An American, a Muslim, a teen

During the holy month of Ramadan (RAHM-uh-dahn), though, she and several other Muslim students will pray together in a room at school. Observing Ramadan is another pillar of Islam. During Ramadan, devout Muslims do not eat or drink from dawn to sunset. Muslims think of the fast as a tuneup for their spiritual lives and a time to grow stronger by improving their self-discipline. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim lunar calendar. This year, it's from Nov. 16 to Dec. 14.

The other pillars of Islam are giving to charity; visiting Mecca at least once, if possible; and professing that "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet."

Feda also attends Sunday school and often reads from the Koran with her mom, Hend. Like other girls her age, Feda has hobbies - basketball and drawing. She wants to be a pediatrician when she grows up.

Feda especially liked hearing something that President Bush said to the nation on TV recently: "The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam," he said. "Islam is peace."

Today, Islam is practiced throughout the world by an estimated 1.2 billion believers, called Muslims. Only Christianity has more followers - about 2 billion in all. The countries with the largest Muslim populations are Indonesia and Pakistan. In the United States, there are about 5 million Muslims and some 190 million Christians.

Only about 1 in 5 Muslims in the world is an Arab. But the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca is dear to all Muslims. It was there that, in AD 610, a 40-year-old merchant named Muhammad said he had received messages from God. After his death in 632, Muhammad's messages were put together in a book called the Koran. The Koran is Islam's holy book.

Muslims believe that God has spoken to other prophets, including the Jewish prophets of the Old Testament. Jesus of Nazareth is also considered a prophet in Islam, but Muslims believe that Muhammad completed God's message to humanity.

Muslims believe that they are descended from Ishmael, the son of the Bible's Abraham and his second wife, Hagar. Jews and Christians, they say, descended from Isaac, the son of Abraham and his first wife, Sarah. (The story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar is found in Genesis. See chapters 15, 16, and 21.)

In Muhammad's time, the city of Mecca was known for worshiping more than one God. When Muhammad began to preach the idea that there was only one God, he angered a lot of people. So in 622, Muhammad and a small group of followers fled to nearby Medina. This event, the Hegira, marks the first year of the Islamic calendar.

When Muhammad died in 632, Islam had spread throughout the Arabian Peninsula. By the 900s, through military conquests and voluntary conversions, Islam stretched from Spain to India.

Today, Muslims strive to follow the teachings of the Koran. But Muslims have differing views about what the Koran's teachings mean, just as Christians differ about the Bible, and Jews about the Torah.

Osama bin Laden is a Saudi Arabian now in Afghanistan who allegedly was behind the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11. Mr. bin Laden justifies such actions based on his interpretation of the Koran and other Islamic writings. Mainstream Muslims reject such views as extreme, even un-Islamic.

Allah - the Arabic word for God. Muslims believe in one supreme God.

Imam - (ee-MAM) the prayer leader at a mosque; a Muslim clergyman.

Islam - the religion's name. In Arabic, it means "submission to the will of God."

Kaaba - (KAH-bah) the holy shrine in Mecca. Five times a day, Muslims turn toward Mecca and the Kaaba to pray.

Mecca - the city in present-day Saudi Arabia where Muhammad was born about AD 570.

Mosque - Muslims' place of worship.

Muhammad - the Arab prophet who founded Islam.

Muslim - a follower of Islam; literally, 'one who submits.'

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