Religious Movement

Arabia lie between several cultures who had rejected the idol worship of their ancestors. The Jews and Christians both worshiped a single God. Many of the nations surrounding Arabia practiced one of these two faiths.

Arab teachers called hanifs began searching for a new monotheistic faith. Monotheistic means that they worship only one god, instead of many idols. These hanifs rejected both Judaism as well as Christianity, and instead formed their own monotheistic faith which they called Islam. Islam means ‘submission to the will of Allah’. Allah is the name of the god that followers of Islam worship.