I might be wrong about this but I don't think that "Allah" is "the name of God". Its just a translation of "God". --
Phil Lord
Allah is indeed the name of God in Islam and it is the most precious name for it is not a descriptive name like other Ninety-nine names of Allah, but the name of God's own presence. So, the name Allah is accepted to comprise the meanings of all other names of the God, as well. All the names including Allah are referred to as "Asma ul husna" (beautiful names) and Allah is regarded as greatest of these names ErdemTuzun.
The portion recently added under "this concise statement has wider implications" ... I haven't seen those six anywhere in my travels, and a quick Google search was unable to turn up a source. Does anybody have a source for those six? Apart from that, I think it's misleading to put that whole section under the Five Pillars of Islam, since they really have nothing to do with it. Should they be moved elsewhere? Or if a source cannot be found, deleted? --Dlugar?
I think I got it for a handout I gave a class off a handout from a college course. #1 is the most obvious one (the unity/unicity/tawhid business), but I'll delete them since I certainly can't provide a solid reference.
Oh, and Phil Lord, go see the extensive talk on this subject at Allah.
Why are we listing only 4 items under the 5 pillars? Where's the fifth?
the creed is #1.
Could it perhaps be appropriate to merge in
History of Islam under Islam/History
??
well, it would be a subpage and some people (e.g., Larry) don't like that. The "History of..." Category is kinda grating, but it seems to be working. Remember, you can always insert a cross reference --
MichaelTinkler
Ah, well. Probably not the correct /Talk to wage a religious war about subpages :-)
Last i checked my encyclopedia at home i found nothing under the heading "History of...". Opinions will, as ever, differ i guess. --Anders Törlind
It was based on the Britannica Macropaedia, which has all sorts of entries under Nomen, history of.
should the list of 'death threats' at the end of the entry be moved to the entry on
fatwa?
- Any religious decision proclaimed by an Islamic religious cleric is a fatwa; A fatwa doesn't actually have to be anything bad or dangerous. Unfortunately, the only fatwas that most non-Muslim hear about are those relating to death sentences. Fatwas on whether or not a certain meat is halal, or whether or not a certain type of dress is in accord with Islamic standards, doesn't seem to make the news. The purpose for adding the info on the death threats is that they now are a mainstream feature of worldwide Islam. In England and in other European countries it was not hard to find demonstrations of hundreds, if not thousands, of Muslims, demanding the death of author Salmon Rushdie. In Muslim countries, one found many, many such large demonstrations. Yet it was almost impossible to find an Imam who would publicly condemn these actions. All Imams either offered agreement with the fatwa, or an apologetic why they could not publicly renounce it. This issue is a mainstream and widespread feature of modern day Islam, and many in the Muslim community are in fact quite proud of this. An extensive Islamic literature exists on why these death sentences against heretics is a good idea.
this whole entry needs to be refactored, and several things here should be moved entirely to new entries (fatwa should be defined and discussed briefly, but mainly moved).
"The vast bulk of the world's Muslims live in the Middle East and north Africa and the Indonesian islands". Is this counting Bangladesh and Pakistan as the Middle East? There are also more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. They don't count? -- corvus13
- Then add 'em, corvus. Welcome to wikipedia, by the way. Does 'South Asia' sound like the right way to designate the lot of 'em? This article is an awful mess and needs lots of help! --MichaelTinkler
- Thanks, Michael. Since Islam is a hot topic, I didn't want to step on anybody's toes. That last paragraph has a lot of value judgements in it, too. "South Asia" sounds good to me, too. I'll make that change, but I don't want to touch the last para.
Oh, THAT paragraph. Yes, it's inflammatory. Go ahead, move it to fatwa where it belongs. There was a whole list of fatwas on the Islam page. I moved them to fatwa and haven't heard any screams. 'Islamism' exists as a page, and that's where this should be, too, I think, since (despite the claim) this is not about normative Islam but about current Islam. I am not a presentist, so just because something is current and widespread NOW I don't accept it as normative. And Islamism is a 20th C. phenomenon.
The opening sentence could easily be understood to mean that Muslims don't worship God but some other deity called Allah.
- Islam is the religion of the group of people who worship Allah (the name for God in the Arabic language) and follow the word of the prophet Muhammad . . .
Unless the Muslim usage of "Allah" is an essential part of Islam (not merely the Arabic word for God), I suggest rewriting the sentence. Otherwise, Judaism would have to be:
- . . . the religion of the group of people who worship Jehovah and follow Moses, etc.
Ed Poor
The Muslim usage of "Allah" is indeed an essential part of Islam (for instance in their creed, and in daily speech, for instance the polular expression "inshallah"), although in communication to western people the name "God" is often used. I think the opening sentence is ok. I would not change it. -TK
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