Get a taste of what awaits you in print from this compelling excerpt.
Borne aloft five times a day, from Shanghai to Chicago, Jakarta to Timbuktu, the music of Islam’s call to prayer stirs the soul of devout Muslims everywhere. Whether cast from metal loudspeakers over teeming city streets or lifted as the murmured song of camel drivers kneeling in the sand, it begins with the same Arabic phrase Muslims have used for nearly 1,400 years, Islam’s melodic paean to the Creator.
“Allah . . . u akbar,” the faithful sing out.
“Allahhhhh . . . u akbar!—God is great!”
Some 1.3 billion human beings—one person in five—heed Islam’s call in the modern world, embracing the religion at a rate that makes it the fastest growing on Earth, with 80 percent of believers now outside the Arab world. For these people Islam is an intimate personal connection to the same God worshiped by Jews and Christians, a source of strength and hope in a troubled world.
The term itself, Islam, is an Arabic word meaning “submission to God,” with its etymological roots firmly planted in salam, or peace. That may come as a surprise to many non-Muslims, whose perceptions of the faith have been skewed by terrorists, many from the Middle East, whose unspeakable acts in the name of Islam have been condemned by leaders everywhere.
“Peace is the essence of Islam,” says Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, brother of the late King Hussein and a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. Prince El Hassan helps lead the World Conference on Religion and Peace and spends much of his energy building bridges of understanding between the Muslim world and the West. “Respecting the sanctity of life is the cornerstone of our faith,” he says, “and of all great faiths.”
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