[From Arabic islam: submission.]
(religion) A unified religious-political doctrine that advocates a strict monotheism, where the only recognized authority regarding the word of the one God was the Arabian prophet and warrior Mohammed (570-632) as laid down in the Koran. In metaphysics and ethics, it is a form of fatalism since it insists upon absolute submission to the arbitrary will of Allah; in ethics and politics, it is a form of authoritarianism since it insists upon absolute submission to the edicts of Mohammed and his successors or earthly representatives. The content of Islam is actively and often violently opposed to rationalism, liberalism, capitalism, feminism, atheism, and all competing religions (from animism to Zoroastrianism).