Muslim Culture

Introduction

There are over a billion Muslims throughout the world, and though they speak hundreds of different languages and live in dozens of different countries, they still share a common Muslim culture. This culture is embedded in certain common beliefs that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is His messenger. Muslim customs and traditions include Islamic/Muslim clothing, food, wedding traditions and other aspects of Islamic life that Muslims have adopted in their respective countries.

A Muslim culture is a culture based on the teachings of Islam. This means that we must refer to Al-Quran and Hadis. Other elements are not that relevant. This is because we must try to understand and able to differentiate which is the culture promoted by Islam, and which is being inherited from the norms and habits of a race or creed. This is important because we must be able to differentiate between Arabic culture and the culture that is being designed by Al-Quran and Hadis.

The early forms of Muslim culture were predominantly Arab. With the rapid expansion of the Islamic empires, Muslim culture has influenced and assimilated much from the Persian, Bangladeshi, Turkic, Pakistani, Mongol, Chinese, Indian, Malay, Somali, Berber, Egyptian, Indonesian, Filipino, Greek-Roman Byzantine, Spanish, Sicilian, Balkanic and Western culture.

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Definition of Muslim culture

Muslim culture represents the unification of all the cultures influenced by common beliefs and practices. The guiding religious phenomena and cultural aspects bind its people historically. The religious practices and beliefs of Muslims are centered around the religion of Islam. The original Muslim literature is in Arabic, the Prophet's language. Most of the literature is religious in nature. It comprises communication and documentation of the belief system from the Quran, Sira and Hadith. Secular Muslim literature developed in the Umayyad empire. It was...