Islam, monotheistic religion that is the second largest and fastest growing in the world, so, basically, yeah, we really need to come to terms with this thing. One of the three major Abrahamic religions along with Judaism and Christianity, Islam has approximately 1.6 billion adherents globally and 2.5 million in the United States alone, numbers that suggest it’s about time the rest of the world get its act together and familiarize itself somewhat with a couple of the faith’s basic tenets and maybe even a holiday or two besides Ramadan—which we don’t really know anything about anyway—because whatever the West may think about Islam, the religion is not going anywhere anytime soon. Islam is based on the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as revealed in its holy book, the Quran, a text it might be helpful to peruse from time to time since it is taken very, very seriously by a quarter of the people on the planet Earth, many of whom live in places of vital geopolitical importance such as Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Somalia, Turkey, and Pakistan—which, by the way, has nuclear weapons. Practitioners of Islam are known as Muslims and belong either to the Sunni or Shia branch of the faith, terms we’d better get real intimate with real quick because the distinction is often a matter of life or death to Muslims, who, incidentally, will almost certainly overtake Christians as the largest religious community in the world within a few decades.
