[man speaking Arabic] TRANSLATOR: I bear witness that our lord is our creator, and Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is his messenger; that he came to deliver a message; and he gave it in a perfect way, in the way of love and purity.

BEN KINGSLEY: In Western Arabia, shortly after the beginning of the seventh century, a religious movement was born that would change the history of the world. Muhammad, the son of ‘AbdAllah, the prophet of the one God Allah, summoned his fellow Arabs to a new way of life that he called Islam. At first, the movement developed slowly. But within a little more than 20 years, it encompassed all of Arabia.

After Muhammad’s death, his followers quickly spread over the surrounding region. They laid the foundations of a great empire. Between the ninth and twelfth centuries, the empire was one of the most brilliant the world has seen.

Islam is an Arabic word that comes from a root word meaning peace, soundness, or security. Although the word Islam is sometimes used in other senses, fundamentally it is a religious expression that refers to the state of the soul. It signifies an inner attitude of unequivocal obedience to God. The word Islam itself may be translated as surrender, submission, or resignation. So Islam is submission or resignation to the will of God, as God’s will was communicated to the Prophet Muhammad in a series of divine revelations.

Those who observe Islam are called Muslims, literally meaning submitters. Therefore, to say, I am a Muslim with full awareness is not only an act of identifying with a religious group; it is to say, I have committed myself unreservedly to obey the will of God. It implies the constantly renewed, always fresh determination to place every activity of life into the hands of God. Beyond any doubt, it is a profoundly religious declaration.

Precise figures are hard to obtain, but today, Muslims make up approximately 1/5 of the earth’s population. Islam is second in size only to Christianity a remarkable achievement for the youngest of the world’s major faiths.
Muslims are concentrated in the belt of countries on either side of the equator, stretching from Morocco in North Africa to the Philippines in Southeast Asia. The greatest number of Muslims is found in the Indian subcontinent that is, in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. However, the single nation with the most Muslims is the island republic of Indonesia, where more than 100 million people over 90% of the population profess the Islamic faith.

It’s customary to speak of the Middle East, especially the Arab states and Iran, as the heartlands of Islam. The early history of the Islamic community took place there, and today, most people of the region are Muslims. But in the 20th century, the vast majority of Muslims have lived in south and Southeast Asia, in or to the east of Pakistan. Islam also has recently become a significant presence in Western Europe and in America.

Islam today is very much alive. It is a powerful force in our world.