Welcome to I Am Your Target Demographic and today we’re looking at the religion of Islam.
Like all of my religion overview videos, this is a superficial look intended for people
who don’t know what Muslims believe or the practices and traditions they participate
in. To give you an idea how popular this religion is, Islam is currently the second largest
world religion, nearly 25% of the world population, second only to the 31% that include all branches
of Christianity, including Catholicism. This 25% is spread out over the world. It may surprise
you that the largest Muslim population resides in Indonesia, with over 229 million Muslims
living there. This is followed by Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. There are countries
with a larger percentage of Muslims, like Iran where 99.4% of the population is Muslim,
but those countries are smaller in overall population.
Now, time for a preface before we get too far. Like other religions, there are many
types of Islam, which have drastically different interpretations of the religion. I’ll dive
into how these schisms happened later, but just know that some branches of Islam may
not agree with everything we’re covering here. Like Christianity and its web of denominations,
Islam too has many differences across its spectrum.
To start the origin story of Islam, we’re going to look at the big 3 Abrahamic religions,
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In an oversimplified timeline, we have the events of the Old Testament.
All three of these religions for the most part believe in these events. They are the
Old Testament in the Bible, the first five books are considered the Written Torah for
Judaism. Muslims believe that these events were, again for the most part, true, but have
been altered or corrupted through changes in their retelling over time. We then have
the New Testament, which Christians believe and again Muslims for the most part agree
with. Judaism believes the Messiah has not yet come, so Jesus is essentially a false
prophet, while Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet and miracle-worker, just not the last
prophet. Muslims then have the Qur’an, which Muslims believe was revealed to the Prophet
Muhammad to rectify what they believe is a corruption of the Bible. So as you can see,
these three religions do have significant overlap, but these differences are indeed
major differences. Let’s go back in time. It's the late 500s
in Mecca, what is now Saudi Arabia. Muhammad is born into a poor family. His father passed
away before he was born and he was raised by his mother, and then his grandfather. He
grew up to become a merchant. At this time, the people there had turned away from worship
of God, the name for which is “Allah” in Arabic – (literally translating as “the God")
and instead worshipped idols and a variety of other gods. He was around the age
of 40 when Muhammad started to receive revelations from God, through the angel Gabriel. He began
to share these revelations, though they challenged the status quo and some individuals in his
community saw Muhammad as a threat. Why is that? What did he teach? What revelations
were given to him? Let’s look at the core beliefs of Islam.
1.) Muslims believe that there is one god, the same God of Judaism and Christianity though
referred to in the Arabic language as Allah. They also believe Muhammad is his servant and messenger.
2.) They believe prophets are real. Not only the prophet Muhammad but the
ones before him, including Jesus and other figures such as David and Moses. While Muhammad
is just a man, he is believed to be the role model for which all Muslims should aspire to, as the last prophet.
3.) Muslims believe in angels, as divine messengers of God’s word.
4.) They believe in revelations, things like messages and texts delivered to humans.
They believe the Qur’an is the final and literal word of God as revealed to the prophet Muhammad.
5.) Muslims believe in the day of resurrection, strikingly similar to the Book
of Revelations. In an oversimplification, they believe that an antichrist will eventually
be struck down by Jesus, returned to Earth. Christians might be surprised to hear of the
importance of Jesus here. Following this, no one on Earth will question God’s power
and there will be a time of peace and prosperity. However, slowly this will decline again, leading
to a dark time in which the entire world has turned on its back on God. God then will cause
the day of judgment, in which all believers will be rewarded with eternal life in paradise,
while the unrighteous are punished in hell. Although some will serve time for their mistakes
and then eventually be entered into heaven, the ones who were truly evil and arrogant
will reside there forever. Most branches of Islam agree on these core beliefs.
But let’s take a detour and look at the schisms that have broken up the Islamic
tradition. It started to divide following the death of Muhammad, who, at the end of
his life was leading the Muslim people. Who should replace him as their leader? It was
more a question of politics, of leadership. One group believed that the leader of their
people should be the actual blood lineage of Muhammad. They would become known as the
Shiites, or the Shia people. This other group believed that a religious leader, someone
moral and pious should lead, these people became known as the Sunni. The Sunni are the
vast majority of Muslims, about 85% of the Muslim population and span the entire globe.
The Shia are much much less in number, also centrally located in the middle east in places
like Iran and Iraq. And then there are other small denominations and even non-denominational
Muslims as well. While this schism began as political, they
do have some differences in how they practice the faith as well. So let’s look at the
five pillars, which are not so much about what they believe, which we already discussed,
but the practices and things they do to show their faith. The first pillar is the Profession
of Faith, that all Muslims must acknowledge that God is one and there is no other God.
They also believe that Muhammad is his servant and messenger.
This is incorporated into their second pillar, which is Prayer. Muslims pray five times a
day at strict times and have very specific purposes. Wherever they are in the world,
Muslims pray facing Mecca. They must perform a ritual wash on themselves before prayer,
to make themselves pure, and they follow a set order of positions and prayers. While
they can perform this prayer anywhere, Muslims might prefer to pray at a mosque, their place
of worship, because it allows for prayer with other individuals and fellowship before and
after the prayer. The third pillar is Charity, often called Almsgiving. Similar to tithing
in Christian religions, they may give money to the mosque to help upkeep the place or
their services, or for the mosque to distribute to people in need. They can also give to those
in need directly, as Islam pushes to eliminate wealth inequality. The fourth pillar is Fasting,
revolving around the month called Ramadan. This is the month in which the Qur’an was
revealed to Muhammad, so every year Muslims celebrate by fasting between sunrise and sunset
for an entire month. The dates of this month change, starting at the first sight of a crescent
moon and ending with another crescent moon, with a celebration holiday called Eid. While
fasting is important during this time, it’s also meant as a time to focus more wholeheartedly
on things like prayer and charity. The fifth and last major pillar, at least for Sunni
Muslims, is the Pilgrimage to Mecca. During their life, Muslims are required to make a
trip to Mecca during a certain time of year, if they are practically and financially able
to do so. All pilgrims wear identical garb, to make no class distinction. When in Mecca,
there is a series of rituals that one does, where one reenacts the actions of Prophet
Abraham and his wife Hagar, including praying on official ceremonies and walking on certain
paths, to literally follow in their footsteps.
Muhammad was a direct descendant of Abraham from the lineage of Ischmael.
The Shia have an additional ten pillars, if you’re interested in looking them up.
I don’t want to go too deep into this, but there have been significant and violent clashes
between the Sunni and Shiite people. With Saudi Arabia being a significant site for
the Sunni people and Iran being significant for the Shiite, these countries and people
often might have motive to oust the other. For example, a Shiite group in the nearby
country of Yemen overthrew a Sunni government that was in place in 2014. In Syria, a Sunni
majority population clashes with a Shiite government. There are, of course, many factors
to the conflicts in these countries and religion isn’t the sole reason, but it’s notable
all the same. Back to the religion, let’s take a look
at their holy leaders. Some religions, such as Catholicism, see their holy leaders as
intermediaries, who help connect their members to God. In Islam, this isn’t the case, individuals
can pray and speak directly to God. Their religious leaders are more like teachers and
interpreters, helping their members to understand the texts and make wise decisions. One of
the most common leaders for Sunni Muslims is the Imam, who is the official that leads
prayers and assists the community, often at a mosque. For some Shia Muslims, called Twelvers,
Imam is a much rarer title, given to those believed to be chosen by God to be perfect
examples and to lead the Muslim people following Muhammad’s death. There have been twelve
total so far, and a thirteenth, who is believed to be currently alive, but has not appeared
yet to lead. Only some Shia believe this, not all of them.
Going back to Sunni Islam, they don’t have the sort of hierarchy that you might see in
the other Abrahamic religions. There used to be a title called Caliph, given to the
supposed successor to Muhammad as the leader of the Muslim community, but there hasn’t
been a Caliph since the end of World War 1 and the downfall of the Ottoman Empire. Some
militant groups such as the Islamic State, which we’ll discuss later, have referred
to as their leaders as Caliph and sought to re-establish a caliphate over the Sunni people.
Without a central figurehead, there have been many internal and external conflicts for these
groups, as they often diverge philosophically on major issues and have no central voice
of authority. Without the hierarchy, the Sunnis believe anyone can become leaders by studying
the law and theology. Another interesting thing to note is the role
of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Muslims do believe that Mary was a virgin and gave
birth to Jesus. She is the only woman who has a chapter in the Qur’an named after
her. She is mentioned more times in the Qur’an than she is in the entirety of the New Testament,
so she’s a very important figure in Islam and she is considered to be the greatest woman
that was ever created. Now might be a good time to discuss the garb
that women wear, in case you’re unfamiliar. There are minor mentions of wearing a veil
in Islamic holy texts but it never explicitly states how or how much, which is why we’ll
see such a spectrum of how to cover. The main reason women cover is that God commanded it,
though a common consensus more recently is that wearing a veil is a sign of piety, of
religious commitment, wearing it is like an act of virtue with considerable reward. And
some believe it’s not required at all, so many women of faith don’t wear any sort
of veil. One of the most common things you’ll see is the hijab, a simple headscarf that
covers the head and neck. The term hijab doesn’t always mean the actual scarf, its roots come
from a meaning of modesty, that both men and women are expected to adhere to. This is one
of those areas that might drastically differ between individuals and what it looks like for
them to wear hijab. Next we have the niqab, a covering that covers the entire head and
face, though leaves an opening for the eyes. And lastly we have the burqa, covering the
entirety of the body and face and only having a mesh over the eyes. The burqa is incredibly
rare, really only prevalent recently in Afghanistan when it was forced upon women by the extremist
Taliban regime. Now that I said the word Taliban, it’s time
to discuss how extremism, terrorism, and the word ‘jihad’ come into play. In the Qur’an,
the word jihad is used to mean struggle. Sometimes its context is internal, a jihad with one’s
inner demons. Sometimes, the context is external, a ‘holy war’ against unbelievers. It’s
a complicated term, it doesn’t always mean blood must be spilt. There’s a comparison
in multiple ways to the term ‘crusade,’ which is often a cause or struggle, yet also
alludes to the Crusades, where soldiers fought to reclaim lands for Christianity and was
seen as a holy war of sorts for themselves. The nuance of the word ‘jihad’
has been lost, as it’s often the first evidence given that Islam is a war-mongering religion.
It means much more than that. The other evidence that people cite is the
rise of extremism (and then terrorism) coming from supposedly Muslim groups. Extremism is
rampant in any group. For example, there are extremist Christians, who might bomb a Planned
Parenthood in the name of their religion. There are extremists for everything, but the
definition of extremism is that those people are wildly on the far end of the spectrum
and not typical within the population at all. But the problem is that these extremists within
the Muslim community have been vocal and dangerous. One of the most notable militant extremist
groups is Al-Qaeda and its former leader Osama bin Laden. This group believes that a Christian-Jewish
alliance is working to destroy Islam, so they see their right for survival as a truly worthy
jihad. Their most famous act of terrorism was the 9/11 attacks on the United States
World Trade Center, resulting in nearly 3,000 deaths. This attack triggered a resurgence
in anti-Muslim sentiment across the globe and heightened Islamophobia, even though only
roughly 40,000 people worldwide are involved with Al-Qaeda, out of Islam’s total world
population of nearly 2 billion. That would put Al-Qaeda as about .002 of the Muslim population,
meaning that any generalization on such a small percentage would be nonsensical.
More recently, we’ve seen the growth of another extremist group, the Islamic State,
sometimes called ISIS or ISIL or Daesh. Originally this group pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda,
before becoming its own independent group. They claim that their leader is the Caliph
of the entire Muslim community, which has made even groups such as Al-Qaeda break ties
with them. These militant and dangerous groups do exist, but the larger Muslim community,
across the entire spectrum of denomination, denounce these horrific acts that groups such
as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State commit. Saudi Arabia has denounced these groups completely
and classified them as terrorist organizations. Across the board, scholars and leaders have
come out to say these groups are not at all Islamic, instead misunderstanding and misrepresenting
the Qur’an. In India, 70,000 Muslim leaders came together to denounce these groups. There
are 60 countries currently waging war with members of the Islamic State, many of those
countries are of a Muslim majority, fighting people within their own borders. The Muslim
people have been strongly vocal about these extremist groups and are actively fighting
against them. So, as we wrap up, hopefully you found this
interesting. Islam is a diverse religion spread across the globe, with different denominations
that believe different things. It’s difficult to generalize Muslims considering how diverse
they are across this spectrum. If you’re a Muslim yourself, let me know if there’s
anything you disagree with here, and if you’re not, hopefully you learned something interesting.
I want to thank my Muslim friends and colleagues that proofread this script
before it went live, as having perspective from actual followers of the faith is always
vitally important. Subscribe for more stuff like this, and thanks again for watching!