Most people don't know much about Islam, with misconceptions about Islam: Muslim's beliefs and including the rituals. Islam has gained a lot of followers and is the second largest religion in the world. The questions that we will be answering that is about Islam is the character, Sunni Islam throughout my research and a visit to the Islamic Center of Inland Empire. This research paper will cover the history and art of Islam and the history of Al-Masjid al-Ha ram or "The Holy Mosque". Also the Religious meetings and personal views of an Islamic leader in the essay.
Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, is a monotheistic religion based in ones beliefs in God. There are two main in the religion in Islam, which is known as Sunni and Shi'a. The two major separation of Islam were caused by the question of leadership after Muhammad's sentence. Vast majority of Muslim, like about 90 percent are Sunni and the others would be Shi's. "Sunni" comes from the Arabic word which is Sunnah meaning "customary practice." But in Sunni Islam, the imam is the man who leads the Friday prayers in a mosque with scriptures from the Qur'an, the text of which is considered to be the direct word from God (Allah). The Caliphate was the first government system established in Islam, it is represented as the political unity of the Muslim Ummah nation. As a religious historian, S. A. Nigosian believes that "the critical issue [between the Sunni and the Shi'a] was the designation of a political successor only, since a religious successor to Muhammad, the "seal" of the prophets, was unthinkable" (Nigosian 40). Sunni and Muslims believed in the First Four Caliphs that followed the death of Muhammad. According to Sunni and the Muslims, after Muhammad's death, the confusion that ensued from not having a person to head the community led to the election of Abu Bakr, the Prophet's close friend and father-in-law, as the first Caliph (Arabic for "Successor").