Islam - an Introduction

By: Iftikhar Islam

Islam comes from Arabic root word "salm" which means Peace. It is also derived from "Silm" which means submission. Islam in short means, Peace acquired by submitting our will to God Almighty. And who submits his will to God Almighty is known as Muslim.

Many people have a Misconception that Islam is a new religion which came into existence 1400 years ago and Prophet Muhammad is the founder of this Religion. But in fact Islam is there since time immemorial, since man set foot on the earth.

God Almighty says in the Glorious Quran 3:19, indeed the only way of life acceptable in the sight of God is Islam (i.e. submitting the will of God Almighty).

Prophet Muhammad (saw) is not the founder of this Religion but he is the last and the final Messenger of God sent to the whole Humanity. And every messenger had a miracle with them. Since Prophet Muhammad (saw) is the last and the final messenger, he too should have the last and the final miracle with him to confirm his prophet hood. The living miracle of Prophet Muhammad is the Glorious Quran which is the Guidance to whole of the Humanity, without any errors or contradictions, the perfect book on the face of the earth, which gives a challenge to disprove it.

The Glorious Quran is the only revealed or the religious book which has the falsification test. There are many falsification tests in the Glorious Quran. It challenges the whole humanity to ponder on it and bring out a contradiction in it (AQ 4:82. It also challenges to produce a Surah SIMILAR to it (AQ 2:23) and further confirms it that no one will be able to produce it (AQ 2:24). It is the only Book which confirms its authenticity. There are many critics who tried to accept the challenge of the Glorious Quran and failed miserably. They tried to produce the Surah like the Surah of Quran but instead copied some of the parts from the Quran. But Allah says ".. Call anyone BESIDES ALLAH" (2:23).

The Glorious Quran contains message as well as Miracle at the same time. For an example refer Surah Muddassir (74):3, where Allah conveys the message as well as shown a miracle, the miracle is the words contain in this verse is palindrome (first and last letter, second and second last letter is the same and so on). And the unbelievers will never produce the SIMILAR surah like of the Glorious Quran, so the challenge still stands. In fact every ayat of the Quran is a Challenge in itself.

When Quran is the word of God, automatically Prophet Muhammad (saw) proves to be the Messenger of God. The coming of Prophet Muhammad is also prophesied in many of the old scriptures also by name.