The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog

Although for many centuries Western societies mostly ignored the Islamic world, sociopolitical events since 1979 have put the Islamic worldview into a high profile. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, made it clear that “the worldview of Islam could no longer be ignored” (235). Unfortunately, popular media characterizations of Islam are frequently “driven by polemics,” and thus it is necessary to “provide a careful discussion” (235).

This is especially necessary because there is more than one type of theism; there are distinctive matters of “heritage and environment” that color the Islamic brand of theism and make it different from the Christian theism treated in Chapter 2, or from Jewish theism.

In Islamic theism, the prime reality is God (Allah), who is described as “monotheistic, infinite, personal, transcendent, immanent, omniscient, sovereign, and good” (236). From the start, Islam—which originated in the revelations to the prophet Mohammed as recorded in the Qur’an—defined itself against other competing religious systems. The Qur’an contains many passages proclaiming the superiority and greater truth of Islam compared to these other religions, and the Islamic phrase Allahu Akbar (“God is the greatest”) encapsulates this sense of Islam as the definitive revelation.