After watching the crash course on Islam, the Quran, and the five pillars, I took some notes on what I learned.
Islam: Muslims believed that God sent Muhammad as the final prophet to bring people back to the one true religion, which involved the worship to a single, omnipotent God. Besides the Quran, another important text is the Hadith, which is a collection and sayings of the prophets. The body of laws in Islam is called the Sharia, but not all Muslims follow this body of laws. The people who did follow the Sharia were called Muslims because they submitted to the will of God. These Muslims became a community of believers called the Umma. Muhammad and his following believe in the one God, which upset the Quraysh, the most powerful tribe in Mecca. Muhammad was eventually forced to Medina, which the journey is called the Hijra. Muhammad and his followers returned to Mecca and the Islamic community took back Mecca. Once Muhammad died, the Quran was complete since Muhammad was the last prophet of God. Eventually, with Islam being a powerful religiously and politically, there needed to be a new leader, which ended up being Muhammad’s father in law. Abu Bakr began recording the Quran in writing and helped improve their military. This allowed the Islam community to increase rapidly over northern Africa and western Asia.
Quran: The Quran is very similar as the Bible by mentioning the story of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets. However, it’s different based on the written record of the revelations Muhammad received. The Quran is written in the point of view of God, the actual word of God rather than viewpoints from miscellaneous prophets. Themes of the Quran include strict monotheism and the importance of taking care of those less fortunate of you.
Pillars: First pillar is the shahada, also known as the profession of the faith. This pillar acknowledges the one and only God in Islam. Second pillar is the salat, which is the ritual prayer five times a day- dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset, and late evening. Third is sawm, the month long fast during the month of Ramadan. Muslims can’t eat or drink during daylight hours when participating in the sawm. Fourth is Zakat, aka almsgiving, where non-poor Muslims are required to give a percentage of their income to the poor. Lastly is the Haji, which is the pilgrimage to Mecca, which Muslims must complete once during their life.
It was very interesting to learn about how Islam started given that the main religions in the western hemisphere involve some type of Christianity. It was also cool to learn similarities and differences between the Quran and the Bible. I have heard about the five pillars before this course, but didn’t really understand what that entailed. This video was entertaining to me because I learned a lot of new things.