25 Informational Facts About Islam

Through these interesting facts about Islam, the religion that began with the command, “Read,” we’ll learn about some of the most important aspects of the world’s second-most-practiced religion.

Islam Facts

1. Before the arrival of Islam, the Arabian Peninsula was dominated by paganism.

2. The term “holy war” originates not with Islam but with the Christian Crusaders, who first used it to give it theological legitimacy.

3. The Quran, the divine revelations Prophet Muhammad received during a span of some 23 years in Mecca and Medina.

4. The Quran proposes that all revealed scriptures are derived from a single concealed book in heaven called the Umm al-Kitab, or “Mother of Books.”

The Quran, Islam’s holiest book.

5. The first four caliphs of Islam are collectively referred to as the Rashidun, the “Rightly Guided Ones.”

6. The Battle of the Camel was Islam’s first experience of civil war, or fitnah.

7. The three (Umar, Uthman, and Ali) of the first four leaders of Islam were killed by fellow Muslims.

8. Ramadan is the month in which Muslims believe the holy Quran was first revealed to Muhammad.

9. Hajj, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, takes place only during the last month of the lunar year.

10. The Ka’ba, or cube, is a symbol for the living presence of the one and only God.

11. Islam’s soul and heart are located in Mecca and Medina, respectively.

12. The Hajj is the greatest gathering in Islam. It is the only significant Muslim rite in which men and women engage equally and without distinction.

13. There are two different approaches of reading the Quran. The first, tafsir, focuses mostly on explaining the text’s literal meaning, whilst the second, ta’wil, focuses more on the Quran’s secret, esoteric meaning.

14. In Islam, the people who founded the first Muslim community in Medina are known as the salafs, “the pious forefathers.”

15. The year of Prophet Muhammad’s nightime flight for refuge—the hijra, or emigration—is the foundation year of the Islamic calendar: 622 AD, or the year One A.H., After the Hijra.

16. Ali had been the first man to accept the new faith of Islam. He was only thirteen years old at the time.

17. Abdullah ibn Wahb, also known as Dhu’l Thafinat, the Scarred One, and his followers are widely regarded as the first Islamic fundamentalists. They called themselves the Rejectionists—kharji, meaning “those who go out.”

18. Hadith—the reports of Prophet Muhammad’s sayings and practices—form the sunna, and its place is second in Islam. First being the Quran itself.

19. It was Ibn Taymiya, the thirteenth-century scholar, who dubbed the first four caliphs: Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, the rashidun.

20. After Mecca and Medina, Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam.

21. “Al-Faitha,”  or “The Opening,” is the Quran’s first sura. It’s been called Umm al-Quran, “the Mother of the Quran.” Since the key themes of the Quran are packed into its twenty-five Arabic words.

22. While Christianity and Judaism derived their names from people, the word “Islam” refers to a relationship rather than a single figure—that between every believer and God.

23. It was George Sale who produced in 1774 the first English translation of the Quran.

24. Sunni, Shi’ite, and  Sufi are the three main branches of Islam. Maliki, Hanbali, Shafi, and Hanafi are the four schools of thought within Sunni Islam, each named after the jurist who created it.

25. In Islam, after the Quran, the most important book is Bukhari, one of the six key compilations of hadith.

I hope you’ve gained something new after reading these enlightening facts about Islam. Thanks for reading. Jai Hind.

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