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Islam is one of three monotheistic religions, which also arose from the deserts of Middle East. Over a billion people from all continents practice one belief in Arabic called Islam. The verb “Islam” is derived from five roots: surrender to the Almighty God, submission to His will, obedience of His commands, sincerity in worship and peace of mind, soul and body. In comparison with the English language the suffix “-er” as a word “walk- walker”, the Arabic language uses a suffix “mu-” as a “mu-islam” or “Muslim”- the one who submits to one God. Islam can be considered a sister religion with respect to Judaism and Christianity. Therefore history and even essence of Islam is not possible to understand separately from two older beliefs. It is similar to Judaism and Christianity as “a religion of the book” Quran and a belief in all prophets from Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon, Jesus and the last prophet Muhammad.
Year 622 A.D. was marked as the move of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina, where he established the first city under Islam, against traditional pagan worship of many gods. Within half a century of the Muhammad’s death, Islam had spread to three continents by conquering lands and establishing new empires where Jews and Christians were living beside Muslims. Moreover, the reach of Islam was not restricted to the Arabia Peninsula, but during later centuries the Turks, major parts of Central Asia, China, Indo-Pakistan and South East Asian nations embraced Islam peacefully. Islam has also spread through Africa even under the European colonial rulers. Today Islam continues to grow also in Europe and America where Muslims now comprise a notable minority.
Soon Bedouins have reached out of Arabia, conquering the empires from the war-weakened Byzantines and Persians. Islam and the Arabic language unified an empire that reached its zenith in a single century. Muhammad’s successors, the Umayyad Dynasty, moved the capital to Damascus while adopting Byzantine culture. Abbasids, the successors, followed the Persians establishing Baghdad as their capital. The global civilization created by Islam had developed a culture with faith being a guide to everyday lives. As a result, the nomadic tribes have been introducing Islam through science and learning. The Quran encouraged people to travel throughout the earth to see Gods signs and patterns everywhere. Great advances in many different fields such as geography, physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, pharmacology, architecture, linguistics and astronomy were made by early Muslim scholars.
For more than eight hundred years Arabic continued to be the main intellectual and scientific language of the world.