Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion teaching that there is only one God (Allah), and that Muhammad is a messenger of God. It is the world’s second-largest religion with over 1.8 billion followers or a quarter of the world’s population known as Muslims. Muslims make up a majority of the population in 49 countries. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and has guided mankind through prophets, revealed scriptures and natural signs. The primary scripture of Islam is the Quran, believed to be the verbatim word of God, and the teachings and normative examples called the sunnah, composed of accounts called hadith of Muhammad (570 – 632 CE)
Muslims believe that Islam is the complete and universal version of a primordial faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Abraham, Moses and Jesus. Muslims consider the Quran in its Arabic to be the unaltered and final revelation of God. Like other Abrahamic religions, Islam also teaches a final judgment with the righteous rewarded in paradise and unrighteous punished in hell. Religious concepts and practices include the Five Pillars of Islam, which are obligatory acts of worship, as well as following Islamic law (sharia), which touches on virtually every aspect of life and society, from banking and welfare to women and the environment. The cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem are home to .the three holiest sites in Islam.
Most Muslims are of one of two denominations; Sunni (75–90%) or Shia (10–20%). About 13% of Muslims live in Indonesia, the largest Muslim-majority country, 31% live in South Asia, the largest population of Muslims in the world; 20% in the Middle East–North Africa region, where it is the dominant religion; and 15% in Sub-Saharan Africa. Muslims are the majority in Central Asia and are also widespread in the Caucasus and Southeast Asia. India is the country with the largest Muslim population outside Muslim-majority countries. Sizeable Muslim communities can also be found in the Americas, China, Europe, and Russia. Islam is the fastest-growing major religion in the world.
Islām (Arabic: إسلام) means “voluntary submission to God”. Muslim, the word applied to “one who surrenders to God”. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as an internal spiritual state: “Whomsoever God desires to guide, He opens his heart to Islam.” Other verses connect Islam and religion (dīn) together: “Today, I have perfected your religion (dīn) for you; I have completed My blessing upon you; I have approved Islam for your religion.” Islam is presented as one part of a triad that also includes imān (faith), and ihsān (excellence).
Concept of God
Islam’s most fundamental concept is a rigorous monotheism, called tawḥīd (Arabic: توحيد). God is described in chapter 112 of the Quran as: “Say, He is God, the One and Only; God, the Eternal, Absolute; He does not beget nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him” 112:1–4. Islam rejects polytheism and idolatry, called Shirk. God is beyond all comprehension and thus Muslims are not expected to think of him as having a human form. God is described and referred to by certain names or attributes, the most common being Al-Rahmān, meaning “The Compassionate” and Al-Rahīm, meaning “The Merciful”.[62]
Islam teaches that the creation of everything in the universe was brought into being by God’s command as expressed by the wording, “Be, and it is” and that the purpose of existence is to worship or to know God. He is viewed as a personal god who responds whenever a person in need or distress calls him. There are no intermediaries, such as clergy, to contact God who states, “I am nearer to him than (his) jugular vein” God consciousness is referred to as Taqwa.
Allāh is traditionally seen as the personal name of God, a term with no plural or gender being ascribed, and used by Muslims and Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews in reference to God, while ʾilāh (Arabic: إله) is a term used for a deity or a god in general.
Know Your Imam
Imam Ahmad Derrick converted to Islam in 2003. He then graduated from high school in 2005 and went on to study at the University of Florida, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a minor in Arabic language and literature. In 2010, he was awarded the opportunity to further his study of Arabic and the Islamic sciences in Cairo, Egypt along with a rigorous curriculum of Arabic grammar, morphology and rhetoric in addition to Islamic jurisprudence, Islamic creed and Quranic exegesis at al-Azhar. In 2012, he moved to Amman, Jordan, to complete his Islamic studies. His primary focus in private classes was Hanafi fiqh, Arabic grammar, morphology and Islamic creed. In 2017, he was awarded an Ijaaza in Qur’anic rendition of Hafs. In this same year, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the World Islamic Science Education University in Amman, Jordan.
While in Amman, he was able to study with local scholars, teachers from Syria and many shuyukh from Yemen. He maintains that his life was transformed in those sittings, and he is driven by a passion to bring the transformative effects from those lessons to Muslims of the Treasure Coast. The Imam does his best to be a hard working imam, caring husband, compassionate father. He puts great value in family values, love and togetherness.