What is a Muslim, Anyway?

Oops, I forgot about this place completely. But I'm back, and InshaAllah (God willing), I'll keep blogging regularly from now on. Between the first post and this one, many months have passed. I hope I've become a bit more wiser since that first post?

Anyway, I wanted to start this blog off with the basics - it's so strange that not many people in contemporary society really understand what a Muslim is, or what it means to be one. I mean, I know exactly what a Hindu, a Christian, a Jew, or an Atheist believes in - I know their different traditions and how their religion (or lack of) affects their daily life. But when it comes down to the Islamic religion, people are suddenly ignorant and clueless.

First off, when someone says that they believe in God, what does it mean? When someone says they worship God, what does it mean? Why are we here anyway? Why are you, right now, looking at your computer screen, living your life day to day? Is there a point in all this? Is it just so you can have a good time - get up in the morning, go to work or school, finish your worldly duties and squeeze in some time for fun, and then fall asleep - is that all there is to life? As a human being, do you have any obligations to any 'higher authority'?

A Muslim believes that the most basic fundamental starting point in religion is to strongly believe in:

(a) the Oneness of God
(b) the Attributes of God

and to,

(c) worship that one God and God alone.

It might seem like a straightforward statement, and people might say this is what all religions of the world believe in. No, that's incorrect - This is the basis of only Islam. And if you take out even one of option (a), (b), or (c) from above, it turns into any of the numerous religions flooding the planet today. A person may believe in (a) and (b), but when it comes to (c), then they go ahead and start worshipping the human prophets who were sent to them (the Trinity concept), or worship gods and idols and deities. If God is One, why are they directing their worship elsewhere? And then there are those who worship graves and believe that the dead can help them. Hello? Those people are dead! Can you help someone perform a miracle right now? How on earth do you expect to do something like that when you're already *dead*? And then people believe that amulets or charms hold special powers and can help them. People look up at the sky and makes wishes on stars. How is any of this possible? If a person starts worshipping any other living or non-living thing, anything at all other than God, than they are in essence, committing what we call Shirk or Disbelief.

A muslim believes that God is the only One with power, and the only One who can help us. Since God created everything around us - ourselves, plants and animals and the oceans and mountains and everything on land, the stars and planets and everything else in the Universe, does it make sense to worship something that was created? Why not direct your worship to the Creator instead, who actually is the only One who can answer your prayer?

This is not the full definition of a muslim yet, but I'll cover more in my next post.