Test your Islamic IQ

Everyone loves a little trivia. How do you think you would fare on the topic of Islam? Let’s see how well you do on the following questions. The answers are below.

1. True or false: Allah is the “Muslim God.”
2. Do Muslims believe in Jesus the Christ?
3. What treaty did Prophet Muhammed sign with Christians?
4. Who is the most honored and revered woman in Islam?
5. Name five Muslims ever to play in the National Basketball Association.
6. List five Islamic contributions to math and science.
7. What percentage of enslaved Africans were Muslim?
8. Who led the largest conversion of Americans to “Sunni” Islam?
9. Did the Hon. Elijah Muhammad ever win a Supreme Court ruling?
10. True or false: The crescent moon is an Islamic religious symbol.

1. Allah is the Arabic name for God. There are many Arabic-speaking Christians around the world who daily refer to God as Allah. Christ Jesus spoke Aramaic, and he called God by the name “Elah” or “Eli,” which means “my God.”
2. Yes. Holy Quran, chapter 3:45, “Behold! the angels said: ‘O Mary! Allah giveth thee glad tidings of a Word from Him: his name will be Christ Jesus, the son of Mary…’”
3. The Treaty of Najran (circa 629 A.D.), which guaranteed Christians freedom and protection forever
4. Mary, the virgin mother of Christ Jesus
5. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Tariq Abdul-Wahad, Hakeem Olajuwon, Dion Waiters, Jamaal Wilkes, Shaquille O’Neal
6. Muslim mathematician Al-Khawarizmi invented algebra (al-Jabr); the Arabic-Hindu numerals 0­–9 that we use daily in America; Muslim mathematicians developed and applied the theory of trigonometric functions as well as spherical trigonometry. In science, Muslims were great astronomers who compiled almanacs and created the terms zenith, nadir and azimuth.
7. Historians estimate that between 15 and 30 percent of all enslaved African men and less than 15 percent of the enslaved African women were Muslims. Renowned African-American historian John Hope Franklin wrote in his book From Slavery to Freedom that the area in Africa where the majority of America’s slaves came from had an Islamic presence as early as the 7th century, almost 900 years before Christianity. By the 10th century, Islam had become entrenched in West Africa.
8. Imam W. Deen Mohammed, the son of the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, led hundreds of thousands of Americans to proper Islam. Wikipedia reports: W. D. Mohammed introduced (to the Nation of Islam) teachings which were based on orthodox Sunni Islam. He removed the chairs in the organization’s temples and replaced the entire “temple” concept with the traditional Muslim house of worship, the mosque, also teaching how to pray the salat, to observe the fasting of Ramadan and to attend the pilgrimage to Mecca.
9. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Cooper v. Pate, 378 U.S. 546 (1964), reversed a lower court’s ruling that denied Illinois State Penitentiary inmates, who were members of the Nation of Islam, the right to practice their faith or to receive Islamic periodicals. As a result, the doors for prison reform for all inmates of every faith, nationwide, were sprung wide open, which soon led to inmates’ civil rights reforms.
10. No! The Holy Qur’an says, “Seest thou not that to Allah bow down in worship all things that are in the heavens and on earth,- the sun, the moon, the stars; the hills, the trees, the animals; and a great number among mankind…”

Michael Saahir is the imam at Nur-Allah Islamic Center. He can be reached at nur-allah@att.net.