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World 

   Religions

Islamic

Overview

Islam is a religion based on faith in one God, Allah.

Every follower of Islam believes in this Prophet 

Muhammad being the last messenger of God. The Quran, 

the holy book of the religion is a compilation of all 

of God's revelations to the Prophet. God revealed his 

message to the Prophet Muhammad through the archangel 

Gabriel, about the onenness of God, how to worship 

him, and the perfected way of life. Therefore the 

Quran is considered the unchanged word of God and the 

constitution and the guide for Muslims in this life.

A brief history of Islam

Islam originated around 600 AD in the Central Asian Arabian 

desert and soon spread to east Asia, Central Europe and 

North Africa. The religion started with the teachings of 

Prophet Muhammad who is considered to be the messenger of 

the one and only, all-powerful God, Allah.

Islam spread rapidly from the Arabian peninsula in less 

than 30 years. The Persian and Roman Empires were defeated 

by the much less equipped and out-numbered Muslim armies. 

Over the next several centuries, Islam reached as far as 

India in the east, and to Spain in the west. The spread 

continued through traders to southeast Asia, where for 

example, Indonesia, today's largest Muslim country, 

received the message of Islam through Arab traders.

 Prophet Muhammad

Prophet Muhammad was married to a 

wealthy woman, and he was known for 

being a trustworthy, honest and kind 

person, when God revealed to him when 

he was 40 years old the details of a 

flawless religion through the 

archangel, Gabriel. Prophet Muhammad is 

the last of a line of prophets 

beginning with Abraham, Moses and 

Jesus.

                             Shiite and Sunni

Islam is a very united religion. However, due to 

different ways of understanding the teaching of the 

prophet , Muslims are made up of two main different 

groups; Shi'ite and Sunni are the two main groups. Of 

these two, Sunnis are a majority.

Judaism

Began

Judaism began about 4000 years ago with the Hebrew people 

in the Middle East. Abraham, a Hebrew man, is considered the 

father of the Jewish faith because he promoted the central 

idea of the Jewish faith: that there is one God. At the time 

many people in the Middle East worshipped many gods. It is 

said that Abraham and his wife Sarah, who were old and 

childless, were told by God that their children would be as 

plentiful as the stars in the sky and that they would live in a 

land of their own -- the Promised Land. This gradually came 

true. 

Abraham's son, Isaac had a son, Jacob, also called Israel. In 

this way the descendants of Abraham came to be known as 

the Israelites. God promised the Israelites he would care for 

them as long as they obeyed God's laws. While still traveling, 

the Hebrews lived in Egypt where they were enslaved. Moses, 

a Hebrew, was picked by God to lead the Hebrew people out of 

Egypt. Moses led the Hebrew people out of the Sinai Desert 

toward the promised land. At Mt. Sinai, God gave Moses the 

Law which would guide the Israelites to today. The laws were 

called the Ten Commandments and form the basis of the 

Torah, the book of Jewish law. 

It took many years for the Israelites to finally get to what they 

thought was the Promised Land. After some fighting the Jews 

decided the Israelite kingdom. After many years, Canaan was 

conquered by the Assyrians, the Babylonians and then 

eventually the Romans. The Israelites once again found 

themselves enslaved, this time by Babylonians. The Israelites 

were then taken over by Romans who destroyed much of what 

had been built in Jerusalem by the Israelites. Most of the Jews 

were scattered all over the region and eventually moved from 

place to place to avoid persecution which continues to this day. 

The dispersion of the Jews is called the Diaspora.

         Christianity

                                          Began

Christianity began as a religion in Jerusalem, probably in the 

year 29 or 30 AD. The book of Acts chapter 2 describes what 

most 

Christians would say would be the starting point of the church 

and public 

Christianity. During the period after his resurrection but before 

the 

events on Pentecost as described in Acts chapter 2, Jesus 

discussed with 

his disciples in detail regarding the Kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). 

Jesus prophesied that he would give Peter the keys to the 

kingdom (Matthew 16:19), and from what we can see in Acts 

2, Peter did indeed open up the 

kingdom, the church of Jesus Christ on the earth, as this is the 

first public preaching that we know of in which salvation 

through Jesus by 

repentance and baptism was preached.

If one takes the New Testament as accurate history, then the 

answer to your question is that Christianity began in Jerusalem as the 

apostles–those who had been with Jesus throughout his 

ministry–began to 

preach salvation in the name of Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

Of course, some would say that this is a fabrication. Those 

who would make such a claim must show some cause not to believe 

what 

appears to be a very straightforward historical account. It is an 

historical fact that Christianity began in Jerusalem, as claimed in Acts 

and as proved by reference to such non-Christian historians such as 

Tacitus and Josephus. It is a fact that from the very beginning, 

Christians proclaimed publicly that Jesus was a worker of miracles and 

that he was raised from the dead. Tacitus and Josephus both 

refer to this. External evidence tells us that Christianity began in 

Jerusalem, certainly before 40 AD.

   Hinduism

Hinduism or Sanatana Dharma ("eternal spiritual path") started about 

4000 years ago in India. It was the religion of an ancient people 

known as the Aryans ("noble people") whose philosophy, religion, and 

customs are recorded in their sacred texts known as the Vedas. These 

texts were initially handed down by word of mouth from teacher to 

student. It was not until much later that they were actually written 

down. Archeological evidence from the Indus Valley civilization of 

northwestern India helps to establish Hinduism as the world's oldest 

living religion. Today, worldwide, there are almost one billion people 

professing some aspect of Hinduism. The fundamental teachings of 

Hinduism, which form the foundation of all its different sects, are 

contained in the concluding portion of the Vedas, and are therefore 

known as the Vedanta. This part of the Vedas is also known as the 

Upanishads.

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