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Syria Islam
In A.D. 610, Muhammad (later known as the Prophet), a
merchant belonging to the Hashimite branch of the ruling Quraysh
tribe in the Arabian town of Mecca, began to preach the first of
a series of revelations granted him by God through the angel
Gabriel. A fervent monotheist, Muhammad denounced the
polytheistic paganism of his fellow Meccans. However, because the
town's economy was based in part on a thriving pilgrimage
business to the shrine called the Kaaba and numerous other pagan
religious sites located there, his vigorous and continuing
censure eventually earned him the bitter enmity of the town's
leaders. In 622 he and a group of followers accepted an
invitation to settle in the town of Yathrib, later known as
Medina (the city) because it was the center of Muhammad's
activities. The move, or hijra, known in the West as the
Hegira, marks the beginning of the Islamic era and of Islam as an
historical force. The Muslim calendar, based on the lunar year,
thus begins in 622. In Medina, Muhammad continued to preach,
eventually defeated his detractors in battle, and consolidated
both the temporal and the spiritual leadership of all Arabia in
his hands before his death in 632.
The shahada (testimony, creed) succinctly states the
central belief of Islam: "There is no god but God (Allah), and
Muhammad is his Prophet." Muslims repeat this simple profession
of faith on many ritual occasions, and a recital in full and
unquestioning sincerity designates one a Muslim. The God depicted
by Muhammad was not previously unknown to his countrymen, for
Allah is Arabic for "God" rather than a particular name. Rather
than introducing a new deity, Muhammad denied the existence of
the many minor gods and spirits worshiped before his ministry and
declared the omnipotence of the unique creator, God. According to
Islam, God is invisible and omnipresent; to represent him in any
visual symbol is a sin. Events in the world flow ineluctably from
his will; to resist it is both futile and sinful.
Islam means submission (to God), and he who submits is a
Muslim. According to its doctrine, Muhammad is the "seal of the
prophets;" his revelation is said to complete for all time the
series of biblical revelations received by Jews and Christians.
God is believed to have remained one and the same throughout
time, but men had strayed from his true teachings until set right
by Muhammad. Prophets and sages of the biblical tradition, such
as Abraham, Moses, and Jesus (known in Arabic as Ibrahim, Musa,
and Isa respectively) are recognized as inspired vehicles of
God's will. Islam, however, reveres as sacred only the message,
rejecting Christianity's deification of the messenger Jesus. It
accepts the concepts of guardian angels, the Day of Judgment, or
last day, general resurrection, heaven and hell, and eternal life
of the soul.
The duties of the Muslim form the five pillars of the faith.
These are the recitation of the shahada; daily prayer
(salat); almsgiving (zakat); fasting (sawm); and
hajj, or pilgrimage. After purification through ritual
ablutions, the believer is to pray in a prescribed manner each
day at dawn, midday, midafternoon, sunset, and nightfall.
Prescribed genuflections and prostrations accompany the prayers,
which the worshiper recites facing toward Mecca. Whenever
possible, men pray in congregation at the mosque with the
imam (see Glossary) and on Fridays make a special effort to do so. The
Friday noon prayers provide the occasion for weekly sermons by
religious leaders. Women may also attend public worship at the
mosque, where they are segregated from the men, although more
frequently women pray at home. A special functionary, the
muezzin, intones a call to prayer to the entire community at the
appropriate hour; those out of earshot determine the proper time
by the sun. Public prayer is a conspicuous and widely practiced
aspect of Islam in Syria, particularly in rural areas.
In the early days of Islam, a Muslims obligation to give alms
was fulfilled through the tax on personal property proportionate
to one's wealth imposed by the authorities; this tax was
distributed to the mosques and to the needy. Today almsgiving,
however, has become a more private matter. Many pious individuals
have contributed properties to support religious and charitable
activities or institutions, which traditionally been administered
as inalienable waqfs (foundations, or religious
endowments).
The ninth month of the Muslim lunar calendar is Ramadan, a
period of obligatory fasting in commemoration of Muhammad's
receipt of God's revelation, the Quran. Throughout the month all
but the sick, the weak, pregnant or lactating women, soldiers on
duty, travelers on necessary journeys, and young children are
enjoined from eating, drinking, smoking, and sexual intercourse
during the daylight hours. Those adults excused are obligated to
undertake an equivalent fast at their earliest opportunity. A
festive meal breaks the daily fast and inaugurates a night of
feasting and celebration. Owing to the lunar calendar, Ramadan
falls at various seasons in different years; when it falls in
summer, it imposes severe hardships on manual laborers.
Finally, at least once in their lifetime all Muslims should,
if possible, make the hajj to Mecca to participate in special
rites during the twelfth month of the lunar calendar. The Prophet
instituted this requirement, modifying pre-Islamic custom to
emphasize sites associated with Allah and Abraham, founder of
monotheism and father of the Arabs through his son Ishmael
(Ismail).
Once in Mecca, pilgrims, dressed in the white seamless ihram,
abstain from sexual relations, shaving, haircutting, and nail
paring for the duration of the hajj. Highlights of the pilgrimage
include kissing the sacred black stone; circumambulating the
Kaaba, the sacred structure reputedly built by Abraham that
houses the stone; running seven times between the mountains Safa
and Marwa in imitation of Hagar, Ishmael's mother, during her
travail in the desert; and standing in prayer on Mount Arafat.
The returning pilgrim is entitled to the honorific "hajj" before
his name. Id al Adha, a major festival celebrated world wide,
marks the end of the hajj month.
Jihad, the permanent struggle for the triumph of the word of
God on earth, represents an additional general duty for all
Muslims, and is construed by some as a sixth pillar of the faith.
Although in the past this concept has been used to justify holy
wars, modern Muslims see it in the broader context of civic and
personal action. In addition to specific duties, Islam imposes an
ethical code encouraging generosity, fairness, honesty, respect
for the elderly and those in authority, and forbidding adultery,
gambling, usury, and the consumption of carrion, blood, pork, and
alcohol.
A Muslim stands in a personal relationship to God; there are
neither intermediaries nor clergy in orthodox Islam. Those who
lead prayers, preach sermons, and interpret the law do so by
virtue of their superior knowledge and scholarship rather than
because of any special powers or prerogatives conferred by
ordination.
During his lifetime, Muhammad held both spiritual and
temporal leadership of the Muslim community and established the
concept of Islam as a total and all-encompassing way of life.
Islam traditionally has recognized no distinction between
religion and state. Religious and secular life merged, as did
religious and secular law. In keeping with this concept of
society, all Muslims have been traditionally subject to sharia,
or religious law. A comprehensive legal system, sharia developed
gradually during the first four centuries of Islam, primarily
through the accretion of precedent and interpretation by various
judges and scholars. During the tenth century, legal opinion
began to harden into authoritative doctrine, and the figurative
bab al ijtihad (gate of interpretation) gradually closed.
Thenceforth, rather than encouraging flexibility, Islamic law
emphasized maintenance of the status quo.
In 632, after Muhammad's death, the leaders of the Muslim
community consensually chose Abu Bakr, the Prophet's father-in-
law and one of his earliest followers, to succeed him. At that
time, some persons favored Ali, the Prophet's cousin and husband
of his favorite daughter Fatima, but Ali and his supporters (the
so-called Shiat Ali, or party of Ali) eventually recognized the
community's choice. The next two caliphs (from the Arabic word
khalifa; literally successor)--Umar, who succeeded in 634,
and Uthman, who took power in 644--enjoyed the recognition of the
entire community. When Ali finally succeeded to the caliphate in
656, Muawiyah, governor of Syria, rebelled in the name of his
murdered kinsman Uthman. After the ensuing civil war, Ali moved
his capital to Mesopotamia, where in a short time he was murdered
(see Muslim Empires
, ch. 1).
Ali's was the last of the so-called four orthodox caliphates,
the period during which the entire community of Islam recognized
a single caliph. In Damascus, Muawiyah then proclaimed himself
caliph. The Shiat Ali, however, refused to recognize Muawiyah or
his line, the Umayyad caliphs. In the first great schism, the
Shiat Ali withdrew and established a dissident sect known as the
Shia (or Shiites), supporting the claims of Ali's line to a
presumptive right to the caliphate based on descent from the
Prophet. The major faction of Islam, the Sunni, adhered to the
position of election of the caliph; over the centuries the Sunnis
have represented themselves as and have come to be identified as
the more orthodox of the two branches.
Originally political, the differences between the Sunni and
Shia interpretations rapidly took on theological and metaphysical
overtones. Ali's two sons, Hasan and Husayn, killed after the
schism, became martyred heroes to the Shia and thus repositories
of the claim of Ali's line to mystical preeminence among Muslims.
The Sunnis retained the doctrine of leadership by consensus,
although Arabs and members of the Quraysh, Muhammad's tribe,
predominated in the early years. (Reputed descent from the
Prophet still carries great social and religious prestige
throughout the Muslim world.) Meanwhile, the Shia doctrine of
rule by divine right became more and more firmly established, and
disagreements over which of several pretenders had the truer
claim to the mystical power of Ali precipitated further schisms.
Some Shia groups developed doctrines of divine leadership far
removed from the strict monotheism of early Islam, including
beliefs in hidden but divinely chosen leaders and in spiritual
powers that equaled or surpassed those of the Prophet himself.
Fueled both by fervor for the new faith and by economic and
social factors, the early Islamic polity was intensely
expansionist. Conquering armies and migrating tribes swept out of
Arabia, spreading Islam with the sword as much as by persuasion,
and by the end of Islam's first century, Islamic armies had
reached far into North Africa and eastward and northward into
Asia. Syria was among the first countries to come under the sway
of Islam; by 635 Muslim armies had conquered Damascus.
In Islam, the Quran is the principal source of religious law,
supplemented by the Sunna, which sets forth the perfect example
of the Prophet as represented by his deeds, his teachings and
decisions, and his unspoken approval as reported by witnesses. In
addition to "Allah's Quran and the Prophet's Sunna," the hadith
records the deeds, teachings, legal interpretations, and
consensual decisions by the Prophet's companions in the period
immediately after his death.
Data as of April 1987
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