The Spread of Islam.

Bob Jones University World History, Chapter 6, Islamic Empires.  There is way too much about Islam to minimize it to one blog post so here are just a few facts that we covered in our study of world history.

~Islam refers to the name of the religion.

Muhammad

~Islam was founded in AD 610 in the Arabian Peninsula by a merchant named Muhammad.

~Muhammad is the prophet.  A prophet is someone who believes they have spoken to god and is spreading his message.


~Anyone who practices Islam is called a Muslim.

This is an example of Islamic art.
The word Allah is written in green.

~Islam is the Arabic word for peace, security, and surrender.

~A Muslim is one who peacefully surrenders to Allah (God).

~The word jihad is a term used to spread Islam all over the world.

~Inventions from the Islamic world include marching bands, torpedoes, the guitar, the lute, the water pipe, the minaret, algebra (whoo hoo), the pinhole camera, coffee (whoo hoo), and the laws of refraction.  Ibn al-Haytham formulated the scientific method and is considered the first true scientist.

~Basically, a Muslim is someone who believes in the following.  They have to believe there is only one God, they must believe in all the prophets of God, the scriptures revealed to Prophets Moses, David, Jesus, and Muhammad, the angels, and the Day of Judgment and the Herafter, and finally they must believe in the divine decree or destiny.

~Their holy book is called the Quran.

Just to sum this up, once Islam was founded, the religion took off and spread rapidly.  This is why there are over a billion followers all over the world making Islam the second most popular religion.

Read more here.
Be sure to visit Khan Academy and check out John Green's video, Islam, the Quran, and the five pillars all without flamewar.