Islam and Muslims The name of this religion is Islam, the root ofwhich is Silm and Salam which means peace. Salam may also meangreeting one another with peace. One of the beautiful names of Godis that He is the Peace. It means more than that: submission to theOne God, and to live in peace with the Creator, within one's self,with other people and with the environment. Thus, Islam is a totalsystem of living. A Muslim is supposed to live in peace and harmonywith all these segments; hence, a Muslim is any person anywhere inthe world whose obedience, allegiance, and loyalty are to God, theLord of the Universe. Muslims and Arabs The followers of Islam arecalled Muslims. Muslims are not to be confused with Arabs. Muslimsmay be Arabs, Turks, Persians, Indians, Pakistanis, Malaysians,Indonesians, Europeans, Africans, Americans, Chinese, or othernationalities. An Arab could be a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew or anatheist. Any person who adopts the Arabic language is called anArab. However, the language of the Qur'an (the Holy Book of Islam)is Arabic. Muslims all over the world try to learn Arabic so thatthey may be able to read the Qur'an and understand its meaning.They pray in the language of the Qur'an, namely Arabic.Supplications to God could be in any language. While there are onebillion Muslims in the world there are about 200 million Arabs.Among them, approximately ten percent are not Muslims. Thus ArabMuslims constitute only about twenty percent of the Muslimpopulation of the world. Allah the One and the Only God Allah isthe name of the One and Only God. Allah has ninety-nine beautifulnames, such as: The Gracious, The Merciful, The Beneficent, TheCreator, The All-Knowing, The All-Wise, The Lord of the Universe,The First, The Last, and others. He is the Creator of all humanbeings. He is the God for the Christians, the Jews, the Muslims,the Buddhists, the Hindus, the atheists, and others. Muslimsworship God whose name is Allah. They put their trust in Him andthey seek His help and His guidance. Muhammad Muhammad was chosenby God to deliver His Message of Peace, namely Islam. He was bornin 570 C.E. (Common Era) in Makkah, Arabia. He was entrusted withthe Message of Islam when he was at the age of forty years. Therevelation that he received is called the Qur'an, while the messageis called Islam. Muhammad is the very last Prophet of God tomankind. He is the final Messenger of God. His message was and isstill to the Christians, the Jews and the rest of mankind. He wassent to those religious people to inform them about the truemission of Jesus, Moses, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham. Muhammad isconsidered to be the summation and the culmination of all theprophets and messengers that came before him. He purified theprevious messages from adulteration and completed the Message ofGod for all humanity. He was entrusted with the power ofexplaining, interpreting and living the teaching of the Qur'an.