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Islam (Arabic: الإسلام; al-'islām (help·info)) is a monotheistic religion based upon the Qur'an, which adherents believe was sent by God (Arabic: الله Allāh) through Muhammad. Followers of Islam, known as Muslims (مسلم), believe Muhammad to have been God's final prophet. As a result, most of them see the actions and teachings of Muhammad as related in the Sunnah and Hadith to be indispensable tools for interpreting the Qur'an.

Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam is an Abrahamic religion. There are estimated to be 1.4 billion adherents, making Islam the second-largest religion in the world. Under the leadership of Muhammad and his successors, Islam rapidly spread by religious conversion and military conquest.

Today, Muslims may be found throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. The majority of Muslims are not Arabs; only 20 percent of Muslims originate from Arab countries. Islam is the second largest religion in the United Kingdom, and many other European countries, including France, which has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe.

Beliefs

Muslims believe that God revealed his direct word for humanity to Muhammad (c. 570–July 6, 632) via the angel Gabriel. Muslims believe that Muhammad is the last prophet of God, based on the Qur'anic phrase "Seal of the Prophets" and sayings of Muhammad himself. Muslims assert that their holy book, the Qur'an, is flawless, immutable, and the final revelation of God to humanity, and that its teachings will be valid until the day of the Resurrection.

Muslims hold that Islam is the same essential belief as that of all the messengers sent by God to humanity since Adam. The Qur'an, used by all sects of the Muslim faith, codifies the direct words of God. Islamic texts depict Judaism and Christianity as prophetic successor traditions to the teachings of Abraham. The Qur'an calls Jews and Christians "people of the Book," and distinguishes them from "polytheists." In order to reconcile the often radical disagreements regarding events and interpretation that exist between the earlier writers and the Qu'ran, Muslims believe that Jews and Christians distorted the word of God after it was revealed to them, deliberately altering words in meaning, form and placement in their respective holy texts, with Jews changing the Tawrat (Torah) and Christians the Injeel (Gospels). Without these distortions, known as tahrif, or tabdīl ("alteration, substitution") the main content of the Torah and Gospels would allegedly have been in accord with the later teachings of the Qur'an. However documentary evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls and elsewhere attests that no organised distortion of Jewish or Christian texts actually occurred.

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