Principles Of Islam

Admirable, appealing, monotheistic religion originated in Mecca in the 7th century,1439yrs ago which spread all over the world like forest-fire. The reason was its clear & logical principles. Its founder was Prophet Muhammad SAW, a great philosopher. It constitutes 5 pillars based on aspects of life & society.
▪Shahada(faith): have full faith that there is only1God who is the creator of all.
▪Namaz(prayer): which teaches punctuality & also equality.
▪Zakat(charity): Teaches Sharing of happiness & livelihood with poor & not enjoying self only. ▪Roza(fasting): which teaches us patience & teaches to control desire.
▪Hajj: A union in which everyone in a same piece of cloth depicts equality & no distinction of wealth & status.
The Quran is the vital religious text of Islam, which is a revelation from Allah. It's for all, one can memorize it too & thus cannot be distorted. Islam uplifted the position of women in society & prohibited the barbaric activities common eg:- child-marriage,sex-object, female infanticide etc. It depicted daughter as 'Rahmet of Allah'.It preaches peace, humanity & simplicity. It outlawed the dowry system & suggested simple marriages to lessen the burden of her family. 
According to Karen Armstrong,"there is nothing in Islam that is more violent than Christianity & other religions".
For those who speak 'Islam was spread on the base of swords', I would say Islam wanted sincere believers, not hypocrites. By forced conversions, one can only increase no.of hypocrites & not true believers. But history is evident about His influence on people. His words were 'golden-alphabets' for his followers.
When one complains about ruthless punishments set by Islam for criminals & tell it a vicious religion,I just object them with a note of nominal crime ratios as 'harsh punishments leads to less crime rate'.Today, the increased crime-rate is 10times more as compared to then bcoz of frail laws for rich criminals
Lastly,I quote Edward Said
"That so far as the west is concerned, Islam represents not only a formidable competitor but also late coming challenges to Christianity".He claims Islam has been looked at with hostility & fear due to many religious, phycological & political reasons
-Fauzia Afreen