Islam, one of the world’s largest religions, is one of the most misunderstood unfortunately. A lot probably has to do with the fact that the religion started in the far away lands of Arabia. More recently however, the religion has been tainted by many violent groups that have used the name of the religion to wreak havoc in order to attain their own personal and corrupt objectives.
This is most unfortunate when it happens in the name of Islam or any other religion. The same has been done throughout the ages, where groups would claim to act on behalf of a specific religion to do God’s work!
Islam is one of the world’s three largest monotheistic religions (religions based on the concept of one God), the other two being Judaism as well as Christianity. By way of numbers, of followers Christianity (with it’s various denominations) ranks first , followed by Islam, and then Judaism.
The word Islam itself is an Arabic word, and it roughly means wholehearted self giving to Allah. Allah is the Arabic word for God.