The word “Islam” is derived
from the Arabic word “Salam”, which means peace. In the religious sense, the
Islam means submission to the will of Almighty God and obedience to his law.
Anyone who submits his or her will to Almighty God is called the Muslim. Many
people have a misconception that Islam is a new religion, which was founded by
Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him). In fact, Islam is there, for time
immemorial since man first put foot on earth. Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon
him), is not the founder of the Religion of Islam. In fact, Qur’an says:
“And to every nation and to every people have we sent a guide” (Surah Raad,
Verse 7)
That means, there were messengers and guides, send to all the nations of the
world.
But by name, only 25 Prophets of Almighty God are mentioned in the Holy Qur’an.
For example Adam, Noah, Moosa, Abrahim, Isaac, Ismail, Dawood, Suleman, Isa,
Muhammad (Peace be upon him), etc.
Basically there is only one religion in the world “ISLAM”, Only Islam is
acceptable Deen in the sight of Allah (swt) as it is mentioned in Quran:
“This day I have perfected your religion for you and completed my favour upon
you and have chosen Islam as religion for you” (Surah Maidah , Verse 3)
Another Place Allah Says: “Indeed, the religion in the sight of Allah is Islam”
(Surah Aal-e-Imran, Verse 19)
If it is like that than how comes we witnessed other major religions like
Christianity, Judaism etc. as we have discussed before that there is only one
religion and that is Islam, the teachings of prophet Moosa (pbuh), the teachings
of Prophet Isa (pbuh) and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) were same.
These terminologies later on carried by different people as the result of human
ideology. Most of the people they misunderstood the message of their prophet and
that lead them to have new religion, but one think we have to make it on the
floor that all the messengers before Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) carried the similar
message like we have today in the form of Holy Qur’an. The basic fundamental
message of all the prophet from Hazrat Adam (pbuh) to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)
was the preaching of Tauheed (to believe in only one true God) sometimes it
refers as Monotheism.