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Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion teaching that there is only one God and that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. It is the world's second-largest religion , with over 2 billion followers ( Muslims ) comprising nearly a quarter of the world's population.
A religious symbol is an iconic representation intended to represent a specific religion, or a specific concept within a given religion. [ 1 ] Religious symbols have been used in the military in many countries, such as the United States military chaplain symbols .
Islamic ornament is the use of decorative forms and patterns in Islamic art and Islamic architecture. Its elements can be broadly divided into the arabesque , using curving plant-based elements, geometric patterns with straight lines or regular curves, and calligraphy , consisting of religious texts with stylized appearance, used both ...
While the word religion is difficult to define, one standard model of religion used in religious studies courses defines it as [a] system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations ...
[7] [8] In Islamic culture, the patterns are believed to be the bridge to the spiritual realm, the instrument to purify the mind and the soul. [9] David Wade [b] states that "Much of the art of Islam, whether in architecture, ceramics, textiles or books, is the art of decoration – which is to say, of transformation."
Islam [a] is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centered on the Quran and the teachings of Muhammad, [9] the religion's founder. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims , who are estimated to number 1.9 billion worldwide and are the world's second-largest religious population after Christians .
Separating concepts in Islam from concepts specific to Arab culture, or from the language itself, can be difficult. Many Arabic concepts have an Arabic secular meaning as well as an Islamic meaning. One example is the concept of dawah. Arabic, like all languages, contains words whose meanings differ across various contexts.
Certain symbols are represented in a mosque's architecture to allude to different aspects of the Islamic religion. One of these feature symbols is the spiral. The "cosmic spiral" found in designs and on minarets is a references to heaven as it has "no beginning and no end". [ 106 ]