prophet's tradition.

Chapter VIIThe Umayyads.

The first hereditary dynasty (661–750), based in Damascus. Founded by Mu‘āwiya, ‘Uthmān's kinsman and governor of Syria, who had refused to recognise ‘Alī. Under the Umayyads the conquests reached their geographical maximum: Spain (711), Sind (Pakistan, 711), Transoxiana, the Caucasus, the doors of southern France (turned back at Poitiers in 732).

The Umayyad legacy is mixed. They built the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem (691–692) — the first great work of Islamic architecture, a deliberate statement of the new faith's presence on the Temple Mount. They imposed Arabic as the language of administration. But Sunni and Shia traditions both view their rule as a fall from the religious purity of the Rāshidūn. Husayn was killed under Umayyad authority; the descendants of ‘Alī were persecuted.

The Abbasid revolution of 749–750, mounted under black banners by a coalition of disaffected Persians, Shia, and others, overthrew the Umayyads. Only one prince, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān, escaped; he founded the Umayyad emirate (later caliphate) of Cordoba in al-Andalus, which lasted until 1031.

Chapter VIIIThe golden age.

The Abbasid caliphate (750–1258) shifted the center of the Islamic world east, founding Baghdad in 762 as the new capital. Under the early Abbasids (especially Hārūn al-Rashīd, r. 786–809, and his son al-Ma'mūn, r. 813–833), Baghdad became the intellectual capital of the world.

The "House of Wisdom" (Bayt al-Ḥikma) sponsored the systematic translation of Greek, Persian, and Indian scientific and philosophical works into Arabic. Galen, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Euclid, Indian astronomy and mathematics — rendered into Arabic, then advanced beyond their originals. Algebra (al-Khwārizmī's name became "algorithm") and algorithms were Islamic innovations. Optics (Ibn al-Haytham), medicine (al-Rāzī, Ibn Sīnā), astronomy (al-Tūsī), geography (al-Bīrūnī) — the achievements were extraordinary.

The political unity weakened from the ninth century. Local dynasties — Samānids, Būyids, Selçuks, Ghaznavids — ruled de facto while keeping Abbasid caliphs as religious figureheads. The Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258 ended the dynasty (and famously killed perhaps 90,000 in the city). A shadow Abbasid line continued in Cairo until the Ottoman conquest of 1517.

Chapter IXLaw — Sharī‘a and fiqh.

Muslims distinguish between sharī‘a (the divine path, God's normative will, in principle perfect) and fiqh (the human discipline of jurisprudence trying to discern that path, and therefore fallible). The classical Sunni schools of fiqh (madhāhib) emerged in the eighth and ninth centuries:

1. Ḥanafī — founded by Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 767, Kufa). The largest school today; dominant in Turkey, the Levant, South Asia, and Central Asia.
2. Mālikī — founded by Mālik ibn Anas (d. 795, Medina). Dominant in North and West Africa.
3. Shāfi‘ī — founded by al-Shāfi‘ī (d. 820, Cairo). His Risāla systematised the four sources (Qur'an, Sunna, consensus, analogy). Dominant in East Africa, Yemen, Indonesia, Malaysia.
4. Ḥanbalī — founded by Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (d. 855, Baghdad). The strictest in privileging textual sources. The school of Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the formal background of much modern Salafism.

The Twelver Shia have the Ja‘farī school, named for the sixth imam Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq (d. 765). In modern times the codification of national legal codes, often blending Islamic and European sources, has reduced the day-to-day weight of classical fiqh; family law (marriage, divorce, inheritance) remains the most actively sharī‘a-governed domain.

Chapter XKalām and the rationalist debate.

Islamic theology (kalām) turned on a few enduring questions. Is the Qur'an created or eternal? Are God's attributes really distinct from his essence? Is human action free or predetermined?

The Mu‘tazila (rationalists) of the eighth and ninth centuries held that the Qur'an was created (against the literalist view), that God's justice required human freedom, and that reason could establish moral truths. The Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mūn imposed Mu‘tazila doctrine in the miḥna (inquisition, 833–848); Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal famously refused to recant.

The reaction produced classical Sunni theology. Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ash‘arī (d. 936) and al-Māturīdī (d. 944) developed the dominant theological positions: the Qur'an as uncreated speech of God; God's attributes as real but unlike creaturely attributes; God as the author of all human action through "acquisition" (kasb). al-Ghazālī (1058–1111), the great synthesiser, integrated kalām, Sufism, and Aristotelian philosophy in his Iḥyā' ‘ulūm al-dīn ("Revival of the Religious Sciences").

Chapter XIThe mystical path.

Sufism (taṣawwuf) is the inner, mystical dimension of Islam — the discipline of drawing close to God through prayer, dhikr (remembrance), poverty, and a master-disciple lineage. The early Sufis were ascetics in Iraq and Khurasan: al-Baṣrī (d. 728), Rābi‘a al-‘Adawīya (d. 801, the great female mystic of Basra), Jūnayd of Baghdad (d. 910).

The classical age produced its giants. al-Ḥallāj (executed Baghdad, 922) for crying out anā al-ḥaqq ("I am the Truth"). Ibn ‘Arabī (1165–1240, Andalusia and Damascus) — the metaphysical theologian of Sufism, the doctrine of waḥdat al-wujūd (oneness of being). Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (1207–1273, Konya), whose Mathnawī remains, in Persian and translation, the most-read mystical poetry in any language.

The whole life of mystics is reduced to two movements: a flight from self toward God, and a return from God toward creation, with God.a Sufi maxim, attributed variously

Sufi orders (ṭarīqas) — the Qādirīya, the Naqshbandīya, the Mevlevīs of Konya, the Tijānīya across West Africa — structured spiritual life across the Islamic world for centuries. The modern Salafi critique has displaced them in some regions; they remain vibrant elsewhere.

Chapter XIIal-Andalus.

Muslim Spain from 711 to 1492. The Umayyad emirate (later caliphate) of Cordoba (756–1031) became one of medieval Europe's most cultured polities. Cordoba in the tenth century, with perhaps half a million inhabitants, was the largest city in Western Europe; its libraries held more books than the rest of Christian Europe combined.

The Andalusi achievement was scientific (Ibn al-Baytār in pharmacy; al-Zarqālī in astronomy), philosophical (Ibn Bājja, Ibn Ṭufayl, Ibn Rushd / Averroes), and mystical (Ibn ‘Arabī, Ibn ‘Abbād). Ibn Rushd's commentaries on Aristotle reached Latin Christendom and deeply shaped scholastic theology, including Aquinas.

The convivencia — the long coexistence of Muslims, Jews, and Christians in al-Andalus — was real but should not be romanticised. Periods of peaceful productive coexistence alternated with persecution. The Almohad reforms of the twelfth century displaced Maimonides and many Jewish communities. The Christian Reconquista, completed at Granada in 1492, ended Muslim rule and was followed by mass expulsions (Jews 1492, Muslim Moriscos 1609–1614).

Chapter XIIIThe Mongol turn.

The Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century were a catastrophe. Genghis Khan's grandsons sacked Bukhara (1220), Samarkand (1220), Baghdad (1258), Aleppo and Damascus (1260) — before being checked at ‘Ayn Jālūt (1260) by the Mamluk sultan of Egypt. The destruction of Baghdad ended the Abbasid caliphate and inflicted, by the historian Hodgson's estimate, a civilisational wound from which the Islamic east never fully recovered.

And yet: within a few generations the Mongol successors converted to Islam. Ghazan Khan, ruler of the Ilkhanate, took the shahada in 1295. Berke of the Golden Horde (in Russia) had converted earlier. The conquerors became patrons. Late medieval Persian art, science, and literature flourished under Ilkhanid and Timurid sponsorship.

The post-Mongol Islamic world reorganised around three great early-modern empires: the Ottomans in Anatolia, the Balkans, and the Arab lands; the Safavids in Iran (who imposed Twelver Shi‘ism as state religion from 1501); the Mughals in northern India.

Chapter XIVThe Ottoman Empire.

Founded by ‘Osmān I in northwest Anatolia c. 1300; conquered Constantinople under Mehmed II "the Conqueror" in 1453 (ending the Roman Empire after 1480 years); reached its peak under Süleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566). At its greatest extent the Ottoman Empire stretched from Hungary to Yemen, from Algeria to Iraq, embracing perhaps 30 million subjects.

The Ottoman sultans claimed the title caliph from 1517 (after their conquest of Mamluk Egypt and inheritance of the shadow Abbasid line). The empire developed a sophisticated legal-administrative system blending dynastic law (qānūn) with sharī‘a; the millet system gave Christian and Jewish communities communal autonomy under their own laws. Mimār Sinān (1488–1588), chief architect to Süleyman, built the great Istanbul mosques.

The decline was long and uneven. Defeats at Lepanto (1571), Vienna (1683), Russian wars of the eighteenth century, and the gradual loss of Balkan provinces in the nineteenth signaled retreat. The Tanzimat reforms (1839–1876) modernised; the Young Turks (1908) accelerated change; defeat in World War I (the empire allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary) brought collapse. The caliphate was abolished by Atatürk in 1924 — the first time since 632 that Sunni Islam had no recognised caliph.

Chapter XVThe reform impulse.

The encounter with European power from the late eighteenth century onward forced a vast reckoning. Several streams of modern Islamic thought emerged:

Modernist reform. Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī (1838–1897), Muḥammad ‘Abduh (1849–1905), Rashīd Riḍā (1865–1935): Islam reinterpreted as compatible with science and constitutional government; the salaf (early generations) as model. Influential across Egypt, Syria, North Africa.

Wahhabism. Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb (1703–1792), Najd, Arabia: a strict scriptural and anti-Sufi reform; allied with the House of Sa‘ūd, eventually producing the Saudi state (1932). Promoted globally from the 1970s through Saudi oil revenue.

Political Islam. Hasan al-Bannā (Egypt, founded the Muslim Brotherhood, 1928); Sayyid Quṭb (Egypt, executed 1966); Abū al-A‘lā Mawdūdī (Pakistan, Jamā‘at-i Islāmī, 1941). Islam as comprehensive political system; sovereignty (ḥākimīya) belongs to God.

Iranian revolutionary Islam. Ayatollah Khomeini's vilāyat-i faqīh (rule of the jurist), implemented in the 1979 Islamic Revolution — the first explicit Islamic state of the modern era.

Chapter XVIWomen in Islam.

Khadija was the first Muslim. ‘Ā'isha (Muhammad's later wife) is the source of more hadith than any other transmitter except Abū Hurayra. Fātima al-Fihriyya founded the University of al-Qarawiyyīn in Fes in 859 — arguably the world's oldest continuously operating university. Rābi‘a al-‘Adawīya was an early central figure of Sufism. Female scholars of hadith and law have always existed, more in some periods than others.

The complex modern picture: in many Muslim-majority countries female literacy now matches or exceeds male; in some (Iran, the Gulf, Indonesia, Bangladesh) women's tertiary enrollment is higher than men's. The Quranic and prophetic record on women is itself a contested space; reformist scholars (Amina Wadud, Asma Barlas, Kecia Ali, Ziba Mir-Hosseini) have argued for re-readings that emphasise the Qur'an's ethical core over patriarchal interpretive layers.

Practice varies wildly: from the very strict (Saudi Arabia until recent reforms, Taliban Afghanistan) to the considerably more liberal (Indonesia, Tunisia, Senegal). The veiling debate (whether ḥijāb is religiously required and what it means socially) remains one of the most-discussed flashpoints across the Islamic world.

Chapter XVIIThe 1979 turn.

Three events of the long 1979 reshaped global Islam:

The Iranian Revolution (January–February 1979). The fall of the Pahlavi monarchy and Ayatollah Khomeini's establishment of the Islamic Republic. The first time since the abolition of the caliphate that an explicitly Islamic state was created in the modern world; an electrifying symbol for Islamists everywhere; a permanent regional realignment (Tehran-Riyadh rivalry intensified, Sunni-Shia tensions sharpened).

The Grand Mosque seizure (November 1979). Juhayman al-‘Otaybī and a few hundred Saudi millenarians seized the mosque at Mecca, declaring a Mahdi. The Saudi regime ended the siege after two weeks — and afterwards reasserted the religious authority of the ‘ulamā', funded a global Wahhabi expansion through the new oil wealth.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (December 1979). Triggered the multinational mujahidin resistance — funded heavily by the US and Saudi Arabia — that eventually contributed to the Soviet collapse and helped train the network from which al-Qaeda emerged.

The cumulative effect: a sharp politicisation of Islam, the rise of transnational jihadist networks, and the intensification of Sunni-Shia geopolitical rivalry that has defined the Middle East ever since.

Chapter XVIIIThe argument over jihad.

Jihād means "struggle." The classical legal tradition recognises a "greater jihad" (the struggle against one's own ego, jihād al-nafs) and a "lesser jihad" (warfare under the conditions specified by the law). The lesser jihad in classical fiqh is hedged with conditions: legitimate authority, proper cause, protection of non-combatants, sparing of trees and crops, treatment of prisoners.

The modern jihadist movement — al-Qā‘ida, ISIS, their affiliates — departs sharply from this classical tradition in declaring all manner of violence permissible against an extremely wide range of targets, including other Muslims (whom they often denounce as apostates, takfīr). Mainstream Sunni and Shia scholars across the world have rejected this. The Amman Message of 2004 — signed by hundreds of scholars across all eight legal schools — explicitly anathematised takfīr against fellow Muslims.

The 21st-century picture is complex. Most Muslims regard violent jihadism as outside the tradition; it has nevertheless produced enormous suffering, mostly to other Muslims, and shaped Western perceptions far out of proportion to its actual support among the faithful. Polling consistently shows large majorities of Muslims worldwide rejecting groups like ISIS.

Chapter XIXThe world Muslim map.

About 1.9 billion Muslims in 2025 (Pew estimate). The largest Muslim populations are not in the Arab world:

• ~242 MIndonesia — mostly Sunni Shāfi‘ī87% of pop.
• ~225 MPakistan — mostly Sunni Ḥanafī96% of pop.
• ~213 MIndia — large minority, Sunni and Shia14% of pop.
• ~155 MBangladesh — mostly Sunni90% of pop.
• ~110 MNigeria — the north50% of pop.
• ~95 MEgypt — Sunni Shāfi‘ī / Ḥanafī90%
• ~88 MIran — mostly Twelver Shia99%
• ~85 MTurkey — mostly Sunni Ḥanafī, Alevi minority99%
• ~37 MAlgeria99%
• ~37 MMorocco99%

The Arab world holds about 20% of all Muslims. South Asia holds about 30%; Southeast Asia about 16%; sub-Saharan Africa a fast-growing 16%. The single largest growth pole now is sub-Saharan Africa, where high birth rates make Islam (with Christianity) the future religion of the continent's young population.

Chapter XXThe architecture.

Islamic art's central problem is religious: representational depiction of God or living beings is generally avoided in religious contexts, and certain forms (calligraphy, geometric pattern, vegetal arabesque, tilework) take their place.

The mosque (masjid, "place of prostration") has a few constants: a qibla wall oriented toward Mecca; a miḥrāb niche in that wall; a minbar (pulpit) for Friday sermon; a courtyard with fountain for ablution; minarets for the call to prayer. The styles — Umayyad Damascus, Mamluk Cairo, Ottoman Istanbul, Mughal Delhi, Persian Isfahan, Andalusi Cordoba, West African Djenné — differ profoundly while sharing this functional grammar.

Five buildings worth knowing: the Dome of the Rock (Jerusalem, 691); the Great Mosque of Cordoba (786, with its forest of columns); the Alhambra (Granada, 14th c.); the Süleymaniye Mosque (Istanbul, 1557, by Sinān); the Taj Mahal (Agra, 1648, a Mughal mausoleum-mosque complex).

Chapter XXIThe Muslim year.

The Islamic calendar is lunar — twelve months of 29 or 30 days, totaling about 354 days. It does not align with the solar year, so religious observances cycle through the seasons over a 33-year period. The year zero is the hijra (Muhammad's migration from Mecca to Medina, 622 CE). The Common Era 2025 corresponds to AH 1446–1447.

The major observances:

Muḥarram — the first month; the 10th (‘Āshūrā') is a fast day for Sunnis (echoing the Jewish Yom Kippur), and a major mourning day for Shia commemorating the martyrdom of Husayn at Karbala.

Rabī‘ al-Awwal — contains the Mawlid al-Nabī, the Prophet's birthday (12th, traditional Sunni date; 17th, Shia). Celebrated in much of the Muslim world; rejected by Salafi/Wahhabi traditions as innovation.

Rajab — the 27th is Laylat al-Mi‘rāj, the night of Muhammad's ascent through the heavens.

Ramaḍān — the month of fasting; Laylat al-Qadr ("the Night of Power," falling among its last odd-numbered nights) commemorates the Qur'an's first revelation.

Shawwāl — opens with ‘Īd al-Fiṭr, the festival of breaking the fast.

Dhū al-Ḥijja — the pilgrimage month; the 10th is ‘Īd al-Aḍḥā, the festival of sacrifice, commemorating Abraham.

Chapter XXIICommon errors.

A short list of widely-held Western misconceptions worth correcting:

"Allah" is not a different God. Allāh is simply the Arabic word for God, used by Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews as well as Muslims. The Qur'an explicitly identifies the God of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus with the God of Muhammad.

Most Muslims are not Arab. Arabs are about 20% of Muslims worldwide. The largest Muslim populations are in Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh.

The Qur'an is not arranged like the Bible. It is mostly arranged by length, not chronology, and is intended for recitation rather than discursive study.

Sufism is not a sect. It is the mystical-spiritual dimension of Islam; Sufis are usually Sunni or Shia, not a third category.

Sunni and Shia are not natural enemies. The political weaponisation of the difference is mostly modern. For most of Islamic history, Sunni and Shia communities have lived alongside each other with ordinary friction but without theological war.

The veil is not uniformly required. The Qur'an's instruction (Q 24:31) is debated by interpreters; practice varies enormously across history and geography. Insisting that all Muslim women must veil, or must not, both misrepresent the actual diversity of the tradition.

Chapter XXIIITwenty Muslims worth knowing.

• c.555–620Khadīja bint Khuwaylid — first Muslim, Muhammad's first wifeCompanion
• c.583–644‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb — second caliphRāshidūn
• c.605–678‘Ā'isha bint Abī Bakr — Muhammad's wife, hadith transmitterCompanion
• c.626–680Ḥusayn ibn ‘Alī — martyr at KarbalaImam
• c.700–765Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq — sixth Twelver Imam, Shia juristImam
• c.717–801Rābi‘a al-‘Adawīya — mystic of BasraSufi
• d. 870al-Bukhārī — the canonical hadith collectionmuhaddith
• c.780–850al-Khwārizmī — algebra, algorithmscientist
• c.870–950al-Fārābī — the Second Teacher (after Aristotle)philosopher
• 980–1037Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) — the Canon of Medicinepolymath
• 965–c.1040Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) — founder of opticsscientist
• 1058–1111al-Ghazālī — Revival of the Religious Sciencestheologian
• 1126–1198Ibn Rushd (Averroes) — Aristotelian commentatorphilosopher
• 1207–1273Rūmī — the MathnawīSufi
• 1304–1377Ibn Baṭṭūṭa — the great travelerBerber
• 1332–1406Ibn Khaldūn — Muqaddima, founder of social sciencehistorian
• 1494–1566Süleyman the MagnificentOttoman sultan
• 1817–1898Sayyid Aḥmad Khān — Indian Muslim reformermodernist
• 1877–1938Muḥammad Iqbāl — Urdu/Persian poet, philosopherSouth Asian
• 1902–1989Rūḥullāh Khomeini — Iran's revolutionary supreme leaderShia jurist

Chapter XXIVTwenty-five essentials.

• c. 632The Qur'an (read in any of: Abdel Haleem, Pickthall, Arberry)
• c. 870Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārīal-Bukhārī
• c. 1106The Revival of the Religious Sciencesal-Ghazālī
• c. 1273The MathnawīRūmī
• 1377The MuqaddimaIbn Khaldūn
• 1948Major Themes of the Qur'anFazlur Rahman
• 1955Muhammad: Prophet and StatesmanW. Montgomery Watt
• 1974The Venture of Islam (3 vols)M. G. S. Hodgson
• 1982Islam in Modern HistoryWilfred Cantwell Smith
• 1988Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qur'anA. Rippin (ed.)
• 1991A History of the Arab PeoplesAlbert Hourani
• 1993Reading Lolita in Tehran (later, 2003)Azar Nafisi
• 1995The Cambridge History of Arabic Literatureeds. Beeston et al.
• 1999Qur'an and WomanAmina Wadud
• 2002The Heart of IslamSeyyed Hossein Nasr
• 2002What Went Wrong?Bernard Lewis
• 2003God's Crucible (Andalusi history)David Levering Lewis
• 2004The Great TheftKhaled Abou El Fadl
• 2009Destiny DisruptedTamim Ansary
• 2010Muhammad: A BiographyKaren Armstrong (rev.)
• 2014The Study Quran (HarperOne ed.)eds. Nasr et al.
• 2015The Caliphate of ManAndrew March
• 2017Islam and the Future of ToleranceHarris & Nawaz
• 2018Misquoting MuhammadJonathan A. C. Brown
• 2024The Quran: A New TranslationM. A. S. Abdel Haleem (rev.)

Chapter XXVIslam in 2025.

Three trends define contemporary Islam:

Demographic momentum. The world's fastest-growing major religion. Pew projects that by 2050 Muslims and Christians will be roughly equal in number; by the end of the century Islam may be the largest. The growth is driven by youth bulges in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, not by conversion.

Internal contestation. The struggle over what counts as authentic Islam is more open than at any time in recent memory. Salafi reformism, traditional Sunni scholarship, Sufi revival, Shia jurisprudence, modernist reformism, feminist Islamic interpretation, and various political Islamisms all contest the same space. The old gatekeepers (al-Azhar, Najaf, the Saudi establishment) face cheap, fast competitors online.

The Arab Spring and after. The 2010–2012 uprisings reopened the question of how Islam should relate to political order. The aftermath has been mostly grim — Egypt's coup, Syria's destruction, Libya's collapse, Yemen's war — with Tunisia the partial exception. Political Islam, as a serious alternative, has been weakened; what replaces it is unclear.

Islam in the West — perhaps 50 million Muslims in Europe and North America — remains a distinct story. The American Muslim experience is now substantially second- and third-generation; questions of integration, identity, and the relationship of religious tradition to liberal democracy are being negotiated in real time.

Chapter XXVIWatch & read.

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Where to begin reading

Begin with M. A. S. Abdel Haleem's translation of the Qur'an (a clean, modern English rendering with light footnotes). Pair with Karen Armstrong's Islam: A Short History for the historical sweep, and Jonathan A. C. Brown's Misquoting Muhammad for an inside look at how the tradition's scholars actually work.

Chapter XXVIIWhat endures.

Across fifteen centuries and three continents the constants of the Islamic tradition are remarkably durable: the Qur'an in Arabic, recited and memorised; the five daily prayers; the Friday gathering; the fast of Ramadan; the pilgrimage to Mecca; the testimony of God's oneness.

The disagreements have been continuous and often fierce — about authority, about law, about mysticism, about the relation to non-Muslims, about politics. They are part of the tradition, not failures of it. Islam has accommodated philosophical Aristotelianism (Ibn Rushd) and visionary mysticism (Ibn ‘Arabī); imperial bureaucracy (the Ottomans) and revolutionary insurgency (Khomeini); rigid scriptural literalism (the Wahhābīs) and exuberant poetic excess (Rūmī). It has been a religion of conquerors and a religion of the conquered. It has, more often than not, been the framework within which Muslims have lived ordinary lives — marrying, raising children, making bread, paying taxes, dying.

For 1.9 billion people in 2025 it remains the way they understand who and where they are in the world. That is the simplest and the most important fact about it.

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Chapter XXVIIITwelve terms.

• dīnreligion / way of lifeدين
• islāmsubmission to Godإسلام
• īmānfaithإيمان
• iḥsānexcellence, virtue (worshipping God as if you saw Him)إحسان
• tawhīdoneness of Godتوحيد
• ummacommunity of believersأمة
• sunnaway of the Prophetسنة
• ijmā‘scholarly consensus (a source of law)إجماع
• qiyāsanalogy (a source of law)قياس
• ijtihādindependent legal reasoningإجتهاد
• taqwāGod-consciousnessتقوى
• dhikrremembrance of God (a Sufi practice)ذكر

Chapter XXIXOne last verse.

O humankind, We created you all from a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most honored of you in the sight of God is the most God-conscious of you.Q 49:13

This verse from Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt is one of the cornerstone universalist verses of the Qur'an. The principle of human equality before God, the legitimacy of human diversity, and the criterion of moral rather than ethnic distinction — the practical theology a billion-and-a-half people work out of, every day.

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