Muslim world

• 
  Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni receiving a richly decorated robe of honor from the caliph al-Qadir in 1000. Miniature from the Rashid al-Din's Jami‘ al-Tawarikh
• 
  Battle between Ismail of the Safaviyya and the ruler of Shirvan, Farrukh Yassar
• 
  Shah of Safavid Empire Abbas I meet with Vali Muhammad Khan
• 
  Mir Sayyid Ali, a scholar writing a commentary on the Quran, during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan
• 
  Portrait of a painter during the reign of Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II
• 
  A Persian miniature of Shah Abu'l Ma‘ali, a scholar
• 
  Ilkhanate Empire ruler, Ghazan, studying the Quran
• 
  Layla and Majnun studying together, from a Persian miniature painting

The term "Islamic Golden Age" has been attributed to a period in history during which science, economic development and cultural works in most of the Muslim-dominated world flourished.[47][48] The age is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (786–809) with the inauguration of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, where scholars from various parts of the world sought to translate and gather all the known world's knowledge into Arabic,[49][50] and to have ended with the collapse of the Abbasid caliphate due to Mongol invasions and the Siege of Baghdad in 1258.[51] The Abbasids were influenced by the Quranic injunctions and hadiths, such as "the ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr," that stressed the value of knowledge. The major Islamic capital cities of Baghdad, Cairo, and Córdoba became the main intellectual centers for science, philosophy, medicine, and education.[52] During this period, the Muslim world was a collection of cultures; they drew together and advanced the knowledge gained from the ancient Greek, Roman, Persian, Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, and Phoenician civilizations.[53]

A Seljuq, shatranj (chess) set, glazed fritware, 12th century.

Between the 8th and 18th centuries, the use of ceramic glaze was prevalent in Islamic art, usually assuming the form of elaborate pottery.[54] Tin-opacified glazing was one of the earliest new technologies developed by the Islamic potters. The first Islamic opaque glazes can be found as blue-painted ware in Basra, dating to around the 8th century. Another contribution was the development of fritware, originating from 9th-century Iraq.[55] Other centers for innovative ceramic pottery in the Old world included Fustat (from 975 to 1075), Damascus (from 1100 to around 1600) and Tabriz (from 1470 to 1550).[56]

• 
  Hadiqatus-suada by Oghuz Turkic poet Fuzûlî
• 
  The story of Princess Parizade and the Magic Tree.[57]
• 
  Cassim in the Cave by Maxfield Parrish.
• 
  The Magic carpet.

The best known work of fiction from the Islamic world is One Thousand and One Nights (In Persian: hezār-o-yek šab > Arabic: ʔalf-layl-at-wa-l’-layla= One thousand Night and (one) Night) or *Arabian Nights, a name invented by early Western translators, which is a compilation of folk tales from Sanskrit, Persian, and later Arabian fables. The original concept is derived from a pre-Islamic Persian prototype Hezār Afsān (Thousand Fables) that relied on particular Indian elements.[58] It reached its final form by the 14th century; the number and type of tales have varied from one manuscript to another.[59] All Arabian fantasy tales tend to be called Arabian Nights stories when translated into English, regardless of whether they appear in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights or not.[59] This work has been very influential in the West since it was translated in the 18th century, first by Antoine Galland.[60] Imitations were written, especially in France.[61] Various characters from this epic have themselves become cultural icons in Western culture, such as Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba.

A famous example of Arabic poetry and Persian poetry on romance (love) is Layla and Majnun, dating back to the Umayyad era in the 7th century. It is a tragic story of undying love. Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, the national epic of Greater Iran, is a mythical and heroic retelling of Persian history. Amir Arsalan was also a popular mythical Persian story, which has influenced some modern works of fantasy fiction, such as The Heroic Legend of Arslan.

Ibn Tufail (Abubacer) and Ibn al-Nafis were pioneers of the philosophical novel. Ibn Tufail wrote the first Arabic novel Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (Philosophus Autodidactus) as a response to Al-Ghazali's The Incoherence of the Philosophers, and then Ibn al-Nafis also wrote a novel Theologus Autodidactus as a response to Ibn Tufail's Philosophus Autodidactus. Both of these narratives had protagonists (Hayy in Philosophus Autodidactus and Kamil in Theologus Autodidactus) who were autodidactic feral children living in seclusion on a desert island, both being the earliest examples of a desert island story. However, while Hayy lives alone with animals on the desert island for the rest of the story in Philosophus Autodidactus, the story of Kamil extends beyond the desert island setting in Theologus Autodidactus, developing into the earliest known coming of age plot and eventually becoming the first example of a science fiction novel.[62][63]

Theologus Autodidactus,[64][65] written by the Arabian polymath Ibn al-Nafis (1213–1288), is the first example of a science fiction novel.[66] It deals with various science fiction elements such as spontaneous generation, futurology, the end of the world and doomsday, resurrection, and the afterlife. Rather than giving supernatural or mythological explanations for these events, Ibn al-Nafis attempted to explain these plot elements using the scientific knowledge of biology, astronomy, cosmology and geology known in his time. Ibn al-Nafis' fiction explained Islamic religious teachings via science and Islamic philosophy.[67]

A Latin translation of Ibn Tufail's work, Philosophus Autodidactus, first appeared in 1671, prepared by Edward Pococke the Younger, followed by an English translation by Simon Ockley in 1708, as well as German and Dutch translations. These translations might have later inspired Daniel Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe, regarded as the first novel in English.[68][69][70][71] Philosophus Autodidactus, continuing the thoughts of philosophers such as Aristotle from earlier ages, inspired Robert Boyle to write his own philosophical novel set on an island, The Aspiring Naturalist.[72]

Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy,[73] derived features of and episodes about Bolgia[74] from Arabic works on Islamic eschatology:[75][76] the Hadith and the Kitab al-Miraj (translated into Latin in 1264 or shortly before[77] as Liber Scale Machometi[78]) concerning the ascension to Heaven of Muhammad,[79] and the spiritual writings of Ibn Arabi.[80] The Moors also had a noticeable influence on the works of George Peele and William Shakespeare. Some of their works featured Moorish characters, such as Peele's The Battle of Alcazar and Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Titus Andronicus and Othello, which featured a Moorish Othello as its title character. These works are said to have been inspired by several Moorish delegations from Morocco to Elizabethan England at the beginning of the 17th century.[81]

Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Muslim polymath from Al Andalus.

One of the common definitions for "Islamic philosophy" is "the style of philosophy produced within the framework of Islamic culture."[82] Islamic philosophy, in this definition is neither necessarily concerned with religious issues, nor is exclusively produced by Muslims.[82] The Persian scholar Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (980–1037) had more than 450 books attributed to him. His writings were concerned with various subjects, most notably philosophy and medicine. His medical textbook The Canon of Medicine was used as the standard text in European universities for centuries. He also wrote The Book of Healing, an influential scientific and philosophical encyclopedia.

One of the most influential Muslim philosophers in the West was Averroes (Ibn Rushd), founder of the Averroism school of philosophy, whose works and commentaries affected the rise of secular thought in Europe.[83] He also developed the concept of "existence precedes essence".[84]

Another figure from the Islamic Golden Age, Avicenna, also founded his own Avicennism school of philosophy, which was influential in both Islamic and Christian lands. He was also a critic of Aristotelian logic and founder of Avicennian logic, developed the concepts of empiricism and tabula rasa, and distinguished between essence and existence.

Yet another influential philosopher who had an influence on modern philosophy was Ibn Tufail. His philosophical novel, Hayy ibn Yaqdha, translated into Latin as Philosophus Autodidactus in 1671, developed the themes of empiricism, tabula rasa, nature versus nurture,[85] condition of possibility, materialism,[86] and Molyneux's problem.[87] European scholars and writers influenced by this novel include John Locke,[88] Gottfried Leibniz,[71] Melchisédech Thévenot, John Wallis, Christiaan Huygens,[89] George Keith, Robert Barclay, the Quakers,[90] and Samuel Hartlib.[72]

Islamic philosophers continued making advances in philosophy through to the 17th century, when Mulla Sadra founded his school of Transcendent theosophy and developed the concept of existentialism.[91]

Other influential Muslim philosophers include al-Jahiz, a pioneer in evolutionary thought; Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), a pioneer of phenomenology and the philosophy of science and a critic of Aristotelian natural philosophy and Aristotle's concept of place (topos); Al-Biruni, a critic of Aristotelian natural philosophy; Ibn Tufail and Ibn al-Nafis, pioneers of the philosophical novel; Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi, founder of Illuminationist philosophy; Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, a critic of Aristotelian logic and a pioneer of inductive logic; and Ibn Khaldun, a pioneer in the philosophy of history.[92]

Muslim scientists placed far greater emphasis on experiment than the Greeks. This led to an early scientific method being developed in the Muslim world, where progress in methodology was made, beginning with the experiments of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) on optics from circa 1000, in his Book of Optics. The most important development of the scientific method was the use of experiments to distinguish between competing scientific theories set within a generally empirical orientation, which began among Muslim scientists. Ibn al-Haytham is also regarded as the father of optics, especially for his empirical proof of the intromission theory of light. Jim Al-Khalili stated in 2009 that Ibn al-Haytham is 'often referred to as the "world's first true scientist".'[93] al-Khwarzimi's invented the log base systems that are being used today, he also contributed theorems in trigonometry as well as limits.[94] Recent studies show that it is very likely that the Medieval Muslim artists were aware of advanced decagonal quasicrystal geometry (discovered half a millennium later in the 1970s and 1980s in the West) and used it in intricate decorative tilework in the architecture.[95]

Muslim physicians contributed to the field of medicine, including the subjects of anatomy and physiology: such as in the 15th-century Persian work by Mansur ibn Muhammad ibn al-Faqih Ilyas entitled Tashrih al-badan (Anatomy of the body) which contained comprehensive diagrams of the body's structural, nervous and circulatory systems; or in the work of the Egyptian physician Ibn al-Nafis, who proposed the theory of pulmonary circulation. Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine remained an authoritative medical textbook in Europe until the 18th century. Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (also known as Abulcasis) contributed to the discipline of medical surgery with his Kitab al-Tasrif ("Book of Concessions"), a medical encyclopedia which was later translated to Latin and used in European and Muslim medical schools for centuries. Other medical advancements came in the fields of pharmacology and pharmacy.[96]

In astronomy, Muḥammad ibn Jābir al-Ḥarrānī al-Battānī improved the precision of the measurement of the precession of the Earth's axis. The corrections made to the geocentric model by al-Battani, Averroes, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Mu'ayyad al-Din al-'Urdi and Ibn al-Shatir were later incorporated into the Copernican heliocentric model. Heliocentric theories were also discussed by several other Muslim astronomers such as Al-Biruni, Al-Sijzi, Qotb al-Din Shirazi, and Najm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī al-Kātibī. The astrolabe, though originally developed by the Greeks, was perfected by Islamic astronomers and engineers, and was subsequently brought to Europe.

Some most famous scientists from the medieval Islamic world include Jābir ibn Hayyān, al-Farabi, Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, Ibn al-Haytham, Al-Biruni, Avicenna, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, and Ibn Khaldun.

The Spinning wheel is believed to have been invented in the medieval era (of what is now the Greater Middle East), it is considered to be an important device that contributed greatly to the advancement of the Industrial Revolution. (scene from Al-Maqamat, painted by al-Wasiti 1237)

In technology, the Muslim world adopted papermaking from China.[97] The knowledge of gunpowder was also transmitted from China via predominantly Islamic countries,[98] where formulas for pure potassium nitrate[99][100] were developed.

Advances were made in irrigation and farming, using new technology such as the windmill. Crops such as almonds and citrus fruit were brought to Europe through al-Andalus, and sugar cultivation was gradually adopted by the Europeans. Arab merchants dominated trade in the Indian Ocean until the arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th century. Hormuz was an important center for this trade. There was also a dense network of trade routes in the Mediterranean, along which Muslim-majority countries traded with each other and with European powers such as Venice, Genoa and Catalonia. The Silk Road crossing Central Asia passed through Islamic states between China and Europe. The emergence of major economic empires with technological resources after the conquests of Timur (Tamerlane) and the resurgence of the Timurid Renaissance include the Mali Empire and the India's Bengal Sultanate in particular, a major global trading nation in the world, described by the Europeans to be the "richest country to trade with".[101]

Muslim engineers in the Islamic world made a number of innovative industrial uses of hydropower, and early industrial uses of tidal power and wind power,[102] fossil fuels such as petroleum, and early large factory complexes (tiraz in Arabic).[103] The industrial uses of watermills in the Islamic world date back to the 7th century, while horizontal-wheeled and vertical-wheeled water mills were both in widespread use since at least the 9th century. A variety of industrial mills were being employed in the Islamic world, including early fulling mills, gristmills, paper mills, hullers, sawmills, ship mills, stamp mills, steel mills, sugar mills, tide mills and windmills. By the 11th century, every province throughout the Islamic world had these industrial mills in operation, from al-Andalus and North Africa to the Middle East and Central Asia.[97] Muslim engineers also invented crankshafts and water turbines, employed gears in mills and water-raising machines, and pioneered the use of dams as a source of water power, used to provide additional power to watermills and water-raising machines.[104] Such advances made it possible for industrial tasks that were previously driven by manual labour in ancient times to be mechanized and driven by machinery instead in the medieval Islamic world. The transfer of these technologies to medieval Europe had an influence on the Industrial Revolution, particularly from the proto-industrialised Mughal Bengal and Tipu Sultan's Kingdom, through the conquests of the East India Company.[105]

• 
  The city of Baghdad being besieged during the Mongolian invasions.
• 
  Mongol armies capture of the Alamut, Persian miniature.

Scholars often use the term Age of the Islamic Gunpowders to describe period the Safavid, Ottoman and Mughal states. Each of these three empires had considerable military exploits using the newly developed firearms, especially cannon and small arms, to create their empires.[112] They existed primarily between the fourteenth and the late seventeenth centuries.[113] During the 17th–18th centuries, when the Indian subcontinent was ruled by Mughal Empire's sixth ruler Muhammad Auranzgeb through sharia and Islamic economics,[114][115] India became the world's largest economy, valued 25% of world GDP,[116] having better conditions to 18th-century Western Europe, prior to the Industrial Revolution,[117] causing the emergence of the period of proto-industrialization.[117]

• 
  Safavid Empire's Zamburak.
• 
  Bullocks dragging siege-guns up hill during Mughal Emperor Akbar's Siege of Ranthambore Fort in 1568.[118]
• 
  The Mughal Army under the command of Islamist Aurangzeb recaptures Orchha in October 1635.
• 
  Gun-wielding Ottoman Janissaries in combat against the Knights of Saint John at the Siege of Rhodes in 1522.
• 
  Cannons and guns belonging to the Aceh Sultanate (in modern Indonesia).

The Great Divergence was the reason why European colonial powers militarily defeated preexisting Oriental powers like the Mughal Empire, starting from the wealthy Bengal Subah, Tipu Sultan's Kingdom of Mysore, the Ottoman Empire and many smaller states in the pre-modern Greater Middle East, and initiated a period known as 'colonialism'.[119]

• 
  Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II negotiates with the East India Company after being defeated during the Battle of Buxar.
• 
  East India Company's Robert Clive meeting the Nawabs of Bengal before the Battle of Plassey.
• 
  Siege of Ochakov (1788), an armed conflict between the Ottomans and the Russian Tsardom.
• 
  Combat during the Russo-Persian Wars.
• 
  French campaign in Egypt and Syria against the Mamluks and Ottomans.

Map of colonial powers throughout the world in the year 1914 (note colonial powers in the pre-modern Muslim world).

Beginning with the 15th century, colonialism by European powers profoundly affected Muslim-majority societies in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Colonialism was often advanced by conflict with mercantile initiatives by colonial powers and caused tremendous social upheavals in Muslim-dominated societies.[120]

A number of Muslim-majority societies reacted to Western powers with zealotry and thus initiating the rise of Pan-Islamism; or affirmed more traditionalist and inclusive cultural ideals; and in rare cases adopted modernity that was ushered by the colonial powers.[121][120]

The only Muslim-majority regions not to be colonized by the Europeans were Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and Afghanistan. Turkey was one of the first colonial powers of the world with the Ottoman empire ruling several states for over 6 centuries.

• 
  The French conquest of Algeria, from 1830 to 1903
• 
  The Hispano-Moroccan War between Spain and Morocco, from 1859 to 1860
• 
  The Italo-Turkish War between Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 1911 to 1912
• 
  The Christian reconquest of Buda, Ottoman Hungary, 1686, painted by Frans Geffels
• 
  French conquest of Algeria (1830–1857)
• 
  Anglo-Egyptian invasion of Sudan 1896–1899
• 
  The Melilla War between Spain and Rif Berbers of Morocco in 1909

In the 20th century, the end of the European colonial domination has led to creation of a number of nation states with significant Muslim populations. These states drew on Islamic traditions to varying degree and in various ways in organizing their legal, educational and economic systems.[120] The Times first documented the term "Muslim world" in 1912 when describing Pan-Islamism as a movement with power importance and cohesion born in Paris where Turks, Arabs and Persians congregated. The article considered The position of the Amir; the effect of the Tripoli Campaign; Anglo-Russian action in Persia; and "Afghan Ambitions".[42]

A significant change in the Muslim world was the defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908–1922), to which the Ottoman officer and Turkish revolutionary statesman Mustafa Kemal Atatürk had an instrumental role in ending and replacing it with the Republic of Turkey, a modern, secular democracy[122] (see Abolition of the Ottoman sultanate).[122] The secular values of Kemalist Turkey, which separated religion from the state with the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924,[122] have sometimes been seen as the result of Western influence.

In the 21st century, after the September 11 attacks (2001) coordinated by the Wahhabi Islamist[123] terrorist group[124] Al-Qaeda[124][125][126][127] against the United States, scholars considered the ramifications of seeking to understand Muslim experience through the framework of secular Enlightenment principles. Muhammad Atta, one of the 11 September hijackers, reportedly quoted from the Quran to allay his fears: "Fight them, and God will chastise them at your hands/And degrade them, and He will help you/Against them, and bring healing to the breasts of a people who believe", referring to the ummah, the community of Muslim believers, and invoking the imagery of the early warriors of Islam who lead the faithful from the darkness of jahiliyyah.[128]

By Sayyid Qutb's definition of Islam, the faith is "a complete divorce from jahiliyyah". He complained that American churches served as centers of community social life that were "very hard [to] distinguish from places of fun and amusement". For Qutb, Western society was the modern jahliliyyah. His understanding of the "Muslim world" and its "social order" was that, presented to the Western world as the result of practicing Islamic teachings, would impress "by the beauty and charm of true Islamic ideology". He argued that the values of the Enlightenment and its related precursor, the Scientific Revolution, "denies or suspends God's sovereignty on earth" and argued that strengthening "Islamic character" was needed "to abolish the negative influences of jahili life."[128]

Islamic states have adopted Islam as the ideological foundation of state and constitution.

The following Muslim-majority nation-states have endorsed Islam as their state religion, and though they may guarantee freedom of religion for citizens, do not declare a separation of state and religion:

Secular states in the Muslim world have declared separation between civil/government affairs and religion.

Use of Sharia by country:

  Sharia plays no role in the judicial system

  Sharia applies in personal status issues only

  Sharia applies in full, including criminal law

  Regional variations in the application of sharia

In some states, Muslim ethnic groups enjoy considerable autonomy.

In some places, Muslims implement Islamic law, called sharia in Arabic. The Islamic law exists in a number of variations, called schools of jurisprudence. The Amman Message, which was endorsed in 2005 by prominent Islamic scholars around the world, recognized four Sunni schools (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali), two Shia schools (Ja'fari, Zaidi), the Ibadi school, and the Zahiri school.[193]

• Hanafi school in Pakistan, North India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, other Balkan States, Lower Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Russia, Caucasus Republics, China, and Central Asian Republics.
• Maliki in North Africa, West Africa, Sahel, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait.
• Shafi'i in Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Eritrea, Somalia, Yemen, Maldives, Sri Lanka, and South India.
• Hanbali in Saudi Arabia.
• Jaferi in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain and Azerbaijan. These four are the only "Muslim states" in which the majority is Shia. In Yemen, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey, and Syria are countries with Sunni majorities. In Lebanon, the majority Muslims (54%) were about equally divided between Sunni and Shia in 2010.
• Ibadi in Oman and small regions in North Africa.

In a number of Muslim-majority countries, the law requires women to cover either their legs, shoulders and head, or the whole body apart from the face. In strictest forms, the face as well must be covered leaving just a mesh to see through. These hijab rules for dressing cause tensions, concerning particularly Muslims living in Western countries, where restrictions are considered both sexist and oppressive. Some Muslims oppose this charge, and instead declare that the media in these countries presses on women to reveal too much to be deemed attractive, and that this is itself sexist and oppressive.

Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan became the first woman elected to lead a Muslim-majority country.[194]

During much of the 20th century, the Islamic identity and the dominance of Islam on political issues have arguably increased during the early 21st century. The fast-growing interests of the Western world in Islamic regions, international conflicts and globalization have changed the influence of Islam on the world in contemporary history.[195]

The two main denominations of Islam are the Sunni and Shia sects. They differ primarily upon of how the life of the ummah ("faithful") should be governed, and the role of the imam. Sunnis believe that the true political successor of Muhammad according to the Sunnah should be selected based on ٍShura (consultation), as was done at the Saqifah which selected Abu Bakr, Muhammad's father-in-law, to be Muhammad's political but not his religious successor. Shia, on the other hand, believe that Muhammad designated his son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib as his true political as well as religious successor.[222]

The overwhelming majority of Muslims in the world, between 87 and 90%, are Sunni.[223]

Shias and other groups make up the rest, about 10–13% of overall Muslim population. The countries with the highest concentration of Shia populations are: Iran – 89%,[224] Azerbaijan – 65%,[225] Iraq – 60%,[226] Bahrain – 60%, Yemen – 35%,[227] Turkey – 10%,[228][229] Lebanon – 27%, Syria – 13%, Afghanistan – 10%, Pakistan – 10%,[230][231][232][233][234][235][236][237][238] and India – 10%.[239]

The Kharijite Muslims, who are less known, have their own stronghold in the country of Oman holding about 75% of the population.[240]

• 
  Turkish Muslims at the Eyüp Sultan Mosque on Eid al-Adha
• 
  Shi'a Muslims in Iran commemorate Ashura
• 
  Friday prayer for Sunni Muslims in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Islamic schools of law across the Muslim world

The first centuries of Islam gave rise to three major sects: Sunnis, Shi'as and Kharijites. Each sect developed distinct jurisprudence schools (madhhab) reflecting different methodologies of jurisprudence (fiqh).

The major Sunni madhhabs are Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali.[241]

The major Shi'a branches are Twelver (Imami), Ismaili (Sevener) and Zaidi (Fiver). Isma'ilism later split into Nizari Ismaili and Musta’li Ismaili, and then Mustaali was divided into Hafizi and Taiyabi Ismailis.[242] It also gave rise to the Qarmatian movement and the Druze faith. Twelver Shiism developed Ja'fari jurisprudence whose branches are Akhbarism and Usulism, and other movements such as Alawites, Shaykism[243] and Alevism.[244][245]

Similarly, Kharijites were initially divided into five major branches: Sufris, Azariqa, Najdat, Adjarites and Ibadis.

Among these numerous branches, only Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali, Imamiyyah-Ja'fari-Usuli, Nizārī Ismā'īlī, Alevi,[246] Zaydi, Ibadi, Zahiri, Alawite,[247] Druze and Taiyabi communities have survived. In addition, new schools of thought and movements like Quranist Muslims and Ahmadi Muslims later emerged independently.

• 
  A Sufi dervish drums up the Friday afternoon crowd in Omdurman, Sudan
• 
  Druze dignitaries celebrating the Nabi Shu'ayb festival at the tomb of the prophet in Hittin
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  Ibadis living in the M'zab valley in Algerian Sahara
• 
  Zaydi Imams ruled in Yemen until 1962
• 
  Most of the inhabitants of the Hunza Valley in Pakistan are Ismaili Muslims

The literacy rate in the Muslim world varies. Azerbaijan is in second place in the Index of Literacy of World Countries. Some members such as Iran, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan have over 97% literacy rates, whereas literacy rates are the lowest in Mali, Afghanistan, Chad and parts of Africa. Several Muslim-majority countries, such as Turkey, Iran and Egypt have a high rate of citable scientific publications.[248][249]

In 2015, the International Islamic News Agency reported that nearly 37% of the population of the Muslim world is unable to read or write, basing that figure on reports from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.[250] In Egypt, the largest Muslim-majority Arab country, the youth female literacy rate exceeds that for males.[251] Lower literacy rates are more prevalent in South Asian countries such as in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but are rapidly increasing.[252] In the Eastern Middle East, Iran has a high level of youth literacy at 98%,[253] but Iraq's youth literacy rate has sharply declined from 85% to 57% during the American-led war and subsequent occupation.[254] Indonesia, the largest Muslim-majority country in the world, has a 99% youth literacy rate.[255]

A 2011 Pew Research Center showed that at the time about 36% of all Muslims had no formal schooling, with only 8% having graduate and post-graduate degrees.[256] The highest of years of schooling among Muslim-majority countries found in Uzbekistan (11.5), Kuwait (11.0) and Kazakhstan (10.7).[256] In addition, the average of years of schooling in countries in which Muslims are the majority is 6.0 years of schooling, which lag behind the global average (7.7 years of schooling).[256] In the youngest age (25–34) group surveyed, Young Muslims have the lowest average levels of education of any major religious group, with an average of 6.7 years of schooling, which lag behind the global average (8.6 years of schooling).[256] The study found that Muslims have a significant amount of gender inequality in educational attainment, since Muslim women have an average of 4.9 years of schooling, compared to an average of 6.4 years of schooling among Muslim men.[256]

• 
  Young school girls in Paktia Province of Afghanistan.
• 
  A primary classroom in Niger.
• 
  Schoolgirls in Gaza lining up for class, 2009.
• 
  Medical students of anatomy, before an exam in moulage, Iran

Muslim Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.

According to the UNHCR, Muslim-majority countries hosted 18 million refugees by the end of 2010.

Since then Muslim-majority countries have absorbed refugees from recent conflicts, including the uprising in Syria.[257] In July 2013, the UN stated that the number of Syrian refugees had exceeded 1.8 million.[258] In Asia, an estimated 625,000 refugees from Rakhine, Myanmar, mostly Muslim, had crossed the border into Bangladesh since August 2017.[259]

The term "Islamic art and architecture" denotes the works of art and architecture produced from the 7th century onwards by people who lived within the territory that was inhabited by culturally Islamic populations.[261][262]

No Islamic visual images or depictions of God are meant to exist because it is believed that such artistic depictions may lead to idolatry. Muslims describe God by the names and attributes that, according to Islam, he revealed to his creation. All but one sura of the Quran begins with the phrase "In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful". Images of Mohammed are likewise prohibited. Such aniconism and iconoclasm[271] can also be found in Jewish and some Christian theology.

Islamic art frequently adopts the use of geometrical floral or vegetal designs in a repetition known as arabesque. Such designs are highly nonrepresentational, as Islam forbids representational depictions as found in pre-Islamic pagan religions. Despite this, there is a presence of depictional art in some Muslim societies, notably the miniature style made famous in Persia and under the Ottoman Empire which featured paintings of people and animals, and also depictions of Quranic stories and Islamic traditional narratives. Another reason why Islamic art is usually abstract is to symbolize the transcendence, indivisible and infinite nature of God, an objective achieved by arabesque.[272] Islamic calligraphy is an omnipresent decoration in Islamic art, and is usually expressed in the form of Quranic verses. Two of the main scripts involved are the symbolic kufic and naskh scripts, which can be found adorning the walls and domes of mosques, the sides of minbars, and so on.[272]

Distinguishing motifs of Islamic architecture have always been ordered repetition, radiating structures, and rhythmic, metric patterns. In this respect, fractal geometry has been a key utility, especially for mosques and palaces. Other features employed as motifs include columns, piers and arches, organized and interwoven with alternating sequences of niches and colonnettes.[273] The role of domes in Islamic architecture has been considerable. Its usage spans centuries, first appearing in 691 with the construction of the Dome of the Rock mosque, and recurring even up until the 17th century with the Taj Mahal. And as late as the 19th century, Islamic domes had been incorporated into European architecture.[274]

• 
  Example of an Arabesque
• 
  Example of an Arabesque
• 
  Example of an Arabesque

• 
  Girih tiles
• 
  The subdivision rule used to generate the Girih pattern on the spandrel.
• 
  Girih pattern that can be drawn with compass and straight edge.

• 
  Kufic script from an early Qur'an manuscript, 7th century. (Surah 7: 86–87)
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  Bismallah calligraphy.
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  Islamic calligraphy represented for amulet of sailors in the Ottoman Empire.
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  Islamic calligraphy praising Ali.
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  Modern Islamic calligraphy representing various planets.

Two calendars are used all over the Muslim world. One is a lunar calendar that is most widely used among Muslims. The other one is a solar calendar officially used in Iran and Afghanistan.

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