Islam is a major world religion founded in Arabia and based on the teachings of the prophet Muhammad. The Arabic word Islam means, "to surrender," but as a religious term in the Qur'an, it means "to surrender to the will or law of God." All devout Muslims, no matter what race they are, learn to read Arabic so they may read the Qur'an in it's native tongue. Muslims also have they're own calender based on the phases of the moon. You find no racism in Islam because all people are equal in the eyes of Allah. This, along with the Arabic language, unifies Muslims across the globe. Islam has flourished in diverse climatic, cultural, and ethnic regions and although exact statistics are not available, the Muslim world population is estimated at more than 1 billion. In Europe, Islam is the second largest religion after Christianity. So how did Islam come to be so universal? What makes Islam such a major world religion?
             To understand Islam better, one must first know something about the Prophet Muhammad. The founder of Islam was Muhammad. The Qur'an describes Muhammad as the "Seal of all Prophets" meaning that the prophethood was finished with him. The exact date is unknown but Muhammad was born in Mecca around 570ad. His father died before he was born and he lost his mother when he was six. After this an uncle raised him. We don't know about his childhood except that he was very trustworthy and with a good sense of human relationships. Because of this he became known as al-Amin ("the trusted one").
             Muhammad was forty when the angel Gabriel came to him and revealed the Qur'an. He began in 610 to preach the first of a series of revelations granted him by Allah. The divine messages, received during solitary visits into the desert, continued during the remainder of his life. After four years he had converted some 40 perso...